THE
COENHILL MAGAZINE
NEW SERIES, VOL. XXI.
THE
CORNHILL
MAGAZINE
(Q 6
i
NEW SERIES
VOL. XXI.
tu>
JULY TO DECEMBER 1893
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1893
Ifp
4
CH
Tlic right of publishing Translations of Articles in this Magazine is reserved
CONTENTS
OF VOL. XXI.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
PAGE
Chapter I, Two Generations . . . . « , .1
„ II. Over the Old Ground 6
„ III. A Farewell . . . . . . . .13
„ IV. A Tragedy . : . . . 19
„ V. With Edged Tools . . . , •. . . .113
„ VI. Under the Line . . . • .../^' . . . , 118
„ VII. A Secret of the Simiacine . '? . . . .123
„ VIII. A Recruit . . . 129
„ IX. To pass the Time 225
„ X. Loango 231
„ XI. A Compact 237
„ XII. A Meeting 243
„ XIII. In Black and White 337
„ XIV. Panic-stricken . . . . . . . . 343
„ XV. A Confidence 349
„ XVI. War 355
„ XVII. Underhand 449
„ XVIII. A Request . . . . . ' . . . . 454
„ XIX. Ivory 460
„ XX. Brought to the Scratch 467
„ XXI. The First Consignment 561
„ XXII. The Second Consignment . ' 568
„ XXIII. Mercury 573
„ XXIV. Nemesis 579
AMERICAN LOCK-UP, Ax 290
BAD PENKT, THE 389
BALLIOL, MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF 586
vi CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXI.
I' ARE
BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL, THE. . . 374
BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT, THE 42
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE 413
CARETAKER, THE 507
CEYLON, JANUARY DAYS IN 528, 600
CHARACTER NOTE : THE BAD PENNY 389
„ „ THE CARETAKER 507
,, „ INTELLECTA . . . . 312
„ „ THE OLD SCHOOL 637
„ „ THE SOLDIER-SERVANT 146
„ „ THE SPINSTFR 79
DROUGHT, THE BREAKING OF IHE 42
DUNMOW, HAPPY PAIRS AT 405
EARLY MEETING-HOUSES, SOME 152
EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT, AN 514
FIRST ENGINEER, THE 259
FLESH, A THORN IN THE 623
FLORIDA GIRL, A 162
FRAGMENT, AN EGYPTIAN 514
GIRL, A FLORIDA 162
GREEN TURBAN, THE MAN IN THE 269
GUEST, THB SURGEON'S 431,544
GUESTWICK HALL, THE BLIGHT ON 374
HAPPY PAIRS AT TUNMOW 405
HEAT, IN SUMMER 499
CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXI. vii
IK A STOCKHOLM PENSION ,
< s o v • i • \ ! I
IN SUMMER HEAT >t . * V »• ..... 499
INDIA, THIS SUBALTERN IN, A HUNDRED YEARS AGO ..... 474
INSTINCT, WHAT MEN CALL ......... 396
INTELLECTA ............ , 312
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON .. v ..... 528, 600
LIFE (CAMP) IN CASHMERE . . , ........ « . . 413
LOCK-UP, AN. AMERICAN . , . . . . ...... 290
LOUGH RUN, THE WHEEL OF THE ........ 483
MACDONALD'S RETURN . . . . ..... 71
MAN (THE) IN THE GREEN TURBAN ........ 269
MASTER OF BALLIOL, MEMORIES OF THE ....... 586
MATCHES, TOTTRNAMENTS AND . . . . . . . . . 84
MEETING-HOUSES, SOME EARLY ........ 152
MEMORIES op THE MASTER OF BALLIOL ....... 586
MODEST SCORPION, THE .......... 643
MOTTOES, TEXTS AND ........ . . . 52
MY NURSERY REVISITED .......... 299
NEW RIVER, A . . .......... 249
NIGHT LIFE .......... • 136
NILE NOTES ...... , ..... 25
NOVEMBER ........... . 506
NURSERY (MY) REVISITED .......... 299
OLD SCHOOL, THE ........... 637
PENNY, THE BAD ............ 389
PENSION, IN A STOCKHOLM ......... 362
PORTUGUESE SKETCHES, SOME ......... 196
viii CONTENTS OF VOLUME XXI.
PAGE
RETURN, MACDONALD'S » . . . • » • • . • 71
RIVER, A NEW 249
SCHOOL, THE OLD . . , . • . . . . . . 637
SCORPION, THE MODEST , . . 643
SOLDIER-SERVANT, THE . . . . 146
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES . . • . , « . . 152
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES 196
SPINSTER, THE 79
STOCKHOLM PENSION, IN A . . . 362
SUBALTERN (THE) IN INDIA A HUNDRED YEARS AGO .... 474
SUMMER HEAT, IN ........... 499
SURGEON'S GUEST, THE ......... 431, 544
TALE, A WIDOW'S , 92, 207, 318
TEXTS AND MOTTOES 52
THORN (A) IN THE FLESH t 623
TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES 84
TURBAN, THE MAN IN THE GREEN 269
TWILIGHT 622
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT , 396
WHEEL (THE) OP THE LOUGH RUN 483
WIDOW'S TALE, A ...... < . . 92, 207, 318
THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
JULY 1893.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER I.
TWO GENERATIONS.
Why all delights are vain, but that most vain
Which with pain purchased doth inherit pain.
' MY dear — Madam — what you call heart does not come into the
question at all.'
Sir John Meredith was sitting slightly behind Lady Can-
tourne, leaning towards her with a somewhat stiffened replica of
his former grace. But he was not looking at her — and she knew it.
They were both watching a group at the other side of the great
ballroom.
' Sir John Meredith on H"eart,' said the old lady, with a depth
of significance in her voice.
' And why not ? '
' Yes, indeed. Why not ? '
Sir John smiled with that well-bred cynicism which a new
school has not yet succeeded in imitating. They both belonged
to the old school, these two; and their worldliness, their cynicism,
their conversational attitude belonged to a bygone period. It
was a cleaner period in some ways — a period devoid of slums.
Ours, on the contrary, is an age of slums wherein we all dabble to
the detriment of our hands — mental, literary, and theological.
Sir John moved slightly in his chair, leaning one hand on one
knee. His back was very flat, his clothes were perfect, his hair
was not his own, nor yet his teeth. But his manners were entirely
his own. His face was eighty years old, and yet he smiled his
VOL. XXI. — NO. 121, N.S. 1
2 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
keen society smile with the best of them. There was not a young
man in the room of whom he was afraid, conversationally.
' Xo, Lady Cantourne,' he repeated. ' Your charming niece is
heartless. She will get on.'
Lady Cantourne smiled and drew the glove further up her stout
and motherly right arm.
• She will get on,' she admitted. ' As to the other, it is early
to give an opinion.'
' She has had the best of trainings ,' he murmured. And
Lady Cantourne turned on him with a twinkle amidst the
wrinkles.
' For which ? ' she asked.
' Choisissez I ' he answered with a bow.
One sees a veteran swordsman take up the foil with a tentative
turn of the wrist, lunging at thin air. His zest for the game has
gone ; but the skill lingers, and at times he is tempted to show the
younger blades a pass or two. These were veteran fencers with a
skill of their own which they loved to display at times. The zest
was that of remembrance ; the sword-play of words was above the
head of a younger generation given to slang and music-hall airs ;
and so these two had little bouts for their own edification, and
enjoyed the glitter of it vastly.
Sir John's face relaxed into the only repose he ever allowed it ;
for he had a habit of twitching and moving his lips such as some
old men have. And occasionally, in an access of further senility,
he fumbled with his fingers at his mouth. He was clean shaven,
and even in his old age he was handsome beyond other men —
standing an upright six feet two.
The object of his attention was the belle of that ball, Miss
Alillicent Chyne, who was hemmed into a corner by a group of
eager dancers anxious to insert their names in some corner of her
card. She was the fashion at that time. And she probably did
not know that at least half of the men crowded round because the
other half were there. Nothing succeeds like the success that
knows how to draw a crowd.
She received the ovation self-possessedly enough, but without
that hauteur affected by belles of balls — in books. She seemed to
have a fresh smile for each new applicant — a smile which conveyed
to each in turn the fact that she had been attempting all along to
get her programme safely into his hands. A halting masculine
pen will not be expected to explain how she compassed this, be-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 3
yond a gentle intimation that masculine vanity had a good deal
to do with her success.
' She is having an excellent time,' said Sir John, weighing on
the modern phrase with a subtle sarcasm. He was-addicted to the
use of modern phraseology, spiced with a cynicism of his own.
' Yes, I cannot help sympathising with her — a little,' answered
the lady.
' Nor I. It will not last.'
' "Well, she is only gathering the rosebuds.'
' Wisely so, your ladyship. They at least look as if they were
going to last. The full-blown roses do not.'
Lady Cantourne gave a little sigh. This was the difference
between them. She could not watch without an occasional thought
for a time that was no more. The man seemed to be content that
the past had been lived through and would never renew itself.
' After all,' she said, ' she is my sister's child. The sympathy
may only be a matter of blood. Perhaps I was like that myself
once. Was I ? You can tell me.'
She looked slowly round the room and his face hardened. He
knew that she was reflecting that there was no one else who could
tell her ; and he did not like it.
' No,' he answered readily.
' And what was the difference ? '
She looked straight in front of her with a strange old-
fashioned demureness.
' Their name is legion, for they are many.'
' Name a few. Was I as good-looking as that, for instance ? '
He smiled — a wise, old, woman-searching smile.
' You were better-looking than that,' he 'said, with a glance
beneath his lashless lids. ' Moreover, there was more of the
grand lady about you. You behaved better. There was less
shaking hands with your partners, less nodding and becking, and
none of that modern forwardness which is called, I believe,
camaradei*ie.'
' Thank you, Sir John,' she answered, looking at him frankly
with a pleasant smile. ' But it is probable that we had the faults
of our age.'
He fumbled at his lips, having reasons of his own for disliking
too close a scrutiny of his face.
' That is more than probable,' he answered, rather indistinctly.
' Then,' she said, tapping the back of his gloved hand with
1—2
4 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
her fan, ' wo ought to be merciful to the faults of a succeeding
generation. Tell me who is that young man with the long stride
who is getting himself introduced now.'
' That,' answered Sir John, who prided himself upon knowing
everyone — knowing who they were and who they were not — 'is
young Oscard.'
' Son of the eccentric Oscard ? '
' Son of the eccentric Oscard.'
' And where did he get that brown face ? '
' He got that in Africa, where he has been shooting. He forms
part of someone else's bag at the present moment.'
' What do you mean ? '
'He has been apportioned a dance. Your fair niece has
bagged him.'
If he had only known it, Guy Oscard won the privilege of a
waltz by the same brown face which Lady Cantourne had so
promptly noted. Coupled with a sturdy uprightness of carriage,
this raised him at a bound above the pallid habitues of ballroom
and pavement. It was, perhaps, only natural that Millicent
Chyne should have noted this man as soon as he crossed the
threshold. He was as remarkable as some free and dignified
denizen of the forest in the midst of domestic animals. She
mentally put him down for a waltz, and before five minutes had
elapsed he was bowing before her while a mutual friend murmured
his name. One does not know how young ladies manage these
little affairs, but the fact remains that they are managed. More-
over, it is a singular thing that the young persons who succeed in
the ballroom rarely succeed on the larger and rougher floor of
life. Your belle of the ball, like your Senior Wrangler, never
seems to do much afterwards — and Afterwards is Life.
The other young men rather fell back before Guy Oscard —
scared, perhaps, by his long stride, and afraid that he might crush
their puny toes. This enabled Miss Chyne to give him the very
next dance, of which the music was commencing.
' 1 feel rather out of all this,' said Oscard as they moved away
together. ' You must excuse uncouthness.'
' I see no signs of it,' laughed Millicent. ' You are behaving
very nicely. You cannot help being larger and stronger than —
the others. I should say it was an advantage and something to
be proud of.'
1 Oh, it is not that,' replied Oscard ; ' it is a feeling of un-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 5
kemptness and want of smartness among these men who look
so clean and correct. Shall we dance ? '
He looked down at her with an admiration which almost
amounted to awe, as if afraid of entering the throng with such
a dainty and wonderful1 charge upon his powers of steering.
Millicent Chyne saw the glance and liked it. It was different
from the others, quite devoid of criticism, rather simple and full
of honest admiration. She was so beautiful that she could hardly
be expected to be unaware of the fact. She had merely to make
comparisons, to look in the mirror and see that her hair was fairer
and softer, that her complexion was more delicately perfect, that
her slight, rounded figure was more graceful than any around her.
Added to this she knew that she had more to say than other girls — a
larger stock of those little frivolous, advice-seeking, aid-demanding
nothings than her compeers seemed to possess.
She knew that in saying them she could look brighter and
prettier and more intelligent than her competitors.
' Yes,' she said, ' let us dance by all means.'
Here also she knew her own proficiency, and in a few seconds
she found that her partner was worthy of her skill.
' Where have you been ? ' she asked presently. ' I am sure
you have been away somewhere, exploring or something.'
' I have only been in Africa, shooting.'
' Oh, how interesting ! You must tell me all about it ! '
' I am afraid,' replied Guy Oscard, with a somewhat shy laugh,
' that that would not be interesting. Besides, I could not tell you
now.'
' No, but some other time. I suppose you are not going back
to Africa to-morrow, Mr. Oscard ? '
' Not quite. And perhaps we may meet somewhere else.'
' I hope so,' replied Miss Chyne. ' Besides, you know my
aunt, Lady Cantourne. I live with her, you know.'
' I know her slightly.'
' Then take an opportunity of improving the acquaintanceship.
She is sitting under the ragged banner over there.'
Millicent Chyne indicated the direction with a nod of the
head, and while he looked she took the opportunity of glancing
hastily round the room. She was seeking someone.
' Yes,' said Oscard, ' I see her, talking to an old gentleman
who looks like Voltaire. I shall give her a chance of recognising
me before the evening is out. I don't mind being snubbed if -'
6 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
He paused and steered neatly through a narrow place.
' If what?' she asked, when they were in swing again.
' If it means seeing you again,' he answered bluntly — more
bluntly than she was accustomed to. But she liked it. It was a
novelty after the smaller change of ballroom compliments.
She was watching the door all the while.
Presently the music ceased and they made their way back to
the spot whence he had taken her. She led the way thither
by an almost imperceptible pressure of her fingers on his arm.
There were several men waiting there, and one or two more
entering the room and looking languidly round.
' There comes the favoured one,' Lady Cantourne muttered,
with a veiled glance towards her companion.
Sir John's grey eyes followed the direction of her glance.
' My bright boy ? ' he inquired, with a wealth of sarcasm on
the adjective.
' Your bright boy,' she replied.
' I hope not,' he said curtly.
They were watching a tall fair man in the doorway who seemed
to know everybody, so slow was his progress into the room. The
most remarkable thing about this man was a certain grace of
movement. He seemed to be specially constructed to live in
narrow, hampered places. He was above six feet ; but, being of
slight build, he moved with a certain languidness which saved him
from that unwieldiness usually associated with large men in a
drawing-room.
Such was Jack Meredith, one of the best-known figures in
London society. He had hitherto succeeded in moving through
the mazes of that coterie, as he now moved through this room,
without jarring against anyone.
CHAPTEE H.
OVER THE OLD GROUND.
' A man who never makes mistakes never makes anj^hing else either.'
Miss MILLICENT CHYNE was vaguely conscious of success — and
such a consciousness is apt to make the best of us a trifle elated.
It was certainly one of the best balls of the season, and Miss
Chyne's dress was, without doubt, one of the most successful
articles of its sort there.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 7
Jack Meredith saw that fact and noted it as soon as he came
into the room. Moreover, it pleased him, and he was pleased to
reflect that he was no mean critic in such matters. There could
be no doubt about it, because he knew as well as any woman there.
He knew that Millicent Chyne was dressed in the latest fashion — no
furbished-up gown from the hands of her maid, but a unique
creation from Bond Street.
' Well,' she asked, in a low voice as she handed him her pro-
gramme, ' are you pleased with it ? '
' Eminently so.'
She glanced down at her own dress. It was not the nervous
glance of the debutante, but the practised flash of experienced
eyes which see without appearing to look.
' I am glad,' she murmured.
He handed her back the card with the orthodox smile and bow
of gratitude, but there was something more in his eyes.
' Is that what you did it fdr ? ' he inquired.
' Of course/ with a glance half coquettish, half humble.
She took the card and allowed it to drop pendent from her
fan without looking at it. He had written nothing on it. This
was all a form. The dances that were his had been inscribed on
the engagement-card long before by smaller fingers than his.
She turned to take her attendant partner's arm with a little
flaunt — a little movement of the hips to bring her dress, and pos-
sibly herself, more prominently beneath Jack Meredith's notice.
His eyes followed her with that incomparably pleasant society
smile which he had no doubt inherited from his father. Then. he
turned and mingled with the well-dressed throng, bowing where
he ought to bow — asking with fervour for dances in plain but in-
fluential quarters where dances were to be easily obtained.
And all the while his father and Lady Cantourne watched.
' Yes, I think' the lady was saying, ' that that is the fa-
voured one.'
' I fear so.'
' I notice,' observed Lady Cantourne, ' that he asked for a
dance.'
' And apparently got one — or more.'
' Apparently so, Sir John.'
' Moreover '
Lady Cantourne turned on him with her usual vivacity.
'^Moreover ? ' she repeated.
8 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' He did not need to write it down on the card ; it was written
there already.'
She closed her fan with a faint smile.
' I sometimes wonder,' she said, ' whether, in our young days,
you were so preternaturally observant as you are now.'
' No,' he answered, ' I was not. I affected scales of the very
opaquest description, like the rest of my kind.'
In the meantime this man's son was going about his business
with a leisurely savoir-faire which few could rival. Jack Mere-
dith was the beau-ideal of the society man in the best acceptation
of the word. One met him wherever the best people congregated,
and he invariably seemed to know what to do and how to do it
better than his compeers. If it was dancing in the season, Jack
Meredith danced, and no man rivalled him. If it was grouse-
shooting, Jack Meredith held his gun as straight as any man. All
the polite accomplishments in their season seemed to come to him
without effort ; but there was in all the same lack of heart — that
utter want of enthusiasm which imparted to his presence a subtle
suggestion of boredom. The truth was that he was over-educated.
Sir John had taught him how to live and move and have his being
with so minute a care, so keen an insight, that existence seemed to
be nothing but an habitual observance of set rules.
Sir John called him sarcastically his ' bright boy,' his ' hopeful
offspring,' the ' pride of his old age ; ' but somewhere in his
shrivelled old heart there nestled an unbounded love and admira-
tion for his son. Jack had assimilated his teaching with a
wonderful aptitude. He had as nearly as possible realised Sir
John Meredith's idea of what an English gentleman should be,
and the old aristocrat's standard was uncompromisingly high.
Public school, University, and two years on the Continent had
produced a finished man, educated to the finger-tips, deeply read,
clever, bright, and occasionally witty ; but Jack Meredith was at
this time nothing more than a brilliant conglomerate of pos-
sibilities. He had obeyed his father to the letter with a con-
scientiousness bred of admiration. He had always felt that his
father knew best. And now he seemed to be waiting — possibly
for further orders. He was suggestive of a perfect piece of
mechanism standing idle for want of work delicate enough to be
manipulated by its delicate craft. Sir John had impressed upon
him the desirability of being independent, and he had promptly
cultivated that excellent quality, taking kindly enough to rooms of
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 9
his own in a fashionable quarter. But upon the principle of taking
a horse to the water and being unable to make him drink Sir John
had not hitherto succeeded in making Jack take the initiative.
He had (turned out. such a finished and polished English gentleman
as his soul delighted in, and now he waited in cynical silence for
Jack Meredith to take his life into his own hands and do
something brilliant with it. All that he had done up to now had
been to prove that he could attain to a greater social popularity
than any other man of his age and station ; but this was not
exactly the success that Sir John Meredith coveted for his son.
He had tasted of this success himself, and knew its thinness of
flavour — its fleeting value.
Behind his keen old eyes such thoughts as these were passing
while he watched Jack go up and claim his dance at the hands of
Miss Millicent Chyne. He could almost guess what they said ;
for Jack was grave and she smiled demurely. They began dancing
at once, and as soon as the flooK became crowded they disappeared.
Jack Meredith was an adept at such matters. He knew a
seat at the end of a long passage where they could sit, the beheld
of all beholders who happened to pass ; but no one could possibly
overhear their conversation — no one could surprise them. It was
essentially a strategical position.
' Well,' inquired Jack, with a peculiar breathlessness, when
they were seated, ' have you thought about it ? '
She gave a little nod.
They seemed to be taking up some conversation at a point
where it had been dropped on a previous occasion.
' And ? ' he inquired suavely. The society polish was very
thickly coated over the man ; but his eyes had a hungry look.
By way of reply her gloved hand crept out towards his, which
rested on the chair at his side.
' Jack ! ' she whispered ; and that was all.
It was very prettily done, and quite naturally. He was a
judge of such matters, and appreciated the girlish simplicity of the
action fully.
He took the small gloved hand and pressed it lovingly. The
thoroughness of his social training prevented any further display
of affection.
' Thank Heaven ! ' he murmured.
They were essentially of the nineteenth century — these two.
At a previous dance he had asked her to marry him; she had deferred
1—5
10 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
her answer, and now she had given it. These little matters are
all a question of taste. We do not kneel nowadays, either
physically or morally. If we are a trifle offhand, it is the women
who are to blame. They should not write in magazines of a
doubtful reputation in language devoid of the benefit of the doubt.
They are equal to us. Bien ! One does not kneel to an equal.
A better writer than any of us says that men serve women kneeling,
and when they get to their feet they go away. We are being
hauled up to our feet now.
' But ? ' began the girl, and went no further.
' But what ?
' There will be difficulties.'
' No doubt,' he answered with quiet mockery. ' There always
are. I will see to them. Difficulties are not without a certain
advantage. They keep one on the alert.'
' Your father,' said the girl. ' Sir John — he will object.'
Jack Meredith reflected for a moment, lazily, with that leisureli-
ness which gave a sense of repose to his presence.
' Possibly,' he admitted gravely.
' He dislikes me,' said the girl. ' He is one 01 my failures.'
' I did not know you had any. Have you tried ? I cannot
quite admit the possibility of failure.'
Millicent Chyne smiled. He had emphasised the last remark
with lover-like glance and tone. She was young enough ; her own
beauty was new enough to herself to blind her to the possibility
mentioned. She had not even got to the stage of classifying as
dull all men who did not fall in love with her at first sight. It
was her first season, one must remember.
' I have not tried very hard,' she said. ' But I don't see why I
should not fail.'
' That is easily explained.'
'Why?'
' No looking-glass about.'
She gave a little pout, but she liked it.
The music of the next dance was beginning, and, remembering
their social obligations, they both rose. She laid her hand on his
arm, and for a moment his fingers pressed hers. He smiled down
into her upturned eyes with love, but without passion. He never for
a second risked the ' gentleman ' and showed the ' man.' He was
suggestive of a forest pool with a smiling rippled surface. There
might be depth, but nothing had yet reached beyond the surface.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 11
' Shall we go now,' he said, ' and say a few words in passing to
my redoubtable father ? It might be effective.'
' Yes, if you like,' she answered promptly. There is no
more confident being on earth than a pretty girl in a successful
dress.
They met Sir John at the entrance of the ballroom. He was
wandering about, taking in a vast deal of detail.
' Well, young lady,' he said, with an old-world bow, ' are you
having a successful evening ? '
Millicent laughed. She never knew quite how to take Sir
John.
'Yes, I think so, thank you,' she answered, with a pretty
smile. ' I am enjoying myself very much.'
There was just the least suggestion of shyness in her manner,
and it is just possible that this softened the old cynic's heart, for
his manner was kinder and almost fatherly when he spoke again.
' Ah ! ' he said, ' at your time of life you do not want much —
plenty of partners and a few ices. Both easily obtainable.'
The last words were turned into a compliment by the courtly
inclination of the head that accompanied them.
The exigencies of the moment forced the young people to go
with the stream.
' Jack,' said Sir John, as they passed on, ' when you have been
deprived of Miss Chyne's society, come and console yourself with
a glass of sherry.'
The dutiful son nodded a semi-indifferent acquiescence and
disappeared.
' Wonderful thing, sherry ! ' observed Sir John Meredith for
his own edification.
He waited there until Jack returned, and then they set off
in search of refreshment. The son seemed to know his where-
abouts better than the father.
' This way,' he said, ' through the conservatory.'
Amidst the palms and tropical ferns Sir John paused. A
great deal of care had been devoted to this conservatory. Half
hidden among languorous scented flowers were a thousand tiny
lights, while overhead in the gloom towered graceful palms and
bananas. A fountain murmured pleasantly amidst a cluster of
maidenhairs. The music from the ballroom fell softly over all.
Sir John Meredith and his son stood in silence, looking around
them. Finally their eyes met.
12 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Are you in earnest with that girl ? ' asked Sir John abruptly.
' I am,' replied Jack. He was smiling pleasantly.
' And you think there is a chance of her marrying- you — unless,
of course, something better turns up ? '
' With all due modesty I do.'
Sir John's hand was at his mouth. He stood up his full six
feet two and looked hard at his son, whose eyes were level with
his own. They were ideal representatives of their school.
' And what do you propose marrying upon ? She, I under-
stand, has about eight hundred a year. I respect you too much
to suspect any foolish notions of love in a cottage.'
Jack Meredith made no reply. He was entirely dependent
upon his father.
' Of course,' said Sir John, ' when I die you will be a baronet ,
and there will be enough to live on like a gentleman. You had
better tell Miss Chyne that. She may not know it. Girls are so
innocent. But I am not dead yet, and I shall take especial care
to live some time.'
' In order to prevent my marriage? ' suggested Jack. He was
still smiling, and somehow Sir John felt a little uneasy. He did
.not understand that smile.
' Precisely so,' he said, rather indistinctly.
' What is your objection ? ' inquired Jack Meredith, after a
little pause.
' I object to the girl.'
' Upon what grounds ? '
' I should prefer you to marry a woman of heart.'
' Heart ? ' repeated Jack, with a suspicion of hereditary cynicism.
' I do not think heart is of much consequence. Besides, in this
case, surely that is my province ; you would not have her wear it
on her sleeve ? '
' She could not do that : not enough sleeve.'
Sir John Meredith had his own views on ladies' dress.
' But,' he added, ' we will not quarrel. Arrange matters with
the young lady as best you can. I shall never approve of such a
match, and without my approval you cannot well marry;
' I do not .admit that.'
< Indeed ! '
' Your approval means money,' explained this dutiful son
politely. « I might manage to make the money for myself.'
Sir John moved awav,
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 13
' You might,' he admitted, looking back. ' I should be very
glad to see you doing so. It is an excellent thing — money.'
And he walked leisurely away.
CHAPTER III.
A FAREWELL.
Since called
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.
HAVING been taught to take all the chances and changes of life
with a well-bred calmness of demeanour, Jack Meredith .turned
the teaching against the instructor. He pursued the course of
his social duties without appearing to devote so much as a thought
to the quarrel which had taken place in the conservatory. His
smile was as ready as ever, his sight as keen where an elderly lady
looked hungry, his laughter as near the surface as society
demands. It is probable that Sir John suffered more, though he
betrayed nothing. Youth has the upper hand in these cases, for
life is a larger thing when we are young. As we get on in years,
our eggs, to use a homely simile, have a way of accumulating into
one basket.
At eleven o'clock the next morning Sir John Meredith's valet
intimated to his master that Mr. Meredith was waiting in the
breakfast-room. Sir John was in the midst of his toilet — a com-
plicated affair, which, like other works of art, would not bear
contemplation when incomplete.
' Tell him,' said the uncompromising old gentleman, ' that I
will come down when I am ready.'
He made a more careful toilet than usual, and finally came
down in a gay tweed suit, of which the general effect was
distinctly heightened by a pair of white gaiters. He was upright,
trim, and perfectly determined. Jack noted that his clothes
looked a little emptier than usual — that was all.
' Well,' said the father, ' I suppose we both made fools of
ourselves last night.'
' I have not yet seen you do that,' replied the son, laying
aside the morning paper which he had been reading.
Sir John smiled grimly. He hoped that Jack was right.
' Well,' he added, ' let us call it a difference of opinion.'
14 WITH EDGED TOOLS
* Yes.'
Something in the monosyllable made the old gentleman's lips
twitch nervously.
' I may mention,' he said, with a dangerous suavity, ' that I
still hold to my opinion.'
Jack Meredith rose, without haste. This, like the interview
of the previous night, was conducted upon strictly high-bred and
gentlemanly lines.
' And I to mine,' he said. ' That is why I took the liberty of
calling at this early hour. I thought that perhaps we might
effect some sort of a compromise.'
' It is very good of you to make the proposal.' Sir John kept
his fingers away from his lips by an obvious exercise of self-control.
' I am not partial to compromises : they savour of commerce.'
Jack gave a queer, curt nod, and moved towards the door. Sir
John extended his unsteady hand and rang the bell.
' Good morning,' he said.
' Garle,' he added, to the servant who stood in the doorway,
' when you have closed the door behind Mr. Meredith, bring up
breakfast, if you please.'
On the doorstep Jack Meredith looked at his watch. He had
an appointment with Millicent Chyne at half-past eleven — an
hour when Lady Cantourne might reasonably be expected to be
absent at the weekly meeting of a society which, under the guise
and nomenclature of friendship, busied itself in making servant
girls discontented with their situations.
It was only eleven o'clock. Jack turned to the left, out of the
quiet but fashionable street, and a few steps took him to Picca-
dilly. He went into the first jeweller's shop he saw, and bought a
plain diamond ring. Then he walked on to keep his appointment
with his affianced wife.
Miss Millicent Chyne was waiting for him with that mixture
of maidenly feelings of which the discreet novelist only details a
selection. It is not customary to dwell upon thoughts of vague
regret at the approaching withdrawal of a universal admiration—
at the future necessity for discreet and humdrum behaviour quite
devoid of the excitement that lurks in a double meaning. Let
it, therefore, be ours to note the outward signs of a very natural
emotion. Miss Chyne noted them herself with care, and not
without a few deft touches to hair and dress. When Jack Mere-
dith entered the room she was standing near the window, holding
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 15
back the curtain with one hand and watching, half shyly, for his
advent.
What struck her at once was his gravity ; and he must have
seen the droop in her eyes, for he immediately assumed the plea-
sant half-reckless smile which the world of London society had
learnt to associate with his name.
He played the lover rather well, with that finish and absence
of self-consciousness which only comes from sincerity ; and when
Miss Chyne found opportunity to look at him a second time she
was fully convinced that she loved him. She was, perhaps, carried
off her feet a little — metaphorically speaking, of course — by his
evident sincerity. At that moment she would have done anything
that he had asked her. The pleasures of society, the social amenities
of aristocratic life, seemed to have vanished suddenly into thin air,
and only love was left. She had always known that Jack Meredith
was superior in a thousand ways to all her admirers. More gentle-
manly, more truthful, honester, nobler, more worthy of love.
Beyond that he was cleverer, despite a certain laziness of disposi-
tion— more brilliant and more amusing. He had always been to
a great extent the chosen one ; and yet it was with a certain sur-
prise and sense of unreality that she found what she had drifted
into. She saw the diamond ring, and looked upon it with the
beautiful emotions aroused by those small stones in the female
breast ; but she did not seem to recognise her own finger within
the golden hoop.
It was at this moment — while she dwelt in this new unreal
world — that he elected to tell her of his quarrel with his father.
And when one walks through a maze of unrealities nothing seems
to come amiss or to cause surprise. He detailed the very words
they had used, and to Millicent Chyne it did not sound like a real
quarrel such as might affect two lives to their very end. It was
not important. It did not come into her life ; for at that moment
she did not know what her life was.
' And so,' said Jack Meredith, finishing his story, ' we have
begun badly — as badly as the most romantic might desire.'
' Yes, theoretically it is consoling. But I am sorry, Jack,
very sorry. I hate quarrelling with anybody.'
' So do I. I haven't time, as a rule. But the old gentleman
is so easy to quarrel with, he takes all the trouble.'
' Jack,' she said, with pretty determination . ' You must go
and say you are sorry. Go now ! I wish I could go with you.'
16 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
But Meredith did not move. He was smiling at her in evi-
dent admiration. She looked very pretty with that determined
little pout of the lips, and perhaps she knew it. Moreover, he did
not seem to attach so much importance to the thought as to the
result — to the mind as to the lips.
' Ah ! ' he said, ' you do not know the old gentleman. That is
not our way of doing things. We are not expansive.'
His face was grave again, and she noticed it with a sudden
throb of misgiving. She did not want to begin taking life seri-
ously so soon. It was like going back to school in the middle of
the holidays.
' But it will be all right in a day or two, will it not ? It is
not serious,' she said.
' I am afraid it is serious, Millicent.'
He took her hand with a gravity which made matters
worse.
' What a pity ! ' she exclaimed ; and somehow both the words
and the speaker rang shallow. She did not seem to grasp the
situation, which was perhaps beyond her reach. But she did the
next best thing. She look puzzled, pretty, and helpless.
'What is to be done, Jack?' she said, laying her two hands on
his breast and looking up pleadingly.
There was something in the man's clear-cut face — something
beyond aristocratic repose — as he looked down into her eyes —
something which Sir John Meredith might perhaps have liked to
see there. To all men comes, soon or late, the moment wherein
their lives are suddenly thrust into their own hands to shape or
spoil, to make or mar. It seemed that where a clever man had
failed, this light-hearted girl was about to succeed. Two small
clinging hands on Jack Meredith's breast had apparently wrought
more than all Sir John's care and foresight. At last the light of
energy gleamed in Jack Meredith's lazy eyes. At last he faced the
' initiative,' and seemed in nowise abashed.
' There are two things,' he answered : ' a small choice.'
' Yes.'
' The first, and the simplest,' he went on in the tone of voice
which she had never quite fathomed — half cynical, half amused—
' is to pretend that last night — never was.'
He waited for her verdict.
' We will not do that,' she replied softly ; ' we will take the
other alternative, whatever it is.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 17
She glanced up half shyly beneath her lashes, and he felt that
no difficulty could affright him.
' The other is generally supposed to be very difficult,' he said.
' It means — waiting.'
' Oh,' she answered cheerfully, ' there is no hurry. I do not
want to be married yet.'
' Waiting perhaps for years,' he added — and he saw her face
drop.
' Why ? '
' Because I am dependent on my father for everything. We
could not marry without his consent.'
A peculiar, hard look crept into her eyes, and in some subtle
way it made her look older. After a little pause she said :
' But we can surely get that — between us ? '
' I propose doing without it.'
She looked up — past him — out of the window. All the youth-
fulness seemed to have left her face, but he did not appear to see
that.
' How can you do so ? '
' Well, I can work. I suppose I must be good for something
— a bountiful Providence must surely have seen to that. The
difficulty is to find out what it intends me for. We are not called
in the night nowadays to a special mission — we have to find it out
for ourselves.'
' Do you know what I should like you to be ? ' she said, with a
bright smile and one of those sudden descents into shallowness
which he appeared to like.
' What ? '
' A politician.'
' Then I shall be a politician,' he answered with lover-like
promptness.
' That would be very nice,' she said ; and the castles she at
once began to build were not entirely aerial in their structure.
This was not a new idea. They had talked of politics before
as a possible career for himself. They had moved in a circle where
politics and politicians held a first place — a circle removed above
the glamour of art, and wherein Bohemianism was not reckoned
an attraction. She knew that behind his listlessness of manner he
possessed a certain steady energy, perfect self-command, and that
combination of self-confidence and indifference which usually
attains success in the world. She was ambitious not only for her-
18 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
self, but for him, and she was shrewd enough to know that the
only safe outlet for a woman's ambition is the channel of a hus-
band's career.
' But,' he said, ' it will mean waiting.'
He paused, and then the worldly wisdom which he had learnt
from his father — that worldly wisdom which is sometimes called
cynicism — prompted him to lay the matter before her in its worst
light.
' It will mean waiting for a couple of years at least. And for
you it will mean the dullness of a long engagement, and the
anomalous position of an engaged girl without her rightful pro-
tector. It will mean that your position in society will be quite
different — that half the world will pity you, while the other half
thinks you — well, a fool for your pains.'
' I don't care,' she answered.
' Of course,' he went on, ' I must go away. That is the only
way to get on in politics in these days. I must go away and get
a speciality. I must know more about some country than any
other man ; and when I come back I must keep that country ever
before the eye of the intelligent British workman who reads the
halfpenny evening paper. That is fame — those are politics.'
She laughed. There seemed to be no fear of her taking life
too seriously yet. And, truth to tell, he did not appear to wish
her to do so.
' But you must not go very far,' she said sweetly.
' Africa.'
' Africa ? That does not sound interesting.'
' It is interesting : moreover, it is the coming country. I may
be able to make money out there, and money is a necessity at
present.'
' I do not like it, Jack,' she said in a foreboding voice. ' When
do you go ? '
' At once — in fact, I came to say good-bye. It is better to do
these things very promptly — to disappear before the onlookers have
quite understood what is happening. When they begin to under-
stand, they begin to interfere. They cannot help it. I will write
to Lady Cantourne if you like.'
' No, I will tell her.'
So he bade her good-bye, and those things that lovers say were
duly said ; but they are not for us to chronicle. Such words are
better left to be remembered or forgotten as time and circumstance
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 19
and result may decree For one may never tell what words will
do when they are laid within the years like the little morsel of
leaven that leaveneth the whole.
CHAPTER IV.
A TRAGEDY.
' Who knows ? the man is proven by the hour.'
IN his stately bedroom on the second floor of the quietest house
in Eussell Square Mr. Thomas Oscard — the eccentric Oscard —
lay, perhaps, a-dying.
Thomas Oscard had' written the finest history of an extinct
people that had ever been penned ; and it has been decreed that
he who writes a fine history and paints a fine picture can hardly
be too eccentric. Our business", however, does not lie in the life
of this historian— a life which certain grave wiseacres from the
West (End) had shaken their heads over a few hours before
we find him lying prone on a four-poster, counting for the
thousandth time the number of tassels fringing the roof of it.
In bold contradiction of the medical opinion, the nurse was,
however, hopeful. Whether this comforting condition of mind
arose from long experience of the ways of doctors, or from an
acquired philosophy, it is not our place to inquire. But that
her opinion was sincere is not to be doubted. She had, as a
matter of fact, gone to the pantomime, leaving the patient under
the immediate eye of his son, Gruy Oscard.
The temporary nurse was sitting in a cretonne-covered arm-
chair, with a book of travel on his knee, and thoughts of Millicent
Chyne in his mind. The astute have no doubt discovered ere this
that the mind of Mr. Gruy Oscard was a piece of mental mecha-
nism more noticeable for solidity of structure than brilliancy or
rapidity of execution. Thoughts and ideas and principles had a
strange way of getting mixed up with the machinery, and sticking
there. Gruy Oscard had, for instance, concluded some years before
that the Winchester rifle was, as he termed it, ' no go ' ; and, if the
Pope of Rome and the patentee of the firearm in question had
crossed Europe upon their bended knees to persuade him to use a
Winchester rifle, he would have received them with a pleasant
smile and an offer of refreshment. He would have listened to
20 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
their arguments with that patience of manner which characterises
men of large stature, and for the rest of his days he would have
continued to follow big game with an ' Express ' double-barrelled
rifle as heretofore. Men who decide such smaller matters as these
for themselves, after mature and somewhat slow consideration, have
a way of also deciding the larger issues of life without pausing to
consider either expediency or the experience of their neighbours.
During the last forty-eight hours Guy Oscard had made the
decision that life without Millicent Chyne would not be worth
having, and in the hush of the great house he was pondering over
this new feature in his existence. Like all deliberate men, he
was placidly sanguine. Something in the Life of savage sport
that he had led had no doubt taught him to rely upon his own
nerve and capacity more than most men do. It is the indoor
atmosphere that contains the germ of pessimism.
. His thoughts cannot have been disturbing, for presently his
eyes closed and he appeared to be slumbering. If it was sleep, it
was the light unconsciousness of the traveller ; for a sound so small,
that waking ears could scarce have heard it, caused him to lift his
lashes cautiously. It was the sound of bare feet on carpet.
Through his lashes Guy Oscard saw his father standing on
the hearthrug within two yards of him. There was something
strange, something unnatural and disturbing, about the move-
ments of the man that made Guy keep quite still — watching him.
Upon the mantelpiece the medicine bottles were arranged in a
row, and the ' eccentric Oscard ' was studying the labels with a
feverish haste. One bottle — a blue one — bore two labels : the
smaller one, of brilliant orange colour, with the word ' Poison ' in
startling simplicity. He took this up and slowly drew the cork.
It was a liniment for neuralgic pains in an overwrought head —
belladonna. He poured some into a medicine-glass, carefully
measuring two tablespoonsful.
Then Guy Oscard sprang up and wrenched the glass away
from him, throwing the contents into the fire, which flared up.
Quick as thought, the bottle was at the sick man's lips. He was a
heavily built man with powerful limbs. Guy seized his arm,
closed with him, and for a moment there was a deadly struggle,
while the pungent odour of the poison filled the atmosphere. At
last Guy fell back on art : he tripped his father cleverly, and they
both rolled on the floor.
The sick man still gripped the bottle, but he could not get it
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 21
to his lips. He poured some of the stuff over his son's face, but
fortunately missed his eyes. They struggled on the floor in the
dim light, panting and gasping, but speaking no word. The
strength of the elder man was unnatural — it frightened the
younger and stronger combatant.
At last Guy Oscard got his knee on his father's neck, and bent
his wrist back until he was forced to let go his hold on the bottle.
' Get back to bed ! ' said the son breathlessly. ' Get back to
bed.'
Thomas Oscard suddenly changed his tactics. He whined
and cringed to his own offspring, and begged him to give him the
bottle. He dragged across the floor on his knees — three thousand
pounds a year on its knees to Guy Oscard, who wanted that
money because he knew that he would never get Millicent Chyne
without it.
' Get back to bed,' repeated Guy sternly, and at last the man
crept sullenly between the rumpled sheets.
Guy put things straight in a simple, manlike way. The
doctor's instructions were quite clear. If any sign of excitement
or mental unrest manifested itself, the sleeping-draught contained
in a small bottle on the mantelpiece was to be administered at
once, or the consequences would be fatal. But Thomas Oscard
refused to take it. He seemed determined to kill himself. The
son stood over him and tried threats, persuasion, prayers ; and all
the while there was in his heart the knowledge that, unless his
father could be made to sleep, the reputed three thousand a year
would be his before the morning.
It was worse than the actual physical struggle on the floor.
The temptation was almost too strong.
After a while the sick man became quieter, but he still
refused to take the opiate. He closed his eyes and made no
answer to Guy's repeated supplication. Finally he ceased shaking
his head in negation, and at last breathed regularly like a child
asleep.
Afterwards Guy Oscard reproached himself for suspecting
nothing. But he knew nothing of brain diseases— those strange
maladies that kill the human in the human being. He knew,
however, why his father had tried to kill himself. It was not
the first time. It was panic. He was afraid of going mad, of
dying mad like his father before him. People called him eccen-
tric. Some said that he was mad. But it was not so. It was only
22 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
fear of madness. He was still asleep when the nurse came back
from the pantomime in a cab, and Cfuy crept softly downstairs to
let her in.
They stood in the hall for some time while Guy told her in
whispers about the belladonna liniment. Then they went up-
stairs together and found Thomas Oscard — the great historian —
dead on the floor. The liniment bottle, which Guy had left on
the mantelpiece, was in his hand — empty. He had feigned sleep
in order to carry out his purpose. He had preferred death, of
which the meaning was unknown to him, to the possibility of that
living death in which his father had lingered for many years.
And who shall say that his thoughts were entirely selfish ? There
may have been a father's love somewhere in this action. Thomas
Oscard, the eccentric savant, had always been a strong man,
independent of the world's opinion. He had done this thing
deliberately, of mature thought, going straight to his Creator with
his poor human brain full of argument and reason to prove him-
self right before the Judge.
They picked him up and laid him reverently on the bed, and
then Guy went for the doctor.
I could,' said the attendant of Death, when he had heard the
whole story — ' I could give you a certi6cate. I could reconcile it,
I mean, with my professional conscience and my — other con-
science. He could not have lived thirty hours — there was an
abscess on his brain. But I should advise you to face the
inquest. It might be' — he paused, looking keenly into the
young fellow's face — ' it might be that at some future date,
when you are quite an old man, you may feel inclined to tell this
story.'
Again the doctor paused, glancing with a vague smile towards
the woman who stood beside them. ' Or even nurse ' he
added, not troubling to finish his sentence. ' We all have
our moments of expansiveness. And it is a story that might
easily be — discredited.'
So the ' eccentric Oscard ' finished his earthly career in the
intellectual atmosphere of a coroner's jury. And the world rather
liked it than otherwise. The world, one finds, does like novelty,
even in death. Some day an American will invent a new funeral,
and, if he can only get the patent, will make a fortune.
The world was, moreover, pleased to pity Guy Oscard with that1
pure and simple sympathy which is ever accorded to the wealthy
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 23
in affliction. Every one knew that Thomas Oseard had enjoyed
affluence during his lifetime, and there was no reason to suppose
that Gfuy would not step into very comfortably lined shoes. It
was unfortunate that he should lose his father in such a tragic
way, and the keen eye of the world saw the weak point in his
story at once. But the coroner's jury was respectful, and the rest
of society never so much as hinted at the possibility that Guy had
not tried his best to keep his father alive.
Among the letters of sympathy the young fellow received a
note from Lady Cantourne, whose acquaintance he had success-
fully renewed, and in due course he called at her house in Vere
Gardens to express somewhat lamely his gratitude.
Her ladyship was at home, and in due course Guy Oseard was
ushered into her presence. He looked round the room with a
half-suppressed gleam of searching which was not overlooked by
Millicent Chyne's aunt.
' It is very good of you to call,' she said, ' so soon after your
poor father's death. You must have had a great deal of trouble
and worry. Millicent and I have often talked of you and sympa-
thised with you. She is out at the moment, but I expect her
back almost at once. Will you sit down ? '
' Thanks,' he said ; and, after he had drawn forward a chair, he
repeated the word vaguely and comprehensively — ' Thanks ' — as
if to cover as many demands for gratitude as she could make.
' I knew your father very well,' continued the lady, ' when we
were young. Great things were expected of him. Perhaps he
expected them himself. That may have accounted for a tone of
pessimism that always seemed to pervade his life. Now, you are
quite different. You are not a pessimist — eh ?'
Guy gravely examined the back of his gloved hand. ' Well,
I am afraid I have not given much thought to the question.'
Lady Cantourne gave him the benefit of a very wise smile.
She was unrivalled in the art of turning a young man's mind
inside out and shaking it.
' No, you need not apologise. I am glad you have given no
thought to it. Thought is the beginning of pessimism, especially
with young men ; for if they think at all, they naturally think of
themselves.'
' Well, I suppose I think as much of myself as other people.'
' Possibly, but I doubt it. Would you ring the bell ? We
will have some tea.'
24 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
He obeyed, and she watched him with approval. For some
reason — possibly because he had not sought it — Lady Cantourne
had bestowed her entire approval on this young man. She had
been duly informed, a few weeks before this visit, that Miss
Millicent Chyne had engaged herself to be married to Jack
Meredith whenever that youth should find himself in a position
to claim the fulfilment of her promise. She said nothing against
her choice or her decision, merely observing that she was sorry
that Jack had quarrelled with his father. By way of counsel she
advised strongly that the engagement be kept as much in the
background as possible. She did not, she said, want Millicent to
be a sort of red rag to Sir John, and there was no necessity to
publish abroad the lamentable fact that a quarrel had resulted
from a very natural and convenient attachment. Sir John was a
faddist, and, like the rest of his kind, eminently pig-headed. It
was more than likely that in a few months he would recall his son,
and, in the meantime, it never did a girl any good to be quarrelled
over.
Lady Cantourne was too clever a woman to object to the
engagement. On the contrary, she allowed it to be understood
that such a match was in many ways entirely satisfactory. At
the same time, however, she encouraged Gruy Oscard to come to
the house, knowing quite well that he was entirely unaware of the
existence of Jack Meredith.
' I am,' she was in the habit of saying, ' a great advocate for
allowing young people to manage their affairs themselves. One
young man, if he be the right one, has more influence with a girl
than a thousand old women ; and it is just possible that he knows
better than they do what is for her happiness. It is the inter-
ference that makes mischief.'
So she did not interfere. She merely invited Guy Oscard to
stay to tea.
(To be continued.')
25
NILE NOTES.
January '2nd. On board the Dahabeah ' Pasht.' The Nile. —
We are lying off a sandy stretch of shore, while the crew sit
awhile and dip their fingers into their breakfast mess of red pot-
tage. The day is clear and cool and blue, as though we were
living in the heart of some vast cut turquoise. It is the second
day of the year 1271 of the Hegira. I tried to get the Copt year
from our waiter, who is a Christian, but he only shrugged his
shoulders : ' How should I know ? I am not a priest.'
Early in the morning, as the men were punting off from the
squalid Arab village, opposite to which we spent the night, they
were chanting a melancholy stave that sounded like Eeley-Lissa.
They pushed and strove, and -always sang Eeley-Lissa. Now it
appears there was .a lady called Lissa, whom at the time of the Flood
Noah promised to call for and take on board the Ark. So she went
home to put a few things together and get the children ; but as the
dragoman says — ' She never come back till all gone ; that woman
one fool.' And as she saw the Ark lumbering out of sight and the
waters rapidly rose on her, as a last resource she stood on the
children to try and make herself heard. Not such a fool, after
all, it seems, that one woman ! Noah had done his best, for he
had kept calling loudly ' Eeley-Lissa ! Why don't you come,
Lissa?' And still the boatmen of the Nile use the prophet's
plaintive cry with its forlorn cadence, ' Why don't you come,
Lissa ? Lissa, why don't you come ? ' I dare say the prophet's
wife was jealous and contrived she should be left behind.
And now we are creeping along the sandy, muddy shore. The
men, roped over the shoulders, tow with the dull monotony of
convicts ; the heavy rudder creaks and groans, the dragoman
hammers at a package. The second captain shows his white teeth
and calls to a couple of women who have come down to the water's
edge to fill their goolahs.
Tuesday. Off Matay. — To-night, while the crew were tearing
at sugar-cane and sucking it after a hard day's towing, I came on
Hassan the Nubian, disconsolate in the moonlight on shore ; his
head wrapt up, his chin sunk, looking so like a sick monkey I
asked if it were the brandy and the sheep of the New Year's
VOL. XXI. — NO. 121, N.S. 2
26 NILE NOTES.
feasting that still afflicted him. No, he couldn't get any hasheesh,
1 hat was all ; and the captain wouldn't advance him any money
to go and buy it in the village. I remembered I had a piece
somewhere I bought in Cairo, in a shy Arab cafe ; what would he
give me if I found it ? He had nothing to give me, being a poor
man, but he would kiss my hand. I found the brown stuff, look-
ing like a piece of cheap cocoa, and made him a present of it. He
began to cheer Hip ! hip ! and sat down on deck to break it up
and pack it into cigarettes. Soon into the broad and placid
moonlight crawled the penetrating incense ; and now he sleeps,
Hassan the Nubian, at whom all the other sailors laugh because
of his broken Arabic, sleeps and dreams deliciously of riding
lightly over the tremulous, tideless water where there is neither
towing, nor punting, nor huge lumbering dahabeah to be coaxed
along the crumbling shelving banks.
It was almost dark as we came back from shooting, and there
being a little creek between us and the dahabeah, had to make
use of a country boat moored in the creek, for ferry. In the
centre of the sun-blistered, gaping, cranky old piece there was a
sort of hold, and down in it a little pan of charcoal, over which I
could, see two or three pairs of hands opening and shutting, and I
could hear whispers. So I went quite close and looked down, and
saw it was the countryman's wife and children. But the stranger
was too much for the children, who dived at once under the deck
boards and lay there breathless. I took out a piastre and held it
in the glow of the charcoal, and first one little hand came out of
the darkness and then another. Each time I drew the piastre
further to try and get them out again into the firelight, but they
always drew back and lay whispering a little, and then were quite
quiet. The mother covered her face and laughed, though perhaps
a little nervously, while the countryman, punting with the great
pole, laughed out loud. At last, just as we were landing, I held
the piastre under the boarding and felt it instantly clutched in a
small, cool, brown fist. Then we all laughed together, and a sort.
of nursery peal came from the little stowaways. But they checked
it very soon, and Ali said to Zenoba, ' Don't you move yet, I don't
believe he's gone : — got the money ? '
Thursday. Minieh (1 56 miles from Cairo). — The wind whistles
and screams to-night like some desert bird ; I hear the water lap-
ping against the rocking dahabeah, the voices of the sailors crouched
under their awning ; and the lightning flashes and glares all round
NILE NOTES. 27
us, now flinging its trailing gleam on wastes and gullies of sand
and tawny bluffs of desert rock, and now throwing black against
the great white spark a half-ruined, but ever graceful minaret. A
wild night, my masters ! more suited to Steerforth drowning off
Yarmouth shore than the broad repose of ancient Nilus.
Last evening, the moon not yet up, we stumbled among the
hovels and sugar-cane enclosures of the village to buy eggs.
Prowling dogs snarled at us, dark forms crouched at the black
oval holes that marked their doorways ; you heard the crunch-
ing ajid the tear of sugar-cane, you saw glimpses of low fire-
light leap on knotted tattooed brows, on profiles that looked like
degraded Pharaohs ; and, over all, the stars, that seemed so
lustrous and so loosely hung that you might fancy a cry would
bring them sparkling down into your lap, like ripe fruit. Down
every dusky courtyard the dragoman called ' Bring out your eggs ! '
and women only muttered and men chattered in reply. At last, a
little girl of seven or eight carrie out with a nest of glimmering
eggs in her brown hands and black robe. Round us pressed,
breathing heavily, a group of villagers, wondering at the howadgl^
not daring to whisper of backsheesh. The little girl never ven-
tured to look up at us ; she trotted off fearfully with her half-
piastre clutched in her tiny, knuckle-tattooed fist. We got eight
fresh eggs for a penny farthing.
After dinner, in the moonlight, the great man of the village
came to visit us, very tall and stately and well-mannered. He
brought with him as a present the eternal sugar-cane for the
crew, without sucking which these great Arab babies cannot live
long, and for us an ancient man with an ancient muzzle-loading
musket and a younger creature with a huge stick, to act as guard
for the night. He sat in our cabin, smoked cigarettes and drank
coffee, inspected our guns and rifles, asked our opinion for a school
for his little son in London and the cost, and admired the coloured
pictures of ' The Birds of Egypt.' He looks forward very much,
he says, to seeing and entertaining us on our way down, and has
begged me to take charge of fifty pounds with which to buy and
send him a gun from London. Blessed and noble Union Jack ! is
there, I dare to ask, any other flag that flies under which an Arab
would venture fifty pounds, with the absolute certainty that it
would be honourably expended ?
I watched the stately, slow, and somewhat ragged procession
disappear in the moonlight. Old Dogberry with the gun kissed
2—2
28 NILE NOTES.
his departing patron's hand ; then he and the thick stick sat down
on the edge of the brown crumbling bank and waited for robbers,
as for jackal or hyena. I took them out a few cigarettes. The
broad moon was climbing patiently high over the far Arabian
desert. Some of the crew were already asleep after a hard day's
towing, and I had to pick my way.
January \'2th. — We drone along, towing and punting, day
after day, in ever the same beneficent sunshine. Once only, early
in the morning, as I lie dozing in my narrow berth, I hear a
clearer, sharper ripple ; the rudder groans less heavily and I know
we are sailing. The reis stands at the head of the steps leading
to the upper deck and watches the wind anxiously. His eyes are
ever on the sail or over to the hazy north-west ; sharp orders
he issues, and the crouching men fly to the ropes. Mustapha,
the singer, sits against the low bulwark with his dear friend
Mohammed always next him, who married his sister. They sing
a succession of little murmurous songs together. ' What are
they singing about ? ' I ask the dragoman. ' Love,' he replies, with
rather a leer. Yes, they are singing about love. ' Why don't
you come, oh, my love ? My heart is faint and sick for you. If
I were a bird I would fly to you ' — and so on ; really, quite like a
passionate Society ballad. Then the other dahabeah lurches past
us, like some great caravel. Hassan the Nubian is furious ; I saw
him fly to our mast and bite it. ' Go on, you pig ! sail faster,
you defiled animal ! ' he screams. Then he imprecates Allah for
more wind ; he points piteously to his shoulders all sore with the
rope and towing. ' He say his arms all tuttered and tear,' explains
the dragoman gravely.
Sunday. Assiout. — At last, half-past four in the afternoon,
we sail stylishly up to the landing stage. There is a small crowd
to sell us ebony sticks, bright bead purses, fly flaps, red pottery,
and a yelling background of donkey boys. A policeman hits them
viciously with a stick, but they trample round us just the same.
And then we go for a scamper across the railway line, down to the
town and through the bazaars, half of them closed, seeing the
town is mainly Copt and the day Sunday. Between mud walls
we hear the wild palpitating music of a fantasia, and push in
through a narrow doorway into a diminutive, dusty playground.
Black people, emancipated slaves, refugees from the Soudan,
dancing. ' When the sun sinks, all Africa dances.' Shapeless
women with broad, crushed faces ; squat boys in tarboosh and dis-
NILE NOTES. 29
coloured English shooting-coats, the gift of some passing daha-
beah, or the castaway of a European engineer at the sugar
factory; tattered men, clumsily kneaded, made with hands all
thumbs, of black dough ; they shake like jellies, they waddle and
waggle, they advance solemnly and retreat, shaking heavy sticks,
through dust a foot deep, while the musicians sit against the wall
and beat the phrenetic drum. It is an African Moulin Rouge, or
Elysee Montmartre. 'All drunk,' explains the dragoman, and
seems to think highly of his presence of mind in getting us away
without a row. For sometimes, it seems, a spark will flash among
all that clumsy good humour, and the lurking savage blood light
like spirits of wine. So we continue our scamper and come home
through the market-place. There a crowd is gathered round a
woman who dances a few steps, shakes a tambourine and im-
provises on the company. Her friend, a wild animal with an
unsettled eye, nervously beats the tarabouka, and, when her inspi-
ration fails, takes up the scream. The crowd makes way for us
respectfully, and as we solemnly sit our donkeys she bursts like
Miriam into song. The dragoman is delighted with the reference
to himself, and smiles the smile of self-satisfied conceit. I imagine
it is in the style of the esteemed Mr. Nadab — ' and while his face
I scan, I think you'll all agree with me, he comes from Hindo-
stan.' The dragoman translates it : ' He well-shaped man, hand-
some man — he give me plenty backsheesh.'
January 20th. Girgeh. — Always, as we near our station for
the night, against the lonely sandbank, or below the low-browed
village where the children scream and the dogs bark, and groups
crouch round the lurching flame of the doura fire ; or beside the
outskirts of the town in whose narrow streets flits the wayfarer's
candle, streets where the greasy yellow lantern hangs by the
cigarette-maker's box, or leers in the haze of the hasheesh shop ;
always at such a time, when the sun is sinking in steady splendour
over the desert, some of the crew are to be found turning towards
Mecca to pray. On the upper deck by the steersman, among
the newly cut bread spread out all day in the sun to grow stale,
Achmet stands with his hands by his head, forming flaps like the
Sphinx's cap ; his face grows humble and gentle, his lips move in
rapid supplication. Then he sinks down on his haunches, and the
blunt, scarred hands that all day have toiled at the rope lie quiet
and submissive in his lap. His head sinks forward, and thrice he
touches the deck with his forehead. At such a time no one must
30 NILE NOTES.
come between him and Mecca. To-night I saw our old cook
praying, and Hassan passed in front of him to get his tattered
English shooting-coat that hung by the mast. The old cook
broke off his prayer and abused him loudly, and Hassan who never
prays answered him back, and there was a brief battle.
The night is almost frosty, and in the river one sees the long
tremulous reflections of the stars ; as though the old kings were
holding there, deep in the rich stream, some silent banquet, and
these the muffled lights to show them how dark their lives are
now. From a neighbour's dahabeah come the rattling tones of a
piano, and the sound of a grotesque baritone singing a sea-ballad
with a waltz refrain, like a provincial bank manager at a penny
reading at home. Never, nowadays, does one entirely get out of
reach of such homelinesses. The other evening, sitting musing
in a temple, I heard one unctuous soul from Hornsey Eise declare
to another ' It used to be called the Waterloo Boarding 'ouse,' and
then there came upon me two old men in black coats and extensive
puggerees, long ago tired of Osiris and Horus and the father
Amen-Ra. ' Now you 'ook it ! ' they said to the gaffir who wanted
to draw their attention to a rare cartouche.
Saturday. Luxor. — We had lunch in the mutilated last court
of the temple of Medinet-Hapu, the guardians looking on with
their guns slung over their shoulders, squatting and smoking
cigarettes ; sharp Arab children were crouched in ambush behind
the broken pillars, waiting to dart upon us with their goolahs for
washing our hands after the meal ; when there rose the wail of a
crying child, the most sorrowful and piercing. I looked out, and
there, perched among the heaped-up rubbish that only last year
they cleared out of the Court for the Khedive's visit, sat Fatmeh,
her head wrapped in her dingy little shawl, sobbing and wailing
enough to break her heart and the heart of any listener. She wailed
whole sentences. ' What is it she says? ' I asked the dragoman.
' She say,' replied he, plunging his white teeth among the chicken
bones and looking up gravely with his goggle eyes, ' she say she
lose her goolah and she sure she die.' So I told him to call her,
and down came a little creature with a tattooed chin and a funny
wet snub nose with enormous freckles, and her frightened eyes all
heavy and swimming with tears. She drew her shawl tightly
round her like a very small factory child, and blinking sadly took
the orange I gave her. ' She look away one moment, put her
fjoolah down and someone take it, and her mother kill her and
NILE NOTES. 31
she sure she die.' So, with the cheap charity of old Lady Cork,
I borrowed two piastres and gave them to her to buy another
water-bottle. And when we mounted our donkeys again, sur-
rounded by screaming children, ' You nice gentleman, I like you ;
I your girl, give me one half-piastre,' Fatmeh came solemnly for-
ward as though she'd never seen me before in her life, pulled my
trouser leg and demanded backsheesh. Though, to be sure, when
I looked at her somewhat reproachfully, she had sufficient grace
to pull her shawl over her mouth and laugh outright.
In the evening I went to a soirSe at a native gentleman's house,
and a very ' cold swarry ' it was, too ; seeing it was held in the hall
and we sat there with our great-coats on. The native gentleman has
a soft hand, a fashionable smile, and proclaims it ' awfullee cold.'
There were present some twelve or fourteen guests, natives, Rus-
sians, Germans, and English, and two gaunt limestone American
ladies in pincenez and cotton gloves. Dissipated-looking servants
attended us with coffee in egg-cups and handsful of cigarettes, while
a native orchestra thumped and wailed on their haunches and a
couple of girls danced. One was rather good-looking, in the dark
fatigued style ; the other was squat and forbidding in a long cre-
tonne bedgown. They waggled and wobbled, and when they got
down to our end of the room threw us languishing glances and
whispered ' backsheesh ' over their shoulders. I gave the good-
looking one a cigarette which she stuck coquettishly behind her
ear. When I came away with many thanks (and a whisky and
soda) for a most interesting evening, I found Cook's people throw-
ing a search-light from their steamer among the ruins of the
temple, as though they were looking for Rameses. They had the
impudence to dog me with it, and Achmet carrying the lantern ;
I think the startling white light rather frightened him ; at least, I
heard him talking to himself and breathing heavily.
January 30th. Esneh. — We sailed into Esneh late in the bril-
liant moonlight, and went ashore to the post office and the fair. In
the post office the postmaster was entertaining at dinner an English
traveller, who had come to consult some Copt MSS., but he rose
obligingly and gave us stamps. No one could withstand the
melancholy gentle insistence of the dragoman ; he had put on a
black frock-coat, the gift of a former Nile patron ; in that and a
pair of tight black trousers he proposed to go and pay visits of
thanks to friends who had written to condole with him on the loss
of his father. He had learnt the sad news at Luxor, where I »aw
32 NILE NOTES.
him ashore shaking hands with a sympathising donkey-boy. ' Very
bad accident to my house,' he explained — I thought he meant the
ancestral boiler had burst ; but no—' my father die a week ago ; '
so everybody he passed in Luxor, donkey-boy, seller of Indian
curiosities, anteeka merchant, photographer, shook his hand and
condoled. At Esneh the moon was bright and showed us the long
shadows and forms of all the place going fair-wards. The market-
place was full of figures, screaming, pushing, laughing ; there were
many booths, and from almost all came the nasal gush of native
music and the finger-beat of the drum. The cloudy little cafes
were full to overflowing, and every here and there hung yellow
lanterns, smeared and dim like greasy gold. Notwithstanding his
so recent affliction, the dragoman soon found friends to joy rather
than to sorrow with him, and in due time I was presented to the
lawyer (a hand-shake and an anxious ' How is your health ? '), to
the schoolmaster (' How do you do ? please sit down, have a coffee'),
and to the salt-seller (a native salute and something ornate and
respectful in Arabic). A merrier man than the lawyer I never met
withal : such shouts of laughter, such contortions of mirth, like a
boy at a harlequinade. He was always laughing his turban off
and showing his shaven head. We went into one of the cafes to
see some dancing-girls, and, full as the place was, a seat was soon
found for me by the simple method of sweeping and scraping the
native sightseers off a bench with a stick. I sat facing the band
who were ordered to play an English salute ; they broke into a
galloping circus air, to which the stout young person dancing in vain
tried to adapt herself. The matron of the establishment brought
a sort of pewter church collecting plate for backsheesh ; I gave
the dancer a cigarette and a piastre or two in her cymbals, and we
pushed our way out. In the next establishment it was pretty
much the same, only that the air was rather more cloudy, the
orchestra more torturing, the dancer rather better-looking. Oppo-
site us sat a little merchant on his heels, hilariously drunk ; now
he rested his unsteady head on a neighbour policeman's shoulder,
and now on our old cook's, who with one or two of the crew fol-
lowed us everywhere as Jacks ashore. You don't often see an Arab
drunk ; when you do, you mistake him for a madman. I saw one
other that evening, an old man plucking and clutching his way
through the crowd with knotted, trembling hands ; he was talking
loudly and monotonously to himself, and his vicious old face was
all puckered with deep wrinkles and muddy veins. The people
NILE NOTES. 33
didn't seem to laugh at him ; they rather appeared shocked, as
though he really were mad.
We wandered about under the lawyer's guidance among the
other sights, and found a bunch of dervishes waving and bowing
round a flag, a drum, and a lantern, just like the Salvation Army.
It was an exact counterpart of a performance gi\$en by our crew
one evening as we approached Luxor. We were sailing placidly,
they were doing nothing and were perhaps a little cold, and so the
fancy seized them to burlesque the howling dervishes. It was just
dusk, and in the light of the cook-boy's fire you could see them
bowing and wagging their heads and shoulders, could hear their
short sharp bursts of Allah ! Allah ! as though all the same they
were a little afraid. It was got up on a sudden by Hassan, who,
having had some few whiffs of hasheesh, felt productive and in-
spired. When he's without it he mopes and never says a word,
goes about his work mechanically and sits apart depressed. The
performance of the dervishes of Esneh was just the same as our
crew's, plus the faith and minus the hasheesh.
The crowd, the odours, the shouting, the music — all just as
bewildering as at an English fair — drove us to seek quieter plea-
sures, and we stood for some time on the edge of a silent, many-
circled, squatting cluster of dotted white turbans round a small
space in the centre where sat a storyteller. It was dark there but
for the moonlight, and silent but for the loud, not unmusical, cry
of the entertainer and the echoes of the fair. He put his hand up
to the side of his head (like the costermonger in Leech's drawing
who yells ' Sparrer-grass ! ') and called his story, muezzin-fashion,
fixing the stars with his eyes as the comedian plays at the boy at
the back of the gallery. But what it was all about not even our
dragoman could say, for it was told in some fellaheen dialect that
he was much too genteel to know anything of. So we passed to a
ragged canvas shelter, where the children were patiently waiting
for Punch and Judy. Even here the dragoman found acquaint-
ances ; he knew the boy who beat the drum on one side of the
candle stuck on the ledge above the red shawl that hid the enter-
tainer, and the evil-looking young man on the other who put the
usual questions to Mr. Punch and upbraided him for his wrong-
doing. It was veritable Punch and Judy, squeak and all, only that
dog Toby was reinforced with a large solemn hen, and that the minor
parts in the brutal comedy were a Sheikh, a Turk, and a Nubian
woman, who was Punch's sweetheart, not his wife. It was amaz-
34 NILE NOTES.
ingly indecent ; and the children looked like a group round a con-
jurer at a Christmas party, the little ones in front and the big boys
standing behind and hitting each other.
February 1st. Daraou (570 miles from Cairo]. — Now we
draw near to the true Africa — Semper aliquid novi refert Africa.
This afternoon I found a large snake's skin lying brittle and grey
on the cracked ground. On the clothes of the man who is working
the shadoof, almost naked, lies his dagger, very sharp, in its worn
leathern sheath. Hideous little girls, like the savages in Stanley's
book, pass us with strong whiffs of the castor-oil in which their
plaited hair is soaked. A Beshereen, of the friendly tribe who
patrol the desert and watch the dervish movements, ambles past
bareheaded on his camel, his hair standing out all round his hand-
some head like Kossetti's ' Blessed Damosel.' They say the
Beshereen are of absolutely untainted blood since the days of
Adam ; they look mild warriors, tall and straight, with Greek
noses and brilliant teeth, like pencil-drawings of savages — by
young ladies.
The dragoman has got bad eyes, and has gone off to consult a
medicine-woman in the village. On his return he describes how
she turned the lid back, ran a needle and thread through, and
washed it all out with honey. She makes no charge ; he says,
' She do it all for love of Grawd.'
Friday. Assouan. The First Cataract. — We rode out to
one of the forts in the desert, and, while we were up on the plat-
form examining the Nordenfeldt, we saw a caravan crawling in
below — a long string of burdened camels and the little dotted
figures of the drivers. A soldier was sent down to &top and ques-
tion them, and when we came down reported them from Berber,
in the enemy's country, about two hundred miles from Khartoum.
They were all driven off to cantonments to be examined, and later
in the afternoon, when we went to tea at the mess (you know the
sporting pictures by Alken you see at a mess abroad always, from
Fores', in Piccadilly, and ' Flyaway' winning the Leger of 1835 ?)
we visited them again. I felt so sorry for them, for, since the
recent outbreak and fight at Ambigole,.all caravans coming from
that country have been confiscated. The men looked weary and
drawn after their long desert trudge as they stood round us,
grasping their huge, crusader-like swords ; and the merchant-
adventurer, the owner of it all, particularly corrugated and anxious.
All the camel burdens were loosened and lay on the ground —
NILE NOTES. 35
great packages of gum, which, they tell me, all goes to Europe,
and is all used up in the best French cookery. They knew nothing
of the dervish movements, and declared themselves traders only.
I took one of their swords from them and drew it ; it was like
taking an ancient piece of iron of the time of the Wars of the
Roses out of the armoury of an ancient English country house.
From the other dahabeah comes at night the captain's little
son to sing the Koran to the crew. He swings himself backwards
and forwards, his head wrapped in a shawl, nestled close up against
our reis, who likes it best. Every now and then, instead of the
loud Ah ! of applause that marks the crew's delight when Mustapha
chants ' Oh, my friend, come to me ! My heart is all burnt up
with longing ! ' you hear the softly breathed, the reverential
Allah ! The night is as of purple velvet, on which the stars lie
like cut jewels ; the Nile is a broad, shifting pavement of verde-
antique, washed with milk.
February 7ih. Gerf-Husse)i, Nubia. — It was almost pitch
dark when we stopped sailing. Down the high bank clambered
lean figures, with bowls of » milk and little woven baskets of eggs.
I asked if they would show us their village, and up and after them
we stumbled, following the uncertain light of the draughty lan-
tern. The thick, baked walls of the huts gave out a peculiar
warmth and odour, and from the door of one came the dancing
nicker of a light fire. We went in after some hesitation (the
dragoman whispered there were ' ladies ' there), and found a
vigorous old man, telling his Mussulman beads, cross-legged on a
mud bench, and on the floor bent over the fire the oldest-looking
human being I ever saw alive. Mummies I have seen, and won-
dered not that they were dead, but in what part of her withered,
desiccated frame that old woman found space to keep the stern
vital energies that lined her grim, carved face I can scarcely guess.
She looked no more living than sea-weed does, dried and stretched
on paper. Her arms, her legs (thrust almost into the fire) were
so shrunk that the long leathern flesh and flaccid muscles hung
round them like dangling shreds on sticks. Round her neck were
beads of wood, and round her wrists leathern bracelets (though, to
be sure, I cannot feel certain they were not folds of skin), and on
her face lurked not only lines, but gullies and passages, they
seemed so deep and fallen. But for the occasional upturned
glance of her cold, unquestioning eye, I could not have supposed
her anything else than one of the earliest and best preserved of
36 NILE NOTES.
the remotest queens of Egypt. The old man gave us lusty welcome,
and sent for milk and dates and filled our pockets. He showed us
his long spear that hung against the wall, and told me with a
proud gesture that he had often killed his man ; but more often
with a sword, and taking me by the shoulder showed me fiercely
how he used to do it. He was ninety years old, and had never
been farther from home than Assouan, and then only once. All
his sons sat and stood round us, and in the background against
the mud granary white teeth glimmered and the broad black faces
of the women shone. I asked him what present he would like,
and he asked for a little rice and a little coffee. All the time he
clutched and fingered his Muslim rosary, which, when I admired,
he wanted me to accept. The son came back with us to the
dahabeah, and carried off the coffee and rice in envelopes ; to
which I added a handful of cigarettes and a couple of oranges,
with particular injunctions that one was to be given to the old
gentleman. It is odd, by the way, what one can sometimes get
the natives to accept by way of barter. I remember at one place
below the cataract we could get no milk, certainly not for love,
nor try as we might for money. No, the owner would only let it
go in exchange for clover for the buffalo, of which, of course, we
had none. At last we persuaded him to accept some sugar for his
wife, and for two or three lumps he brought us back a bowl quite
full. At another place where we disturbed and drove away a hus-
band heartily thrashing his wife we bought milk, and when the
husband, on returning, learnt that she had sold instead of giving
it us for nothing, with an outburst of hospitable anger he wanted
to recommence his castigation.
February 9th. Korosko. — Korosko guards the great desert road
that goes to the wells at Murat, held by the friendly Arabs, and
thence to Khartoum ; it was along that road that Gordon travelled
in 1884 to his death. We rode out along it on camels, as far as
the camel-corps station, and the sad little sandy, dusty, English
cemetery, where lie ' Private Michael Koberts, B Company D.L.I.,
died at Korosko, aged 21,' and many another private, aged 18,
and 20, and 22 — very immature and under-sized food for fever and
dysentery. In front of us ambled off straight into the desert four
friendly Arabs on their camels, guns slung behind them, bound
for the wells. They were challenged as to their pass by the far-
off sentry at the block-house high on the hill, for no one leaves
the station or comes into it unless furnished with a pass, We felt
NILE NOTES. 37
that at last we were dropping the tourist and becoming the
traveller ; and more so when we telegraphed to the General at
Wady Halfah for permission to proceed, and were answered that for
these last hundred miles or so of river we were to be furnished
with a corporal and ten men as guard. As I write, their accoutre-
ments and Martini-Henrys are scattered all over the upper deck,
while the men lie about wrapped in their great-coats ; for the wind
in Nubia just now is bitterly cold.
On our way back from our ride, the sheikh of the Bedaween
invited us to drink coffee at his house, and while we sat there, the
sheikh, who had escorted Gordon in 1884 and had known him
weD, told us again the familiar story of his death. It was strange
to hear the touching details of how, knowing, no doubt, that his
hour was come, he threw his sword and revolver on the table to
make their blood-guiltiness the heavier ; while all the while the
regimental band of the 10th Soudanese came to us in sharp, clear
gusts from within the lines, as though it were playing in the
Pavilion Gardens at Folkestone.
Our dapper little officer, who met us on our appearance from
the dahabeah at the top of the bank with a bow and a pleasant
' Happy arrival ! ' was one of the friendliest of well-bred Egyptian
gentlemen, and took us off at once to his quarters. It was orna-
mented with many pictures cut out of the ' Illustrated London
News ' and ' Graphic,' looking something like a roomy, mud-
built, pointsman's cabin, and with particular pride he pulled out
for us from a cupboard, his English library. It consisted of ' Peter
Parley,' half a ' Guide to the Isle of Man,' the ' Belgravia ' for
November 1890, a child's book of geography, the Queen's regu-
lations in faded red, and a small torn atlas.
February 15th. The Second Cataract. Wady Halfah (803
miles from Cairo). — -War, dusty, and sun-baked, stands alert on the
Nile mud-walls of the entrenchment, and scans the dreary desert
hills. From inside one hears the fantastic clash of Arab military
music, and at the gate one sees a row of Soudanese fifer-boys,
curving their huge lips to Orphee aux Enfers. It is all border-
warfare, of the old hand-to-hand, cold steel order ; very like what
it must have been round about a Roman camp in Gaul, when
the Alemanni came down at all sorts of unlikely moments on
Caesar's soldiers out cutting brushwood. We went out under an
escort of twenty men, along the bumpy, rickety line to Sarr;i>s,
the furthest post held by the Egyptian forces, some five-and-thirty
^8 NILE NOTES.
miles from Halfah. The line used to go seventy or eighty miles
furt her, but it has nearly all been ripped up by the dervishes. They
make occasional descents, too, on what is still left in use, for about
three weeks ago they came down in the cool of the evening on
the railway bridge at Gfemai (over which we trundled gingerly),
and set to work to try and destroy it. They came down from the
desert in their usual obstreperous fashion, howling and singing ;
even with an impudent bugle playing the Khedivial hymn, while
the Soudanese regiment under David Bey that had had news of
their coming was lying in wait in excitable ambush. Then, when
they heard the pickaxes at work in the dark, they opened fire, after
despatching a company to cut off their retreat. Only it seems
one of the blacks in his excitement loosed off his rifle, so after
spitting fire at each other for a while, in which the dervishes lost
seven men and some of the Soudanese had their rifles struck, the
marauders got clean away into the desert and the darkness. Fine
fighters the Soudanese, they tell me, and veritable savages in
their lust for blood. Not so very long ago, in one of their en-
counters with the dervishes, they drove a dozen of them into a
native house, and having set fire to it bayonetted them as they
came running out. One of the Soudanese, a huge fellow, begged
hard to take his stand at the door, for, said he, he hadn't killed
a man for a fortnight. And when the next dervish appeared he
ran him through and hoisted him back into the burning house,
like mud into a London mud-cart. But the dervish, writhing on
the steel, managed to bend and clutch the soldier's mouth, and
tore his lip and cheek up as far as the eye.
As we bumped and grunted and rattled along, sometimes by
the long-drawn cataract with its rocks glistening as though they
had just been blackleaded, but more often through country so
ghastly that it seemed as if it were nature-skinned, I could not
help thinking of a Highland line ; there was the same leisurely
method, the same doubt whether we should get up the incline,
the same artless climbing into the train without taking the
trouble to stop it. And when the native had ridden far enough,
first he cast down his bundle and then himself, on to his head or
his back or just sideways, so long as, after all, he fell into the
sand. If unhurt, they pick themselves up and go to what is left
of their villages ; though few indeed are the houses that remain,
and the date trees have most of them their heads lopped by the
raiding dervishes. We reached Sarrass at one o'clock, and found
NILE NOTES. 39
it a fort with its back to the river, and defiant mud front frowning
from a hill into the brooding desert. And the desert here looks
like what I imagine a moon-landscape to be — dead, seared, withered.
Dendur. Monday. On our tuay down. — When we stop for
the. night, the chain cast on shore, the stake driven in, I like to
join the sailor with his metal pot and his lantern, who goes oft' in
search of milk. Together we go, the gleam falling among the
green stalks and white flowers of the bean, on the rich brown
crumbled earth ; along the grey and dried-up watercourses it
falls, on to the mud courtyard, and so far as it can pierce into the
black gaping doorway of the sheikh's house. The sheikh dis-
appears and pulls me out his bed-stand of date-rope into the
courtyard, and I lie on it full length on my back and look up at
the stars. I can hear the washing of the Nile waters, I can see
the flashing two-day-old moon that lies on her back like a silver
gondola, while round the lantern squat Reis Ali and Mustapha
the singer, and Mohammed his friend, come to see if they can
cheapen a little .tobacco. The villagers group round, too, with
their faces brown and black, Arab and Nubian, and beyond from
the star-lit darkness come the voices of the shrouded women,
shrilling the price they want for the milk. Sometimes I hear it
being drawn seething into the bowl ; it is brought to me to taste,
with its rich bubbles, from under the cow that stands in the dark-
ness the other side of the wall. The children run in and out, and
the lantern light falls on their tight bronze skins and the one
lock that plumes their shaven polls. If ever there is a moment's
pause in the chaffering, I hear the cry of the sakkieh, the huge
water-wheel with its dripping buckets, groaning and creaking as
though it were some creature that would be musical if only labour
could teach it how.
Esneh, March 1st. Magagagh, March 17 'th. — . . . . And so
we saunter down stream deliciously, with our labouring oars.
Three weeks after leaving Philae for Wady Halfah we are back
there again, and in the brilliant early morning the sheikh of the
cataract comes on board with his turbulent crew, and amid howls
and yells guides us in safety down the thundering, plunging
great gate. Just before we leaped into the fall, I saw one
of the sheikh's men climb into the bows and throw a stick
into the worst of the water. It seems they think that if there is
going to be a wreck, there is likely to be only one that morning,
and that it may as well overwhelm the stick instead of the
40 NILE NOTES.
dahabeah. And so it was, apparently, for I never saw the stick
again, while we blundered and rocked through without a scratch.
Assouan is passed, Daraou and Silsilis, and the great temple of
Edfu. At Esneh we stop to take bread for the crew, and I go on
shore and meet my hilarious friend the lawyer. He is just like a
rackety solicitor in the Midlands who has given up his too-much
whisky at the ' Greyhound,' and is at last settling down to steady,
reputable practice. The dragoman tells me he is 'a good family
man,' who once had a weakness for the bottle, and thereby caused
his respectable relatives much pain, but has now sworn-off. Now
he sits in his stuffy, untidy little office, and wrangles with a sturdy
client who has a debt of 201. he wants to recover. He comes on
board our dahabeah, and I stuff his pockets with fruit for his little
girl. When he sees our medicine-chest he makes up his mind I
am a doctor, and gives me a detailed account of a complaint (the
remains of the old bottle days), which is unhappily much beyond
my skill. As we drift away from the shore, ' Good-bye, Mahommed ! '
he screams to me, for he declares I am his brother, and has re-
named me accordingly. ' Good-bye, Lawyer ! Drink no more
mastic, or treacherous, cheap French Cognac ; stick to work,
coffee and Nile water ! So shalt thou one day be chef -de-parquet,
and wear a tarboosh and an extremely ill-fitting, black frock-coat.'
At Luxor we have an early morning's quail shooting ; delicious,
the fresh seven o'clock breeze, the vivid rustling corn, the b-r-r-r !
of the line of men beating through the addas, the rapid rise and
flight of the fat birds. No wonder the Israelites gave up com-
plaining against Moses, once they had quails and manna. We
hear no more of ' Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast
thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast
thou dealt with us thus, to carry us forth out of Egypt ? '
Denderah and Keneh are passed, Farshoot and Abydos, and
here we are back at Girgeh, the last station on the line from Cairo.
At Negadah we went on shore in the moonlight and paid solemn
visits, accompanied by a body-guard of Kemingtons and battle-
axes. It seemed as though Coeur-de-Lion and General Ulysses
(frant were marching side by side. We drank coffee and lemonade
in a vast vacant saloon, lined with divans and ornamented with a
few faded photographs, hung very high. A large musical box
chirped and prattled on a little round table in the centre, next a
solitary flickering candle, and down from the tall window-hangings
swung and swerved round the light a couple of shimmering bats.
NILE NOTES. 41
Five miles from Assiout a sand-storm, the worst known on the
Nile for fifty years, struck and nearly wrecked us. I saw it racing
towards us like an express-travelling London fog, with streaming
tattered edges of a decayed mummy-cloth colour. Ten minutes
after being sighted we were in the heart of it, and there we lay,
straining, leaping, rocking, for an hour and a half. The wind
screamed a terrified treble, and the sand flew past as though
thrown at us in immense handfuls. We had to cut down the yard,
broke all our glass and china, drowned every hen, pigeon and
turkey, but we managed (contrary to the reis' expectation) to save
the boat. All the way down since we have been continually seeing
the masts and hulls of wrecked country boats. ' Another boat
drown,' says the dragoman, pointing his dusky forefinger. ' Two
ladies lost and one man. Perhaps we meet his body.'
London, April 2lst. — I read these notes over in the friendly
sunlight of our English spring, and am pleased to find I have said
nothing about either tomb or temple ; not a word even of Abou
Simbel or Karnak, Abydos, Denderah, Edfu, Beni Hassan, or the
tombs of the kings. For masterly descriptions of such I have the
honour to refer the reader to any book on the Nile that has ever
been written. For myself, too, I have to confess that my vocabu-
lary is very limited, and that until Rameses returns and hews me
out an alphabet of granite, I can find no words massive enough to
deal even with one stupendous column of Karnak. And I confess,
further, that while our dragoman used to be pointing us out
cartouches, or hideous sculpture of what he called ' the ram head
of the gawd,' my eyes used to be wandering in search of the cut
and scratched records of early travellers, from the Greek soldiers
of Psammetichus down to the French dragoons of 1799 and the
masterful incisions of Belzoni. I was delighted with a large
B. Mure, 1844, to which a later hand had added an equally large
stultus est, and shall be glad to know who was the John Gordon,
1804, who has carved himself so deeply in Nubia ? But perhaps
my best discovery (after the identification of a slim and genteel
R. M. Milnea, 1843, with the late Lord Houghton) is that of a
well-cut Pranzini, who, once, I believe, a dragoman, afterwards
cut even better some throats in Paris, and was duly and notoriously
guillotined.
42
THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT.
' WE want a bit of rain, sure enough,' said the old drover, as he
sat on a gate overlooking a lot of sheep that were pastured in the
fields beyond, resting on their way to Colnbrook Fair. A thin and
wiry man is the drover, weathered and sunburnt, with the eye of a
warrior under his old pith helmet. He carries bed and baggage
in the shape of an old waterproof slung round his shoulders ; and,
from a short clay in his mouth, he emits every now and then,
thoughtfully, a puff of smoke — smoke which hangs about him like
a mist for want of a breath of air to carry it away. Dry is the
narrow drove-way ; dry as dust the fields, where the sheep, as they
move about, raise the dust in little, clouds.
' But there's no rain coming just yet,' continued the drover,
scanning the grey, hot sky, ' and sheep won't fetch much at the
fair to-morrow, I'm 'thinking. But what's a hundred or so of
sheep' — contemptuously waving his hand towards the flock —
' when you come to think of the thousands I've druv ? And what
sort of a drought do you call this? Why, I've broke a worse
drought than this in my time.'
' You broke a drought, master ? ' said a Sussex looker, slowly,
opening his eyes very wide.
' That did I,' repeated the drover firmly.
And the story of his breaking the drought shall be told as
nearly as possible in the drover's own words, omitting the ejacula-
tions and comments that were drawn from his audience.
' In the year of the gurt drought, I was stockman and drover
along with Mr. John Vine, of Cudworth, as proper a young gentle-
man as ever was seen. But I was Sussex bred, being herd-boy to
Farmer Grey, and might have stopped there all my life and have
been no better than a looker at the end of it, only for my young
mistress, Miss Dulcie Grey, being fallen in love with and wedded
by Mr. Vine. She was a proper sweet young lady was Miss Dulcie,
and like a young chap I worshipped the very ground she trod on,
and there was nothing I wouldn't have gone through for her. And
proud I was when she made her John, as she called him, take me
on, as I've told you, as stockiran, with thirteen shillings a week
THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT. 43
standing money and half a crown a night when driving northways
of London, and a shilling more for our own country, such as
Sussex and Hamsheer — a difference as I could see no reason in then,
and never could since to this day. But it was luck for me, as I
thought at the time, and very well I pleased my master, so that
after a bit it was not only driving I did, but buying and selling
too. And many a hundred pound I brought him home, and might
have been knocked on the head for it if anybody had expected me
of having so much about me. And there wasn't a handsomer
couple in the country than my master and mistress ; and happy !
I should just think they were, as happy as the day is long. When
it wasn't hunting — and she'd a beautiful figure on horseback had
Miss Dulcie — and dinner-parties and card-parties, why, it was
steeplechasing, and racing, and all the diversions you can think of !
And that was how it went on for a year or more, and then a
little lass come along, and Miss Dulcie, as I shall always call her,
didn't get her health quite strdng again, and it was Mr. John as
had to go out by himself and enjoy himself, as he didn't forget
to do.
' One of Mr. John's great friends at the time was Mr. Sandon,
of Bulpits, who was the duke's agent and the man that was most
considered about there, and quite a contrast to Mr. John, for he
was small and wizened, with a club foot, so that he always seemed
to me a ridiculous sort of figure to be stumping about and making
eyes at all the pretty girls he met. But he was a terrible bad 'un,
surely, and yet with such a pleasant tongue in his head that he
might have talked the stone figures off the monuments if he had
set his heart on them. But he couldn't talk over Miss Dulcie,
that I know. Clever as he was, he didn't see that she was only
making sport with him. And one day, when I expect he made
his plan a little bit too plain, the mistress gave him such a dressing
that he went off looking like the very fiend himself, and cussing
and blaspheming in a way that was awful to hear. And when the
master came home, which was a good many days afterwards, there
was a nice to-do between him and Sandon, and words were said
between them that neither could ever forgive.
But from that time it was noticed that things began to go
wrong with John Vine. First there was the lung disease with the
cattle, that lost him some beautiful stock worth thousands of
pounds, you may say. And then there was his betting, that he
had won money by when he didn't want it ; but when things
44 THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT.
turned against him that turned too. It was just as if Squire
Sandon had cast a spell against Cudworth, and where there had
been plenty and happiness there was now nothing but trouble and
quarrels. And then there come the drought. I'm not for saying
that Squire Sandon was at the bottom of that ; but it looked as if
he knew something about it, for he had sold all his stock in the
autumn and given up his upland grazing, that Mr. John had
snapped up eagerly enough. Ah ! he had a sight of pasture had
Mr. John, and for flocks there was none to match him in these
parts ; and as long as the sheep were all right there was nothing
much amiss with John Vine. And then, as I said, there come the
drought.
1 We hadn't had a drop of rain from before Christmas, and now
'twas May. The dust was as thick on the fields as it was on the
roads, and the downs and the pastures were just a sickly kind of
yellow, without a blade of green grass to be seen anywhere. And
the leaves were dropping off the trees, and the big trees in the
woods were turning yellow and dying off, and the big ponds were
baked mud, and the brooks all dried up, and even the deepest
wells were running dry. And the sheep were dying all round ;
you might have known where they lay by the swarms of flies
about and the crows that flapped round — the only creatures that
looked fat and comfortable.
' As if there wasn't misfortune enough at Cudworth, one day
as master was riding over the downs his horse slipped on the turf —
that was like glass, that hard and slippery — and down come the
horse and master underneath. We fetched him home, and there
he lay like a log for weeks and weeks, without a morsel of sense
in his noddle. But then it was that Miss Dulcie showed her
mettle. She was but flimsy in health, but there she was at the
head of everything, riding round the farms with an eye to all that
was doing, and keeping us all hearty and cheerful with the very
sound of her voice. But what could she do — just a bit of a girl,
with her one little babe, against the ruin that was coming with
the drought ? We kept the stock alive with roots and old hay ;
but it was like feeding 'em with gold, for hay was eight pounds a
ton, and turmets couldn't be had for love or money. And says the
mistress to me one day, " Coney," says she, " if the drought don't
break, my heart will."
' That was one evening of a Sunday, I remember, and I felt
sad and sorry for the trouble that was over my poor young mistress,
THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT. 45
that had been such a good one to me ; and I took a walk over the
downs, towards the Beacon Hill, just to spy out the signs of the
weather. Never did I see the sun look so hot and fiery, and the
hills, all yellow and brown, looked to me like the deserts you read
about in Scripture. And then on the hillside I saw one of our
shepherds with his flock, that were scattered about a little copse
that, dry and brown as it was, might give them a mouthful of
herbage here and there. We had seven shepherds, but this was
the oldest of them, and most knowledgeable. There he sat,
whittling away with his knife, and taking no notice, you would
have said, but there was nothing as escaped that old shepherd's
observation. "Shepherd," says I, "you know more about the
weather than most : what do you think about the chance of
breaking the drought ? " Shepherd wasn't a man of words, and
he sat there chipping away with his knife and took no more notice
of me, except for a nod of the head, than if I'd been a fly. But
I knew his ways, and I sat down and waited, and presently shep-
herd began laughing quietly to himself. " What are you laughing
at, shepherd?" said I. "I was laughing at what the crows were
talking about," said he. " And what was that ? " asks I. " You
had better go and ask them." And with that he got up and
chucked a stone against a bush, and two gurt black crows flew out
with such a horrid scream and croak as you never heard. " I hit
un," chuckled shepherd, and, sure enough, there were three black
feathers flying about, and I picked 'em up and stuck 'em in my
hat.
' Well, I watched those two crows as they flew and flew till
they settled at last in a clump of trees a long way off on the
common. And then I began to know where I was, for by that
clump of trees stood Mother Drury's cottage. And if there be
such creatures as witches — I don't say as . there are or as there
aren't — Mother Drury was one of that lot. She wasn't ugly
neither, nor yet old, but there was that about her as gave you a
cold creak in the back, with her gurt black eyes that shone like
fire, and her coal-black hair. But being set upon the business I
was like to go through with it, and, leaving the gruff old shepherd
I stepped out, and presently knocked at Mother Drury's door.
' She opened quite sudden, and stood before me, tall and angry-
looking, with a cloth in her hand, and staunching a wound in the
forehead that the blood was flowing freely from. " Was it you,"
she said, " chucking flint-stones about people's houses and breaking
46 THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT.
1 heir heads ? I'll have ye up before Squire Sandon for this, blame
me if I don't." But I spoke to her so quiet and respectful that
she turned quite civil, and when I'd crossed her hand with a new
half-crown she bad me come in and sit down ; and then, still
speaking her fair, I told her what I thought about the drought.
•: But that," she said, scornful-like, " is what neither you nor I can
meddle with. There's a stronger spell about that than half-crowns
can break." But when I went on to tell her about my young
mistress, and how Squire Sandon had sworn the ruin of her, and
how it was like to come about, then she began to bend a bit round.
It might be as witches have some good feeling about 'em, or it
might be jealousy, or what not ; but certain it is that Mother
Drury come round. "And, ma'am," I said, seeing as she was
softening, u if you had ever happened to do any evil in your life,
if you could do this one good turn it would all be forgiven you."
She laughed, and then she frowned and said : " It isn't I that can
do it, Coney — a poor, sinful woman — but you, Coney, that's a honest
lad so far, and love your mistress just as if she was your sister —
you might try. And this is the way of it," sinking her voice to a
whisper, and looking round as if to make sure that nobody was
listening. " You shall take a black ewe lamb, without a white
fleece about it, and you shall carry it on your shoulders at mid-
night to Wanbury Top. And there you'll find a gurt stone with
a flat top, and you shall kill the lamb with a knife, and sprinkle
the stone three times with its blood, and then you shall say the
words that I shall teach you. And then you shall drag the
carcase of the lamb three times round the stone, and then run
and save yourself, for there's death waiting for you if you turn or
look."
' Well, the words she taught me I could tell 'em now, but I
will not, for there might come harm of it. But as I went home
that night I said to myself, " Stuff and nonsense about a black
lamb and Wanbury Top. Why, there isn't such a lamb in all
master's flocks, and it's a good ten miles to Wanbury Top, and
shall I lose my night's rest and a day's work for such foolery ? "
That was my last thought as I went to sleep, but early in the
morning, just before dawn, I saw a light under iny cottage door,
and there was somebody knocking. " Get up, Coney," said my
mistress, for she it was with a lantern in her hand. And she
waited for me out in the yard till I came down, a bit scared. " Is
master worse?" I asked. "No, he's no worse," she said sadly,
THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT. 47
" nor better. Coney, I want you to start before daybreak for Wan-
borough Fair with two thousand sheep. Get them off the farm
before sunrise, or I fear they will be stopped. Squire Sandon, I've
heard, is going to put in a distraint for the rent."
' That was a pretty brisk business for me, you may think, but
before sunrise we were on our way — me and another man, with two
lads and our dogs — and we drove 'em along in two lots, a thousand
in each. Once on the road there was no particular hurry, for we
had the whole day to reach Wanbury, the fair being on the next
— one of the biggest sheep fairs in the country at that time. But
what kind of a fair was it likely to be that year, when everybody
wanted to sell and no buyers ? " Now," said my mistress, as her
last words, " I trust it to you, Coney, to get the best price you
can, but if it's only five shillings a head you must sell them. Any-
how, with five hundred pounds I can keep Squire Sandon out of
the place."
' Halfway to Wanbury, who should meet me but Squire Sandon
himself, trotting along on his fine black mare. " Well, Coney," he
said, with a malicious kind of a laugh, " so you're going to Wan-
bury fair ! I shall be there," said he, " and if you don't ask too
much perhaps I may buy." A few miles on and we came to Bui-
pits, which was a beautiful place where the dukes had lived once
upon a time ; but the big house was pulled down long ago, and
now Squire Sandon lived in the dower house, as they called it, but
with all the lovely meadows and the park lands. And meeting with
the squire's stockman, he took me round to see the place. And
where everything else was as dry as a dead stick, there, if you'll
believe me, all was green and fresh, with the heaviest crop of hay
I ever saw just cleared off the meadows, and the young grass
coming on enough to feed some thousands of sheep. For there
was a big lake right above, and sluices to flood the meadows, and
in the park there was that depth of sward that the drought had
hardly touched it. But how black it looked against the squire,
who would make a fortune out of the drought, while my lord's
poor farmers were being ruined by it. And then the stockman
showed me his little flock, which was all his master had kept — a
kind of fancy breed of the old South Down sort, all black and
curly like the toys you see at the fair. Kerow ! said a crow, and a
black shadow fell across ; and then I felt, with a kind of sinking of
the heart, that all this had been foreseen. There was the black
lamb that was meant to break the drought, and that night we
48 THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT.
were bound to pasture our sheep on the common all about \Van-
bury Top.
' " Oh, if somebody else had been picked out for the job ! "
said I to myself, for I was frightened, I can tell you. But I felt-
that I had got to go through with it. And when we come to
Wanbury Common and well settled the sheep for the night, with
the dogs on the watch, and us taking our rest in a shed, I got up
and stole away back to Bulpits. I had noticed the lay of the
ground, and, knowing the ways of sheep, made no disturbance
among them, but picked out my black ewe lamb, and, throwing her
over my shoulder, made my way, not across the Common, but by a
path through a wood that led to Wanbury Top. Yes, I was a
sheep-stealer, and might be hanged or transported if anybody
caught me. But when I got to the wood I felt safe. Nobody had
seen me ; nobody followed me. But it was awfully black under
the trees — they were old thorns and yews ; and now it was an owl
that gave a shriek that made me jump almost out of my skin, or
some old crow would give a knowing croak that sent a shiver
through me. But I found the stone, as the wise woman had said,
right at the very top where it was clear and bare, and where you
looked down on all the country round, with here and there a light
like a star from some farm or mansion, and a little faint light that
moved slowly along in the far distance I took to be from a ship at
sea. But now the horn of the old moon was rising over the woods,
and I heard the church clocks all round that were chiming twelve,
so still and quiet it was.
' Well, I performed everything as I had been told, and I said the
terrible words, and as I was drawing the carcase round for the third
time — would you believe it, mates? — it was snatched away from
me as if some wild beast had got hold of it, and I ran and ran till
I rolled head over heels into a sand-pit, and there I lay half buried
in the soft sand too terrified to move. But I heard thunder
muttering overhead, and there seemed a kind of freshness in the
air, and I even thought I felt a drop or two of rain as I crept back
to the shed as soon as daylight showed me the way.
' But with the full shine of day everything looked as bright
and droughty as ever, and the only clouds were clouds of dust all
round that showed where people were driving their sheep along to
the fair. And I never saw such a fair, where there were so many
sheep and so few buyers. I stood there for four mortal hours, and
not a soul came nigh me. Then a dealer came along and offered
THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT. 49
ine a shilling apiece for the lot. Soon after this I saw Squire
Sandon riding round. " Well, Coney," he said, in his bitter-sweet
voice, " what are you asking for the sheep now? " " I'll take five
shillings a head, as it's you, squire," I said, full of trouble to see the
stock thrown away like that. " Five shillings ! " laughed he.
" Come, for Mistress Dulcie's sake I'll give you half a crown ! ;'
But I shook my head. That was the price my mistress had set
me. and not a penny less would I take. " All right," laughed the
squire, " I can get as good for eighteenpence." But I hadn't
another offer, and when night came on I druv the whole flock
back to the Common. But how was I to meet my mistress with
the sheep unsold that there was no feed for on the farm, and with
no money in my pocket for her, and the bailiffs perhaps waiting
for the flock as I drove them in ? And after all the wickedness
that I'd done to break the drought to find it stronger than ever.
Yes, it was enough to break my heart, as well as hers — my poor
young mistress !
' It was a terrible hot night, and I took my blanket out of the
shed and laid it in a furze-bush, and lay there looking at the stars,
that shone brighter, I think, than ever I saw them before ; and
soon I forgot my trouble in sleep — and yet not altogether, for in
my dreams I was racing round Wanbury Top, with one like a
roaring lion at my heels.
' But I could hardly have slept an hour when I awoke and
found myself in a pool. Earning! — ay, such beautiful rain as
you never saw, so thick and yet so gentle and so steady, while the
ground fairly steamed with it. Drenched as I was, I jumped
about like a mad one. " Coney," I said, " you've saved your mis-
tress, you've saved the flock, you've saved your country ! Coney,
you've broke the drought ! "
' And what a moniing it was, with the beautiful rain still fall-
ing, and the birds all chirping, and the country turning green as
you looked at it ! Soon I spied a dealer 1 knew galloping along-
over the common. " Sold your sheep yet, Coney? "he cried, as
soon as he was within earshot. " No, nor don't want to ! " said I.
" Come, I'll give you fifteen shillings all round." " Double that
may fetch me," for I saw some more riding over the common.
But who was the first, do you think, but Squire Sandon on his
black horse. "Coney!" he cried, in his wickedest voice of all,
" Coney, what are you chaffering with my sheep for ? You know,"
he said, jumping off his horse and coming close to me, " that you
VOL. XXI. — NO. 121, N.S. 3
50 THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT.
sold me the whole flock at half a crown yesterday and had earnest
money, and here's the rest of the price in notes. Xow," he went
on, muttering in my ear, " stand to me, and there's fifty pounds
for you ; deny me, and I'll give you into custody for sheep-steal-
ing." " You've no proof," stammered I, for I was fairly upset
with the notion of this wicked creature getting the better of me.
And how could he have known anything about the business of the
black lamb, unless he had been there in the form of an old crow,
or perhaps something worse? "Proof!" said he. "Haven't I
proof enough when the skin of the creature is hanging up in the
very shed where you slept ? Come, let us step in and close our
bargain before anybody is the wiser." I looked in, and there, sure
enough, hung against the wall the skin of the black lamb ; and
then I thought I was lost.
' And then I heard more horses' hoofs on the turf, and^)ehold,
it was my young mistress, who had ridden over to find me, and
with her was a fine tall youth on horseback, whom I knew from
the family likeness to be her brother Jem, who had gone out to
Australia some years before. " Oh, Coney ! " she cried as soon as
she saw me, " you haven't sold the sheep, I hope, for here is my
brother, who wants to buy the whole flock."
' " The sheep are mine, ma'am," said Sandon, taking off his
hat with a sweep of the arm. " I bought them of your man
yesterday for half a crown apiece, but I'll sell them back at fifty
shillings."
' " Oh, Coney ! " cried my mistress in distress, " you have
ruined us all."
' " He lies, ma'am ! " I cried ; " he lies ! The sheep are yours
my dear Miss Dulcie. I sold no sheep to him or anybody else.
And now send me to prison, Squire, or where you please. Body
and soul ! What does it matter, as long as I've broke the drought
and saved my mistress ? "
' That man's rage was so violent that it took away his senses.
He fell on the ground foaming in a fit, and was taken home. And
when he came round enough to think about me I was far enough
away, for I thought it best to take a bit of droving elsewhere ; and
I got a job for Scotland with forty forest ponies and threescore
runts and two white donkeys for to drive into the Lothians. And
when I came back I found that Squire Sandon had sold off and
gone nobody knew where. And Mother Drury's cottage was empty
and she gone, and the old shepherd was dead, so that there was
THE BREAKING OF THE DROUGHT. 51
nobody but me to know anything at all about the rights of the
matter. And Mr. John was on his legs again, but a quieter man
and a steadier ; and before long he and my mistress sold off to
good advantage, and went with brother Jem to Australia. And
one of her boys — a fine young fellow, like a young lord he was —
came and found me out not long ago. He'd heard a lot of old
Coney from his mother, he said, and he was to give me a five-
pound note for old times' sake. " And we've got droughts out
there," he says, laughing ; " but nobody to break 'em for us."
" No, nor yet in old England neither," said I, " for the secret dies
with old Coney, and you don't catch him at it any more." '
3—2
52
TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
SHORT texts and curious mottoes were, sometimes placed in
conspicuous positions on the exteriors of the old homes of our
forefathers; and on their fireplaces, along the beams of their
ceiling?, over the windows, and along the cornices of their chief
chambers. We may see them still in many an old mansion ; and
when repairs are made to old houses the removal of more modern
additions sometimes reveals the presence of others that have been
blocked up in days past remembrance. In Tewkesbury, for
instance, only a short time ago, a mantelpiece was uncovered, in
an upper room in an old house, which bore the following words : — -
Three things pleseth booeth God and man : concorde between bretheren :
amytie between nayghbours : and a man and his wyfe that agreeth well together.
Fower things hurt much the site of man : teares, smoke, wynde and the worst of
all to se his frends unluckye and his fose happye. These foure thyngs are rare
sene : a fayre youoge womane withought a lover, a younge man withought myerth,
an old useseror withought money, any great fayre withought music.
In Tudor times especially, cornices seem to have been con-
sidered a proper field for the display of scriptural texts and
fanciful proverbs. Cornices in chambers in Caerlaverock Castle
and Earl's Hall still bear witness to the custom. In the latter
may yet be deciphered : —
A nyce wyfe and a back doore often make a rich man poor ;
and: —
Trust upon good assurance and try ere you trust for fear of repentance.
The walls of the residences of the fifth Earl of Northumber-
land, Wressil Castle and LeckingSeld Manor House, were embel-
lished in a similar manner : —
He that slepithe in somer in winter sufferithe payne,
And he that in youthe is ydyll in age must needs comp'layne,
And he that in youthe withe virtu maketh allyance
In age of all grace shall have plenteous habundaunce.
On a frieze in a room in Kipley Castle is carved :—
In the yeare of owre Ld. M.D.L.V. was this howse buylded by Sir Wyllyam
Ingoldsby Knight, Phillip and Marie reigning at that time.
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 53
Further south, round the cornice of a chamber in Ockholt
Manor House, Berkeley, runs
Fythfully serve ;
and still more southwards, on the cornice of an ancient room in
a farmhouse that was once part of Nutley Abbey, Buckingham-
shire, occurs the Stafford knot and motto : —
En un plaisance.
An Elizabethan chamber thus adorned as to the cornice, with
tapestry on the walls below, a fretwork or panelled ceiling, a
fine chimneypiece rich with sculptured ornaments and mottoed
scrolls, and heraldic devices in the small leaded panes of its
windows, must have been a pleasant picture to look upon.
The legends chosen for beams were as pithy ; such as one at
Somerset Court, South Brent, which runs : —
I wrong not the poor, I feaj not the rich ;
I have not tooe littel, nor I have not tooe much,
I was set up right and even.
And, on the other side —
Be you merry and be yon wise
And doe you not noe man despise.
Over the great bay-window of Little Moreton Hall, in
Cheshire, is carved : —
God is al in al thing. This windows where made by William Moreton in the
yeare of our Lorde M.D.LIX. Rychard Dale, carpeder, made this window by the
grac' of God.
On a chimneypiece in the manor house at South Wroxall, a
few miles from Bath, once the residence of Sir Walter Raleigh,
are many posies and mottoes, such as
Death seizes all.
A chimneypiece at Knolle is inscribed : —
Aestate frigeo Hyeme incalisco ;
and a mantelpiece in the hall of the Vicar's Close, at Wells, sets
forth :—
In vestris precibus habeatis commendatum Dominum Riciim Pornroy, quern
salvet Deus. Amen.
On the mantelpiece of the porter's lodge of the hospital of St.
Cross, Winchester, is cut : —
Dilexi Sapientiam.
54 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
On a chimneypiece in an old house in Widemarsh Street,
Hereford, is cut : —
When you sytte by ye fyre to keep yrselfes warme
Take heede leaste yr tongues doe yr nayboures noe harme.
Lord Armstrong has caused to be carved upon the mantel-
piece of his dining-room at Cragside, in North Northumberland,
among the heathery moors and rock-strewn hills : —
East or West, hame is best.
Eeferences are occasionally found in old letters to inscriptions.
Here is an instance in a letter from a well-known personage, the
poet ' rare Ben Jonson.' It runs : —
July 21, 1623.
My dear Frende,
I hope the papers I sente bi mi cousin arrived safe, and that they may be
advantagious to you. I have met with 2 very interesting books laterly which
I will lend to you as soon as I can conveny'ntly spare them. My neighbour
Mayster Lee has finished building his house, which is of a very fair construc-
tio' but hardly capacious enough I think for his large family. Oner ye dore
he has caused to be cut on a stone : —
BARTHOLOMEW : LEE : BVILDED : MEE :
IN: 1623.
Hoping this may meet you in good health as it leaves mee,
Your hiible friend and servant
BEN JONSON.
We have mention that Thorpe the Elizabethan architect
designed a house for himself on a fantastical plan formed by a
combination of the initials of his name, I and T. The offices
were to be in the I, and the principal apartments in the T ; and
the epigraph to the design was as follows : —
These 2 letters I and T
Joyned together as you see
Is meant for a dwelling house for me
John Thorpe.
Canon Raine relates that Mathew Beckwith, one of Cromwell's
captains, put over his door, at Tanfield, a Latin motto to the effect,
If religion nourishes I live ;
whereupon the vicar, who lived opposite to him, put over his
door : —
I do not heed the man the more
That hangs religion at his door.
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 55
And sometimes we come across references to them in old
works. When Piscator in The Complete Angler has invited
Viator to Beresford Hall, he takes him in the morning, which is
* a delicate morning indeed,' to the river and his little fishing-
house, when Viator exclaims : —
Stay, what's here over the door ? PISCATOEIBUS SACEUM. Why then, I perceive
I have some title here : for I am one of them, though one of the worst ; and here
below it is the cypher too you spoke of, and 'tis prettily contrived. Has my
master Walton ever been here to see it, for it seems new built?
There is no certainty as to the period when the custom of
making these inscriptions began to prevail. From the times
when the powerful steel-clad baron built his impregnable fortress
and placed his coat of arms on a panel over the dark archway of
his barbican, down to the days when Beau Nash was lording it at
Bath in velvet and lace ruffles, it seems to have maintained
continuity. The largest number of examples left us, perhaps,
belong to the days of Queen Elizabeth and her immediate
successors. In our own time, though no longer so much in
esteem as formerly, it is occasionally continued, as when the
Koyal Exchange was rebuilt and the text spread along its noble
front : —
The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.
Looking from one to another, whatever may have been their
intention, and upon the quaint old tablets at the corners of streets
in the metropolis, such as that still in situ which says —
This is South Molton Street 1721—
and bearing in mind the old signs, the legends on furniture,
ware, and metal-work, and the certainty that all these inscrip-
tions were formerly more numerous than we now find them, we
feel the country must have presented somewhat of the aspect of
an open book to our ancestors, which they could read as they
travelled about. The short pithy sentences would doubtless open
up trains of thought then as they do now to us, and sink deep
into their hearts, even to the extent of influencing their actions,
as in the case of Dr. William Chambers, in our own day, who
mentions : —
He yt tholis over cvmmis,
cut upon the doorway of an old house in Edinburgh, encouraged
him to bear hardships and induced him to persevere in his projects ;
56 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
or in that of Canon Bell, to whom the inscription over the door
of a house in Coire, ' Per Angusta ad Augusta,' recently suggested
two charming sonnets.
In this same part of the kingdom, the 'dark and true and
tender north,' there are some very interesting examples, especially
in Edinburgh. On John Knox's picturesque house, among the
rich carvings and latticed frames, there runs : —
Lvfe God abvf e al, and Yi nychtbovr as yi self ;
on Thomas Boreland's house, dated 1675 :— -
Fear God, and Honour the King ;
and on a house in Baxter's Close : —
Blesset be the Lord in His gifts for now and ever.
In Lady Stair's Close we may read : —
Fear the Lord and depart from evill ;
and in the Old Bank Close : —
In the is al my traist, 1569.
On a fine old tall mansion, once the residence of the Sempell
family, in SempelFs Close, there is the motto :—
Praised be the Lord my God, my strength and my Redeemer, Anno Dom. 10)58.
On another mansion, once the home of Scottish nobles, near the
house known as Moray House, there are two tablets, on one of
which is written : —
Hodie mihi : eras tibi. Cur igitur curas ? 1370 ;
and on the other : —
Ut tu linguae tuas, sic ego mear. aurinm, dominus sum ;
and along the front runs : —
Constant! pectori res mortalium umbra.
Latin mottoes of similar brevity occur in Cowgate, Canongate,
Blackfriars Wynd, West Bow, Anchor's Close, the old Assembly
Kooms, and in Rae's Close.
A house in James's Court, bearing date 1622, has : —
Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
A doorway in Milne's entry has :- -
God is al his gifts 1580.
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 57
In Baxter's Close we may read :—
Blessit Be the Lord In His Gifts for Now and Ever.
Many of the country houses of the ancient Scottish nobility
and gentry have also pithy inscriptions. Boswell mentions his
pleasure when he showed Dr. Johnson the motto on his ancestral
home, Auchinleck : —
Quod petis, hie est, Est salubris, animus si te non deficit requus.
He also gives, in his account of the same tour to the Hebrides, a
long inscription as occurring atDunvegan Castle ; and Dr. Johnson
mentions another as being on Maclean's Castle. The latter
says : —
Very near the house of Maclean stands the castle of Col, which was the
mansion of the Laird, till the house was built: It is built upon a rock, as Mr.
]>oswell remarked, that it might not be ruined. It is very strong, and having
been not long uninhabited, is yet in repair. On the wall was, not long ago, a
stone with an inscription, importing, that if any man of the clan of Maclonich
shall appear before this castle, though he come at midnight, with a man's head
in his hands, he shall there find safety and protection against all but the king.
At Marlefield House, where James Thomson and Allan Ramsay
visited, which is a long double-winged house, with many windows,
standing in lovely scenery, with wide-spreading limes, firs, elms,
and beeches around, there is a coat of arms over the door with
the motto : —
Benedictus qui toilet crucem.
On the front of a tower, now incorporated with Houndwood
House, near Berwick, in which Queen Mary once slept, is an old
stone brought from an old mansion-house at Fulfordless, where
the owners' ancestors resided. This has a monogram on a shield,
with a rhyming couplet round it : —
Nunc mea Tune Hvjvs
Post illivs nescio cvjvs. 1656.
Another old stone removed in a similar manner, to be pre-
served, is built into a garden wall at Yair. This was brought
from Whyt Bank tower. It is inscribed : —
1661. All is vanity. One thing is needful.
And on the stonework of a window occupied by Queen Mary, and
called Queen Mary's room, is an inscription of which the following
is still decipherable: —
Feir God, flee from synnc,
And ruak for ye lyfe everlastying.
58 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
In the wall within the principal doorway of Marischal College,
Aberdeen, is a stone taken from the original building founded by
George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal, inscribed with his motto : —
They haif said : Quhat say they : Let them sav.
On a Flemish-looking house in Stirling, in Baker Street, is
inscribed : —
Heir I forbear nay name or arms to fix,
Lest I or myne should sell these stones and sticks.
In the castle wynd is a building known as Mar's work. Over
the main entrance may be read : —
The mair I stand on oppin hicht.
My faultes mair subiect ar to sicht.
From this we may learn that the * fierce light that beats upon a
throne ' was not an unknown fact in the days of its erection. A
second rhyme adds : —
I pray all luikairs on this luging
Vith gentilee to gif their iuging.
And a couplet in the rear of the same building continues : —
Espy, speak forth and spair nocht,
Consider veil and cair nocht.
On a small house near Lark Hall, Lanarkshire, is placed : —
Better a wee hus than nae bield.
Over the door of an old house in a court off Trongate, Glas-
gow, runs : —
Tak tent in time, ere time be tint.
On a house at Whithorn, once used as a schoolhouse, is in-
scribed : —
Qui studet optatam cursu contingere met am
Multa tulit fecitque puer, sudavit et alsit.
And below this runs the proverb :—
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it. 1730.
Wedderburn Castle, close to which are some very fine yew
trees, has on its front the arms of the Homes of Wedderburn,
with the mottoes : —
Remember
and
True to the end.
A stone from their old house is let into the wall in the court at
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 59
the back of the castle, which is a comparatively modern building.
It bears a monogram of Home and Sinclair and this inscription: —
Georges Hum Dns De Vedderburn me fecit fieri.
Stenhouse House, at Saughton, about two miles west of Edin-
burgh, dated 1623, picturesque with corbie-stepped gables and
high chimney-stacks, has inscribed on the handsome doorway : —
Blessit be God for al his giftes.
On the English side of the border, in Northumberland, West-
moreland, and Cumberland, there are also frequent examples. In
the grey old, hardy, stony border-town Alnwick, where, though
the massive and high stone wall that once surrounded it has been
taken down, there still stands the same stupendous gateway that
was part of it, is a very interesting specimen. It occurs on a long
low thatched house with a bay window, and is placed on the wide
and broad lintel of the doorway : —
That which your father old hath purchased and left you to possess do ye
dearly hold to show his worthiness. M. W. 1714.
A small house in Roxburgh Place, in the same town, is in-
scribed : — Haud mdra festina T.A. 1780.
And over the archway of the grand old castle, the home of the
ancient Percies, is a panel charged with the Percy lion, under
which is carved :- Esperance en Dieu.
Wafkworth has an interesting example in the charmingly pic-
turesque hermitage, by the river-side, cut out of tne sandstone
cliff, where the hermit has carved over the inner side of the
doorway : —
Fuerunt mihi lacrymte mese panes die ac nocte,
now getting very illegible. There is an old tablet, built into the
walls of Witton Castle, inscribed : —
Anno Regis Edwardi Quinti ;
and another, that is coeval with the fine tower in which it is
placed at Elsdon, inscribed : —
B. D. D. Eede,
which represents Robertus Dominus de Kede. A small house at
Beadnell has the motto
Redde diem
carved on it. Over the doorway of Felton vicarage, in a
60 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
neighbourhood dear to the brethren of the angle, is a triangular
panel inscribed to the memory of a former vicar in the seventeenth
century.
In the same pleasant village there is an old cream-coloured
Jacobean mansion, between the roadside and the riverside, beau-
tified by climbing plants. It has a large panel over the inviting
doorway inscribed :—
By wisdom this house was builded, and by understanding was established.
The sunny sloping pomiferous town of Hexham has several
examples. On a house in Gallowgate, now known as the Skinners'
Arms, is the following paradoxical statement, cut in stone : —
C. D. 1683. .
Reason doth wonder, but Faith he tell can
That a maid was a mother and God was a man.
Let Reason look down and Faith see the wonder,
For Faith sees above and Reason sees under.
Reason doth wonder what by Scripture is meant,
Which saith that Christ's body is our Sacrament,
That our bread is His body and our drink is His blood,
Which cannot by Reason be well understood,
For Faith sees above, and Reason below,
For Faith can see more than Reason doth know.
On an Elizabethan house in the market-place of the same
ancient Saxon town is cut pn.the door-head : —
Soli Deo Coeli ac Soli Creator! Laus IVLII. 15. Ao Dxi 1G41.
And another house, built of stone, with a bay-window and dormers,
in Gilesgate, has cut on the lintel of the doorway : —
Honi soit qui mal y pens. W. S. B. Anno Domini 1G38.
In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in some of the smoke-dyed streets
in the old parts of the town, are several very interesting old
houses ; and among them may be seen a few inscriptions. The
oldest house of all, which is in Low Friar Street, fcas but a Laocoon-
like group of dolphins sculptured between the two windows of
the upper floor. In Monk Street there is an inscription on an
ancient house, now let out in tenements : —
By hammer and hand
All artes do stand.
1679.
And in this same neighbourhood are others chiefly relating to the
repairs effected by the Incorporated Companies to which they be-
long.
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 61
The neighbouring counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland
present us with several examples carved on castles, pele-towers,
manor-houses, and farm-houses. Dr. M. W. Taylor, Penritb, com-
municated a considerable number of these to a meeting of the
Koyal Archaeological Institute at Carlisle, which have been printed
in the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmoreland Anti-
quarian and Archaeological Society. The motto ' Fear God ' occurs
at West Newton as : —
F. V. Fear God, 1G75;
and in the village of Blennerhasset as : —
J. I. N. I. 1686. God Fearc.
On the Grange House of Demains, near Kirkoswald Castle,
occurs : —
Thomas Bartram ami Bcnct Bart ram made this house A.D. 10tj2. God wills it,
so arranged and abbreviated as to puzzle all comers. On the
lintel of the doorway of Pelutho House, Abbey Holme, is
carved : —
Eemember, son, when I am gon I was the founder of this ston. Fer God. 1685.
F.S. IS. AS. IS. D.
On a house at Threlkeld, with a date in Roman numerals, is
carved : —
This building's age these letters show, though-all may read yet few will know.
Some inscriptions are repeated on two edifices, with but the
slightest alteration or adaptation. At Blencow Hall, which is a
characteristic example of an old manor-house having embattled
towers and a great dining-hall, over the principal doorway in the
courtyard are shields bearing the arms of Blencow and Cracken-
thorpe, and initials, and a legend curiously arranged to read : —
Quorsum 1590. Vivere mori. Mori Vitas. Henricus Blencow.
And at Mill beck Hall, not far away, may be read over the door-
way:—
1592. Quorsum. MAY'. Vivere mori. Mori vivere. Nicholavs Williamson.
Dr. Taylor puts this construction on these two mottoes : —
Whither ? (are we going). To live is to die. To die is to live (eternally).
At Crakeplace Hall there is a stone over the doorway, inscribed:—
1612.
Christopher Crakeplace built the same
When he was servant to Baron Altham.
62 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
At Cliburn Hall, the fortified seat of the Cliburne family in
the days of the Plantagenets, there is a large square slab that
was once over one of the doorways, on which is a shield, the
initials of the owner, K.C., and this inscription : —
Rychard Clebun thus they me cawl, wch in my tyme hath bealded ys hall.
The yeare of cure lord God who lyst for to neuen 1567. R. D. mayson.
This inscription is only slightly varied from one at no great
distance that had been incised a few years previously ; for at New-
biggen Hall, the seat of Christopher Crackenthorpe, is a similar
legend which runs thus :—
Christopher Crackenthorpe thus ye me calle,
Whye in my tyme dyde bylde this halle,
The yer of oure lorde who lyst to se
A.M. fyve hundred thyrty and three.
A successful merchant in Penrith founded a school, and carved
on the front of the schoolhouse :—
Ex Sumptibus Dn. Wil. Eobinson civis Lond. Anno 1670.
Near Cockermouth, a mansion built by the Swinburnes, now used
as a farmhouse, has the following :—
John Swynburn, esquire : and Elizabeth, his wyfe,
Did make cost of this work in the daies of ther lyfe.
Ano. Dom. 1581. Ano. Reg. 23.
Dalston Hall has an inscription on the tower that simply
records : —
John Dalston, Elsabet wiphe, mad ys byldyng.
And below the chapel window was carved : —
Ys chappie was built by Thomas
Lord Clifford, Anno Domini One Thousand 400-5-1.
On the lintel of a small house at Eamont Bridge, on the West-
moreland side, is cut : —
H. P. 1671. Omne solum forti patria est.
On Barton Hall is inscribed :—
Non est hsec requies 1628.
and on Barton Vicarage : —
L. D. Non mihi, sed successoribus, 1637.
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 63
On an arched gateway at Asklam Hall is cut : —
Thomas Sandford Esquyr
For this payd meat and hyre
The yeare of ovre Saviovre
XV hundred and seventy fovre.
Over a doorway at Hutton John is carved :—
Andreas Hudlestcn fieri fecit soli Deo honor et gloria. 1662.
Catterlen Hall, now occupied as a farmhouse, has a tablet
with the arms of Vaux on it, around which runs : —
Let mercy and faithfulness never goye from ye.
The following is carved below : —
At thys tyme is
Kowland Vaux
Lorde of this
place and bull
ded thys hall yr
of God 1577. "
Johnby Hall has the following : —
0 God, give me wisdom to belove thee ;
and
1583. Nicholas mys Grave maret Margaret Telleb heyre Thomas his sone maret
Elisabet Dacre Willm his sonne here now dvell niarret Isabel Heyre to Martendal.
To God I prajTe be with us allvaie.
The outer gateway of Brougham Castle has an inscription similar
to that on Windsor Castle, in which William of Wykeham is ac-
credited with recording * This made Wickham,' which says briefly: —
Thys made roger.
Carlisle Castle has a tablet which like so many others has been
brought from another position. It bears the arms of England
and France, E K., and the motto and date : —
Dieu et mon Droit, 1577.
Below runs : —
Sumptib' hoc fecit pp op Elizabeth Kegina occiduas d'ns Scroop an regit oras.
This was at first placed between the keep and Queen Mary's
tower, but has been removed to face the Captain's tower.
64 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
JI. H. D. Peregrines hie nos reputamus. 1650.
occurs on the house of Halton of Greenthwaite.
Lancashire has a few specimens of inscriptions, chiefly on the
fine Elizabethan mansions that were erected before the manufac-
turing resources had been developed to such an extent as to con-
vert the sylvan and rural features of the district into forests of
factory chimneys. Speke Hall, about- eight miles from Liverpool,
is a very picturesque many-gabled mansion, black and white with
half-timber work, or magpie, or post and petrel work. Along the
verge beam below the windows in the central gable are the
words : —
This worke 25 yards long was wholly built by Edw. N. Esrj. : Anno 1598.
Eound the frieze of the dining-room is carved : —
Slepe. not. tell. y. hathc. consedered. how. thow. hathe. spent, y. day. past. if.
thow. have. well. don. thank. God. if. othr. ways. re. pent. y. e.
On the carved lintel of the doorway of Handforthe Hall runs : —
This house was builded in the year of our Lord God, 1557, by Miriam Brereton,
Knight, whom maryed Margaret, daughter and heare of Willyam Handforth,
of Handforthe Chause, and had issue 6 sonnes and 2 daughters.
On the tower at Whitehall runs : —
Franciscus Salkeld, Esq. Thomas Salkeld. Hoc fecerunt 1580.
A great fire occurred in Nantwich, Cheshire, in 1583, when
150 houses and thirty shops were burnt in one night. Collections
were authorised to be made all over the kingdom for help to
repair these losses, and the following inscription, to be seen on
one of the houses in the High town, is evidence of the great
sympathy on the part of the queen : —
God grant ovr ryal qveen in England longe to raign,
For she hath pvt her helping hand to bild this towne again.
On an old house in Tarporley, in this same county, are the two
following distichs, accompanied by the crests and initials of Ealph
Done, four other crests, and the coat of Arderne : —
Ralphe Done Esquyer, the Lorde of thys place,
Was an eade to this buldyng in every cace.
Jhon Winter, 158G.
Fenys quoth Jhon Newson hath kept hys promes just
In buldyng of thys house in Awgust.
Anno 1585.
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 65
At Button Hall, now used as a farmhouse, over the doorway, may
be read a similar legend: —
Syr Pcyrs Dutton Knight Lorde of Button, and my lady Dame Julian his
wife, made this hall and buylding, in the yere of cure Lord God a MCCCCCXI1L,
who thanketh God of all.
Over the great bay-window of Little Moreton Hall, as mentioned,
runs the following statement carved in the woodwork : —
God is al in al thing. This windows where made by William Moreton in the
yeare of oure Lorde MDLIX. Rychard Dale Carpeder made this window by the
grac' of God.
In Yorkshire, in a chamber in the great tower of Ripley Castle ,
is the following inscription carved on the frieze of the wainscot: —
In the yere of owre Ld M.D.L.V. was this house buylded. by Sir Wyllyam
Ingoldby, Knight. Phillip and Marie reigning at that time.
The old three-gabled hall at East Ardsley has over its doorway,
dated 1632, the motto:—
In Domino Confido.
On Fountains Hall, near Fountains Abbey, built with the stones
of the grand old abbey, occur the crests of Sir Stephen Proctor
and his wife, with this motto : —
Eien trovant, gaineray tout,
which, bearing in mind the source of his materials, must have
been singularly apposite. Some mottoes on a chimneypiece in
Carbrook Hall, near Sheffield, should be mentioned : —
Understanding reacheth Heaven. Understanding is a well-spring of life.
Good understandings depart from evil. Ignorance is a beast.
Near Ilkley, by Bolton Bridge, is a house which was once a bridge
chapel, or wayside chapel, and on a great oak beam is cut : —
Thou that wendest on this way,
One Ave Maria thou shalt say.
In the more central counties the examples get less numerous,
and perhaps shorter. On the principal front of the antique,
gabled, and latticed Leicester's Hospital, Warwick, dated 1571,
over the entrance to the courtyard is carved : —
Droit et loyal. D.E,
Over the door of the hospital for poor men at Weekly, near
Kettering, is cut : —
What thou docst do yt in fayth.
66 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
A fireplace in the same locality, Boughton, has :—
Ne sis Argus Foris et Dorao Talpa,
a recommendation not to be an Argus abroad and a mole at
home, that would doubtless have its uses to the frequenters of
the * long room ' in which it is placed.
Still among the apple-orchards of the cider counties, where
the bright green meadows are dotted with white-faced kine, and
the rivers curve through sheltered valleys, and placidly and
leisurely sweep under old grey wide-spanned bridges, and ripple
gently past flower-gardens and fruit-gardens and ruddy little
villages, till they come to ruddier and riper towns, a few more
may be found, but only a few. The cathedral city of Hereford
has more than one. On a row of almhouses, whose sloping gardens
look upon the river, may be read over the inner gateway a Latin
notification that they were erected for ten paupers. And on
another row, built of red brick, on the sunny side of St. Owen
Street, may be seen on a tablet :—
Mr. Williams Hospitall rebuilt
1675. Bridstock Harford of ye
Citty Esq. and being then Gustos
of the same and A good
Benefactor herein.
Feare God.
Honor y° King.
Relieve yc Poor.
• Ha3C tria sunt omnia.
Little Wenham Hall, Suffolk, a baronial residence, half castle
and half hall, about seven miles west of Ipswich, built of bricks
and flint, has an inscription on a carved stone panel over the west
doorway : —
Cecy Fait ala Je Je Dievl an de grace 1569. H. B.
On the lintel of the house in which John Selden was born,
Lacies, at Salvington, near Worthing, he carved two Latin lines
to the effect : —
Honest man whom I like, I am not shut : enter, be seated.
Thief, you may go. I am not kept thus unfastened for you.
Almshouses are very usually inscribed. 'Fear God and
honour the King,' and ' God's providence is my inheritance ' are
favourite mottoes on them. At Leominster a set of newly built
almshouses is ornamented with the tablet formerly on the original
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 67
buildings, on which is sculptured the figure of a man holding a
hatchet, with this legend in addition : —
He that gives away all before lie is dead,
Let 'em take this hatchet and knock him on ye head. A.D. ] 735.
An almshouse of eleven dwellings at Minehead, Somerset,
fronting the old market-place, says :—
Robert Quirck, sonne of James Quirck, built this house Anno 1630, and doth
give it to the use of the poore of this parish for ever. And for better
maintenance I do give my two inner cellars at the inner end of the Key, and
cursed be that man that shall convert it to any other use than to the use of
the poore, 1630.
Below is a representation of a ship, with the motto : —
God's Providence is my inheritance, R. Q.
Another picturesque almshouse with an open gallery in front
of it, in a neighbouring county, at Tiverton, has this wording
upon the front : —
John Waldron, merchant, and Richoard his wife
Biu'lded this house in tyme of their lyf e.
At such tyme as the walls were f ourtyne f oote hye
He departed this world, even the eightynthe of Julye.
A.D. 1579.
And at Walborough, still in Devonshire, is a small hospital
founded by Lady Lucy Eeynall in the days of the Stuarts, which
has this touching inscription : —
THE WIDOWES HOUSE. 1638.
Is't strange a prophet's widowe poore should be ?
If strange, then is the Scripture strange to thee.
On Wyatt's row of ten almshouses, in Grodalming, is inscribed
over the chapel door : —
This ospitall was given by Mr. Richard Wyatt of London, Esq. for tenn poore
men wth sufficient lands to it for yeir maintenance for ever, 1622.
On the north side of the narrow cosy High Steet, Rochester,
stands the house for six poor travellers that was the scene of one
of the most attractive of the Christmas numbers of * Household
Words.' The front of it has been repaired, but the gallery of
little cells running down one side of an open space in the rear
that was made for the comfort of poor travellers, with a chimney
in each tiny apartment according to the directions of the founder,
is probably the same as has been there from the beginning. As
will be seen by the following inscription, which is on an orna-
68 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
mental tablet over tlie front of the house, one of the mayors of
Kochester endeavoured to keep the memory of the founder
green : —
Richard Watts, Esq
by his will dated 22 Aug. 1579
founded this charity,
for six poor travellers
who not being Rogues or Proctors
may receive gratis, for one night
Lodging, Entertainment,
and four pence each.
In testimony of his munificence,
in honour of his memory,
and inducement to his example,
Xathl. Hood, Esq, the present mayor,
has caused this stone,
gratefully to be renewed
and inscribed,
A.D. 1771.
New Hall, in Essex, has two extremely interesting examples.
This was once the property of Sir Thomas Boleyn, the father of
Queen Anne Boleyn, and subsequently the residence of Henry the
Eighth and of his eldest daughter. Queen Elizabeth presented
it to Sir Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex, whose heirs sold it to
the unfortunate Duke of Buckingham stabbed by Felton. It was
afterwards purchased by Oliver Cromwell; and General Monk
lived in it too. After all this high fortune, a change set in and
its extent was reduced. The additions made by Henry the
Eighth were marked by his arms cut over a door, supported by a
dragon and a greyhound, and by this legend on a scroll borne by
a hawk and a lion : —
Henricus Rex Octavus — Rex inclit. armis rcagnanimus struxit hoc opus
egregium.
Those made by Queen Elizabeth are indicated in an inscription
over the entrance door of the hall : —
Vivat Elizabetha.
En terra la piu savia regina
En cielo la piu lucente stella ;
Virgine, magnanima, dotta, divina,
Leggiadra, honesta et bella.
On the margin of the Thames, amidst the emerald fields,
embowered in trees, still stands part of the ruins of the ancient
Medmenham Abbey in which Sir Francis Dashwood held his fes-
TEXTS AND MOTTOES. 69
tivities, though some parts of the ancient pile are now modernised
into a pleasant-looking hotel. Above a doorway is inscribed : —
Fay ce que voudrns.
The Welsh examples are of considerable interest, but not
numerous. One relates to the knight mentioned by Shakespeare
in * Henry V.' as having been slain in the great encounter a
herald is announcing to that monarch. After hearing of the
French losses, Henry asks : —
Where is the number of our English dead ? Edward, the Duke of York, the
Earl of Suffolk, Sir Richard Ketley, Davy Gam, Esquire : none else of name.
This inscription is a Welsh pedigree sculptured on the stone
mantelpiece of Sir John Games's great hall at Newton, near
Brecon : —
John Games, the son and eldest heir of Edward Games, the son of John, the
son of Morgan, the son of David Gam 1582. On God depends everything. Games.
Another mansion, Abermarlais, sin Carmarthenshire, is similarly
inscribed with a pedigree : —
Urien Rheged, King of Rheged in Ireland, and King of Gwyr in South Wales,
Lord of Is-Kennen, Karnwellon and Kydwelly. He was in King Arthur's time,
and married his sister by the mother's side, by whom he had Owen and Pasgen,
with others. Urlen was the fourth in descent of Coel, Emperor of Great Britain.
At Wynnestay, the seat of the Wynnes, on a tower, and dated 1616,
is cut : —
Cui domus est victusque decens, cui patria dulcis,
Sunt satis hsec vita?, camera cura labor.
There is a fine old mansion in Conway, known as Plas Mawr,
which has a Greek inscription over the doorway : —
Anechon, apechon. [With the Latin] Sustine, abstine.
And on the house are the initals I.H.S.P.S. with the date 1585.
Deeper in the heart of Wales, nearer the peaked mountains and
tiny torrents and rushing rivers, in the neighbourhood of
Llanbedr, Merionethshire, is a house with an inscription in Welsh
cut into the stone over the door, which may be translated thus : —
Hendrewalod. The true desire of the architect,
He who made me from one end to the other,
That welcome should be here to God and religion,
While one stone rests upon another.
Constructed by Edward and Elizabeth Jones
1818.
For an Irish example, mention may be made of one in the
town q>f Galway. It is now built into a modern wall near the
70 TEXTS AND MOTTOES.
spot where the mansion in which it was first placed once stood.
This was the residence for some centuries of the Lynch family,
one Spartan-minded member of which hanged his son from one of
the windows after embracing him, to carry out a sentence of the
law, and then shut himself up in the mansion, inconsolable, for
the rest of his days. This legend says : —
Remember deathe. Yaniti of Vaniti & al is bvt Vaniti.
There are many more examples of these quaint old wordings
on our ancient country-houses, and in our pleasant and pros-
perous country towns and peaceful rural villages, especially on
almshouses, which often set forth the pathetic charities of the
founders very pithily and incisively. But perhaps sufficient
have been gathered together in this survey to deepen and
extend our general impression of the breadth of good feeling,
piety, and charity that pervaded the land in the days of old,
and which resulted in the benefits we all inherit in common.
71
MACDONALD'S RETURN.
A LOVELY summer evening had succeeded a long day of persistent
rain, as so often happens in the West Highlands, and when
Wright proposed after dinner that we should take a stroll outside,
I willingly consented. We lit our cigars in the porch, and walked
down the drive under the trees, then with one accord pushed
open the gate and stepped out on to the road which runs by the
side of the loch. The red sunset glow had not yet faded out of
the west, and a faint pink tinged the distant hills, but the moon
had risen over the great shoulder of Ben More, and was sending
long silvery gleams over the waters at our feet. Ben More's top
stood out clear and distinct against the cloudless sky, but the
woods round its base, and the slopes and corries of the lesser hills
were lost in deep purple shadow. The air was fresh and mild,
there was not a breath of wind ; not a sound was to be heard but
the rush of the swollen burns, and the swirl of the water as the
incoming tide met the outflowing river. We stood in silence for
quite five minutes ; the scene was too beautiful to be disturbed by
adjectives of admiration ; then Wright said abruptly, ' Let's go to
the boathouse; I want to look at the Canadian canoe,' and we
moved on.
An old man sitting on a stone disentangling a fishing-line
rose up as we approached, and respectfully touched his cap. A
boat lay ready at the water's edge, a wretched old tub, patched
and mended till .very little of the original wood was left. I
had noticed it in the boathouse when I was rowed across from
the railway station on the other side of the loch a week before,
and wondered why Wright did not break it up for firewood.
' Going out fishing in that old boat of yours, Malcolm ? ' said
Wright in his strong hearty voice. ' Why won't you try one of mine
for a change ? It's too clear a night for a good catch, surely ? '
' I'm thinking, though, 111 maybe get ane or twa,' answered
the old man with slow Highland drawl. He was a tall, gaunt old
fellow, dressed in rough tweed clothes as patched and shabby as
his boat ; his dark deepset eyes had a half absent, half terrified
expression, which they did not wholly lose even when he was
72 MACDONALD'S RETURN.
speaking. He came slowly and stiffly forward to help us to turn
over the canoe, and examine the side.
' That's nothing,' pronounced Wright after a brief inspection,
4 a mere scratch on the varnish, but a touch on a stone knocks a
hole in these things. Well, good night, Malcolm, and good luck
to your fishing. Mind you let us have a few at the Lodge.'
* And is it I,' said Malcolm, ' who knows so little of gentle-
folks' ways as to believe they will eat the fish of the sea day after
day, with a salmon river not a mile away and the trout rising in
every burn after the spate ? Na, na, Mr. Wright, you have been
a good friend to me, and I'm no going to impose on your kind-
ness.'
* Oh ! I'm sure the cook will be glad of them for something or
other,' said Wright laughing ; ' she can make them into soup,
or ' He stopped short, for Malcolm was paying no attention,
but staring straight in front of him with fixed and horrified eyes,
his hands clenched, his stooping figure firm and erect. I turned
to look in the same direction, and saw three bright bars of light
which I knew must come from the hall windows of Duntornish
Castle, a wonderful old place now belonging to Mr. Byles, of patent
medicine fame. It is built on a rock jutting out into the loch,
and parts of the building date from the thirteenth century. The
hall has walls fifteen feet thick, and is lighted by three narrow
windows on each side. There is, or rather used to be, a secret
room at one place in the thickness of the wall, but it has been
opened up, and papered, and painted, and decorated with Japanese
fans and Aspinall's enamel by the Misses Byles. Wright had
been telling me at dinner how the whole castle had lately been
fitted up with electric light, and the floor of the hall laid with
parquet for dancing, and the old stone walls covered with common,
badly carved oak panels.
* The Byles girls must have lit up for an after-dinner dance,'
said he, looking at Malcolm as he spoke.
The old man started, and his weather-beaten face flushed an
angry red, as with his still clenched fist upraised he muttered in
Gaelic something which sounded uncommonly like a curse. Then
without a word or look at us he climbed into his boat, and pushed
off into the moonlit loch, leaving the still tangled line lying on
the beach. Wright picked it up, and flung it beyond high-water
mark. ' Poor old Malcolm,' he said, < how he does hate those
Byleses. And little wonder ! '
MACDONALD'S RETURN. 73
1 What have they done to him ? ' I asked. * He seems fond
enough of you.'
' I was able to do him a good turn some two pr three years
ago,' answered Wright, * when Byles, in the course of his so-called
improvements, came to the conclusion that Malcolm's cottage was
not smart enough to stand so near the castle, and proposed to pull
it down and turn the old man adrift. He came to me in the
deepest distress. His fathers had lived on that same spot for count-
less generations ; he was seventy-five, and a very few more years
would see the end of him, but if he was turned out there was nothing
before him but the workhouse. He is long past regular work,
poor old fellow, and no one knows exactly how he manages to live,
but he contrives to pick up a few shillings by selling fish to
various families on the loch-side, and there is many a one about
willing to give him what help they can. I went at once and
remonstrated with Byles, but without the least effect, till at last
a happy thought struck me, and I gave him to understand that if
he turned old Malcolm out he might make sure that both the Duke
and Lord Skerrymore should hear of it. Byles has never got
beyond a bowing acquaintance with them, and has a vast respect
for anyone who knows them at their own houses, so he gave in at
once. I never liked the man, but his meanness on that occasion
fairly disgusted me, and since then there has been a marked cool-
ness between us.'
* That explains why Miss Byles gazed so long and wistfully at
you in church last Sunday,' I remarked. ' But what made Mal-
colm so odd when the hall was lighted up just now? '
Wright gave a sidelong glance at me before he replied, ' It's a
queer story. I'm afraid you are far too sceptical to appreciate it
properly, you who disbelieve in all ghosts and visions.'
' Try me,' said I ; * a ghost story in a commonplace house in a
crowded London street, and one by this lonely loch, are very dif-
ferent things. But let us walk on, for it's chill standing.'
' I think,' Wright began, * you know something of the history
of the old Macdonalds of Duntornish, and if you don't you should
go to Malcolm, and he will tell you by the hour of their wars with
the Macleods, and fights with the surrounding clans, and marriages
with the daughters of the kings of Scotland — horrible stories some
of them are, full of treachery and murder and fiendish revenge.
They were a fierce, wild race, as proud as Lucifer and as fiery as
hell, and they ruled the country far and wide from this old castle of
VOL. XXI. — NO. 121, N.S. 4
74 MACDONALD'S RETURN.
Duntornish. But they fell upon evil times ; they lost large parts of
their lands after the risings of 1715 and 1745, and were heavily
fined besides, so that by the beginning of this century most of
their ancient power and influence was gone. Still Macdonald of
Duntornish was a great person, welcome in any society, and the
last laird but one was in his time a well-known man in London.
He was a friend of the Prince Regent's, he was in a crack High-
land regiment, he was wounded at Waterloo, he diced, he drank,
he gambled, he lived the regular fast life of his generation with
the usual results. The estate was unentailed, and bit by bit was
sold to pay his expenses ; my moors were bought by my grand-
father in 1824, two years before the final crash came. He returned
to Duntornish a ruined man, bankrupt in purse, health, and repu-
tation, bringing a wife with him, a young girl belonging to some
old English family as impoverished as his own, whose father had
died in the debtors' prison where Macdonald had spent six months.
They lived very quietly, for his pride and reserve increased with
poverty, and he saw next to nothing of his friends and neighbours.
Malcolm was one of their few servants, and when Mrs. Macdonald
died in 1828, on the birth of a son, he practically took charge of
the child, for his young wife's death was a great shock to Mac-
donald, and he gradually slipped into permanent ill-health, his
constitution being completely ruined by his previous life. When
the boy grew older there were no funds to send him to school or
college, so he lived on at home, taught by a series of more or less
incompetent tutors, and spending the greater part of his days
with Malcolm, from whom he drank in endless tales of the past
greatness of his family. Still he grew up a splendid young fellow,
my grandfather said, tall, and manly, and handsome, a first-rate
shot and fisherman, and a universal favourite with young and old,
rich and poor. The father of the present Duke took a great fancy
to him, and had him constantly about, and in fact from the time
he was eighteen he had more invitations than he knew how to
accept, for he was a dutiful son and never cared to be long away
from his father, and besides, he loved bis old home as only a
Highlander can.
Malcolm generally accompanied him on these visits, and the
story is that three days before Ronald's twenty-first birthday
they were rowing home across the loch one dark evening after a
month's absence, when suddenly they saw the hall of the castle
ablaze with light. You must know that whenever a Macdonald
MACDONALD'S RETURN, 75
of Duntornish died, his dead ancestors were supposed to receive
him solemnly in this same hall.'
' Another version of a well-known legend,' said I.
' Precisely,' answered Wright. ' Well, as soon as Ronald
Macdonald saw the lighted windows, without a word he threw
himself into the water, swam to shore, climbed the rocks, and
rushed to his father's room. There, five minutes afterwards,
Malcolm found him, kneeling beside the chair in which his dead
father was lying back, a letter tightly clenched in his lifeless
hand. I don't vouch for all these details,' Wright went on ; 'no
doubt various embellishments have been added to the story in the
course of time, and I have never cared to distress Malcolm by
questioning him on the subject. But it is certain that Macdonald
had that very day received a letter from his lawyers telling him
that the creditors were going to foreclose, and when the grand
funeral in the little ruined chapel was over —
' Where is the chapel ? ' I asked ; * I don't remember it.'
'Byles pulled down what remained of it some years ago,'
answered Wright dryly, * and carted away the tombstones. Seeing
them out of her bedroom window was too much for Mrs. Byles's
nerves. But it was there Macdonald was buried, and his grave
was the last spot Ronald visited before he left Duntornish for ever.
He went away without a penny, every stick and stone of the
ancient possessions of his family in the hands of the creditors.
The Duke paid his passage out to Calcutta, where an acquaintance
had got him a post in a wealthy firm, but his pride was up, and he
refused to accept further help from any one. Malcolm begged
and prayed to accompany him, but he sternly forbade him to
borrow the necessary money, and tried to console the poor sobbing
wretch with talk of the time when he should return a rich man,
and buy back Duntornish — you can imagine the boy's day dreams.
He went away, and year after year passed and he never returned.
He met with one misfortune after another ; the firm in whose
employment he was became bankrupt, and he lost all the savings
invested with them ; he got another situation, but was obliged to
give it up owing to a long illness from which he was months re-
covering. Then he set up on his own account ; but he was not
the sort out of which good men of business are made, and all his
attempts were failures, and what with that and his broken health,
he seems at last to have given up all hope, and lived on as best
he could, just managing to scrape together enough to keep body
4—2
76 MACDONALD'S RETURN.
and soul together. You have been in India and know what it
takes to make life bearable there, so you can imagine what a
miserable existence the poor fellow's was : friendless, and ill, and
poverty-stricken, and homesick ; he a man, mind you, who in his
boyhood had been a petted favourite in some of the very best
society in Scotland. They say he took to drink at last, and I
really don't wonder, though I dare say that accounts for a great
deal of his persistent ill-luck. All this while there was many a
one who would have gladly helped him if they had only known ;
but in his cursed Highland pride he would sooner have died than
tell his wants. People didn't visit India much in those days, and
he never came home, and as most friendships which are only kept
alive by letters gradually die down, poor Macdonald lost sight of
his old friends and companions, and they were busy with their own
affairs, and forgot him in their new relations and interests. But
during these long thirty years of exile Malcolm was never forgotten ;
every New Year some trifling present would come, accompanied
by a letter in which he said very little of himself or his doings,
but asked innumerable questions about Duntornish, dwelling with
an unforgetful persistence, which showed where his heart was, on
the scenes of his early days. Malcolm showed me some of those
letters once, and it was pitiful to see how the bright hopes with
which the boy started faded away as the years went by, and were
replaced by hopeless, settled melancholy. Malcolm lived on in
his cottage beside the castle ; for though the estate passed through
many hands he was always retained as caretaker and general
factotum, and he never ceased to expect to see his master back
some day. Matters went on thus till ten years ago, when one
stormy March night Malcolm was coming home about twelve
o'clock from a farmer's up the loch where he sometimes did a day's
work in the lambing season. It was so late and the storm was so
fierce that the farmer wanted to keep him, but he was afraid the
gale might do some damage to the castle, and he wished to be on
the spot in the morning in case anything had happened. You
have no idea what a winter storm here is, or what it is to feel your
way along this road on a pitch-black night with the wind howling
down the glens, and the waves dashing on the shore, and the rain
beating in your face. Malcolm fought his way step by step till
on turning the shoulder of the hill he was in some degree sheltered.
He raised his head and saw a bright light in front of him, which
he knew must come from Duntornish Castle. No one but himself
was at that time living within a mile of the place, and his first
MACDONALD'S RETURN. 77
thought was that some wandering tramp had got into the hall and
had made a fire at which to warm himself ; but he soon recognised
that the light was too brilliant to be thus explained. He set off
at a run, and never stopped till he stood looking in at one of the
windows, at first almost dazzled by the glare of light, the source
of which he could not discover. The room was full of people —
men and women, young and old, some clad in the Macdonald
tartan, some in the costumes of bygone centuries, and Malcolm
could not at first think why their faces were so strangely familiar.
Then it suddenly flashed on him that he knew them from the old
family pictures, some of which were still hanging in the castle.
He glanced hurriedly down the long lines, recognising here a far-
off grandfather, there a stately matron or fair young girl, till next
the door he saw the last laird and his wife, he sitting in the chair
in which he had been found dead, she standing by his side, a slight
girlish figure, with soft brown curls falling on her shoulders.
They were both watching the door, and now Malcolm saw that the
eyes of every one of that ghastly company were looking the same
way, waiting in still, speechless expectation. The storm beat
against the castle, the waves broke sullenly on the .beach below,
the wind blew through the broken windows, and fluttered their
garments and stirred their hair, but not a finger did one of them
move as they stood there gazing at the door in motionless silence.
A great dread fell upon Malcolm, and he clutched the window-sill
to keep himself from falling as he waited in sick horror for the
sight the next moment would reveal. The door slowly opened,
and Eonald Macdonald appeared, a gaping red gash across his
throat, from which the blood was pouring down over his breast.
Malcolm knew him at once in spite of the changes years had made —
the stalwart upright figure bowed and bent, the fair curly hair
silver-white, the fresh young face worn and livid, the bright
blue eyes sunken and fixed in a meaningless stare. The whole
company pressed forward with outstretched hands, and then every-
thing vanished from Malcolm's sight, and he fell senseless to the
ground. He was found lying outside the window at daybreak
next morning by a chance passer-by, and carried to the nearest
house, where some hours elapsed before he recovered sufficiently to
tell his tale. Two days afterwards telegrams from India announced
the murder of an Englishman, who was found in his bed with his
throat cut, in a deserted and half-ruined bungalow on the out-
skirts of Bombay. A cotton manufacturer identified the body as
that of a Mr. Macdonald, who ten davs before had come to him
78 MACDONALD'S RETURN.
wanting work, with a letter of introduction from a Calcutta firm,
and further inquiries showed the murdered man was Konald Mac-
donald, formerly of Duntornish, the last representative of one of
the oldest families in Scotland. His servant was found, and
confessed that his master had been struck down by fever, and that
he had run away terrified at his mad ravings, and left him to his
fate. The man clearly proved he had nothing to do with the
crime, and as a gold watch and one or two small trinkets belong-
ing to Macdonald were missing, it is supposed he must have been
robbed and murdered by some unknown person. It looked as if
he had regained consciousness at the last, for there were some
slight signs of a struggle, and an empty revolver was found lying
on the bed, but no trace of the bullet could be discovered, and the
servant could not remember whether the weapon was loaded or
not when he left. The doctors made their report, and the hour
at which they agreed the murder had been committed was the
same, allowing for difference of longitude, as that at which Malcolm
had looked through the window.'
* A most remarkable coincidence,' I said. * But what an awful
death ! Did any one besides Malcolm see the light ? '
* The answer to that question,' said Wright slowly, ' is to my
mind one of the strangest features of the whole story. You saw
the stationmaster when you got out of the train the other day,
didn't you, a canny, long-headed Lowlander, from Pollockshields
or some such place? At the time of Macdonald's murder the
station had just been opened, and this man had only been two
days on duty ; he knew absolutely nothing of the country or the
people hereabouts, and was not even aware of the name of Dun-
tornish Castle. On the night in question he was awakened by the
storm, and being anxious about the safety of some newly erected
shed, he went out to inspect it. The wind blew out his lantern,
and he was returning to his house for a box of matches, when he
saw across the loch, which between the castle and the station is
only some five hundred yards wide, a clear brilliant light. He
could see that it came from three windows, and once he says — I
should tell you he is very long-sighted — he thought he saw the
lower half of the three shafts of light somewhat obscured, as if
figures were passing across. Then the light suddenly vanished,
and all was total darkness. There is really something singularly
inappropriate in seeing ancestral ghosts from a newly built station
of the Caledonian Railway. But it's a queer story, isn't it ? '
70
CHARACTER NOTE.
THE SPINSTER.
' II arrive quelquefois des accidents dans la vie d'ou il faut etre un peu fou
pour se bien tirer.'
SHE enjoys a limited income, invested for her by an officious
relative in a Building Society. The income is very limited, and
the Spinster spends quite half of it in journeys to and from town
to look and see how the bonds are getting on in a Safe Deposit.
She lives with her cousins. Their generosity is most beau-
tiful. Quite an example to mankind. She pays them Nothing,
absolutely Nothing. Generosity, in the feminine, always men-
tions this, quite casually, when she pays calls.
' John and I are delighted to be able to give her a home,' she
says.
The stress upon the ' give ' is so slight that it might almost
be absent altogether. Tabitha does nothing in return for this
superhuman kindness. That is, almost nothing. Full of tact and
thoughtfulness, indeed, Generosity allows her to do a few little
things about the house, that she may not feel so much under an
obligation to dear John. Tabitha is not at all accomplished. She
belongs to a period when a smattering of Italian, a knowledge of
the use of the globes, and a running spidery handwriting declared
a young lady educated. But Generosity overlooks her deficiencies
and kindly allows her to help the children with their lessons and
superintend their practising. The eldest Generosity girl bounces
about a good deal on the music-stool and plays wrong notes
maliciously. She doesn't really think, she says, that it's the least
use Tab hearing her practise. Tab has not an atom of style.
Which is very true ; Tab's only recommendation being an infinite
store of patience and sweet temper. The Eldest further complains
of Tab that she is so awfully prim. The Eldest suffers a good
deal from this primness, and is infinitely to be pitied. How
annoying it is to know, for instance, that Tab takes two hours
getting up every morning, and adheres to an hour's hair-brushing
every night as if -it were a religion ! Generosity herself never
heard anything so ludicrous as the way in which Tab clings to the
80 CHARACTER NOTE.
traditions of her youth. Because at the Deanery — Tab's papa was
an effete old dean — breakfast was at half-past eight and the family
put on their clean clothing on Sunday ; Tab can scarcely believe in
the morality of persons breakfasting at nine and donning clean
garments on Saturday. She does not indeed express these out-
rageous opinions, Generosity having given her to understand that
she cannot air her ridiculous notions there.
Her bedroom is a perfect portrait gallery of ancestors. She
keeps an especial silk pocket-handkerchief to dust them with,
which is used for no other purpose. The Eldest says she never
saw anything so hideous as the old things, and would like to know
why people's ancestors always have great beaks of noses like that ;
the Eldest's own nose being an engaging little snub. Tab's
family are like the nightly hair-brushing to her — a religion. No
matter how disagreeable or how impecunious, alive or dead,
provided they are relatives Tab is ready to take them to her
heart. When the ne'er-do-weels are shipped off in despair by
their friends to Buenos Ayres or the Transvaal, she writes them
long letters full of affection — and enclosing a Post-office Order.
It is thought that the relatives do not always read the letters.
But there is no occasion on -record in which they have not taken
kindly to the Order.
Generosity, with the highest of motives, of course, does her
best to shake Tab's belief in her family.
Generosity says, ' Isn't it absurd to see how proud the Joneses
are of their uncle because he is a dean ? Any one can be a dean.
Isn't it ridiculous, Tab ? '
A little colour rises in Tab's worn face. It is to be feared that
she is afraid of Generosity's back-handed little stabs, and has not
the courage to make a spirited reply. She says feebly, ' Oh, very.'
But her heart is as true as steel to that effete old papa.
Generosity is extremely kind to Tab, of course. Tab has all
her meals with the family. And it is by the merest chance that
the legs of chickens and the jamless tarts always fall to her share.
Tab herself always prefers the unpopular pudding. Tab is lament-
ably weak.
She goes errands for Generosity twenty times perhaps in an
afternoon. Generosity's maligners say she invents the errands to
annoy Tab. But even if that were true — which of course it is not
— Generosity's aim is not attained. At the twentieth errand
there is a little more colour than usual in Tab's face. But that is
CHARACTER NOTE. 81
all. And that may easily come from the exercise she has taken.
Generosity always prefaces her requests with ' As you have nothing
to do, Tab.'
And Tab, of course, really has nothing to do. Only the little
things about the house to which other people are superior or
can't waste their time over, or find, by reason of their higher
intelligence and education, too much bother.
Someone once said Tab was a maid-of-all-work, without
wages. But that must have been someone who knew nothing of
the immense kindnesses she receives from Grenerosity and John.
Generosity, certainly, often reminds Tab, in a perfectly indirect
and ladylike manner, how fortunate she is.
' I hear,' she says, ' the Mortons are going to have a cousin to
live with them. Of course she is to pay — two pounds a week, I
believe. Very kind of them to have her even on those terms,
don't you think ? I believe someone suggested not letting her
pay anything. But, as Mr. Morton says, that would be Quixotic
generosity indeed.'
Tab says, ' Yes, indeed,' meekly.
Her intelligence is not of a high order. Perhaps she does not
apply these stories as she ought. But Grenerosity, thoughtful as
ever, takes Tab's want of sharpness into consideration, and gene-
rally makes her meaning perfectly clear.
If Tab had any proper pride, she would go. But she does
not go. Perhaps she can't afford the luxury of proper pride.
Her dividends from the Building Society are ridiculously small.
Perhaps also with a divine charity and an exquisite foolishness
she believes that Grenerosity does not mean to be unkind. She
bears, therefore, the thousand little daily insults which her bene-
factress heaps on her, with an utter tameness and want of spirit.
It is possible that if she rose and fought Grenerosity that lady
might like her and treat her better. But Tab's is the creed of
meekness, forbearance, and gentleness. And she goes on toiling
for the children, nursing them when they are ill, and doing odd
jobs for Grenerosity with a patience and good temper wholly repre-
hensible. One day comes the news that the Building Society has
stopped payment.
' All the sensible shareholders,' says Generosity, a trifle
pointedly perhaps, ' will, of course, get some of their money back.
But people who are so wealthy that they can sit at home and do
nothing to recover it will, I suppose be swindled.'
4—5
82 CHARACTER NOTE.
Tab is understood to say that the Society must already be in
great trouble, and she could not bear to give them extra worry on
her account.
• .My dear Tab,' says Generosity, with considerable sharpness,
' how can you be so excessively idiotic ? '
There is, alas ! much truth in Generosity's unvarnished words.
Tab is a perfect godsend to all the swindling persons and
companies she encounters. She believes what they say, and
follows their advice with a certain obstinacy which is vastly irrita-
ting. She therefore is reduced through the Building Society to
an annual income of fifteen pounds. And when she receives that,
it is with fear and trembling lest she has taken from the poor
creatures what they can ill afford to pay her.
About this time the Eldest comes out. She is not especially
pretty. But she is audacious, which perhaps does just as well.
Generosity is very fond of her, of course. Cannot bear the idea of
ever being separated from her — equally of course. But, knowing
that a girl is happier married, with beautiful self-sacrifice Gene-
rosity sets about accomplishing this desirable end. Papa brings
people home to dinner. Papa always enjoyed the society of young
men. Once he brings home a veteran from the War Office. The
veteran is not less than fifty. Still, he is a wonderfully young-
looking man ; and, quite casually of course, at an afternoon call
Generosity finds out from a friend that he is really very comfort-
ably off. By the merest chance, when he dines with them, the
Eldest has on her prettiest dress and her most astounding-
manners.
The War Office looks at her attentively through his eyeglass.
He has not seen much of feminine society lately. In his young-
days — though he is, of course, by no means old — feminine society
was perhaps less obtrusive. There can be no doubt from the way
he studies the Eldest that he is immensely captivated by her
frankness, dash, and originality.
Tab is even quieter than usual during his visits. When he
addresses her she is fluttered and agitated, and answers him with
much perturbation, and, it is to be feared, not much sense.
He addresses her, Generosity thinks, unnecessarily often.
Perhaps he thinks she is a visitor ; or perhaps that she pays. So
Generosity mentions with the greatest possible delicacy of expres-
sion, and, as usual, quite casually, that dear Tab is perfectly
dependent upon us. The War Office puts up his eyeglass and
looks at Generosity a little fixedly.
CHARACTER NOTE. 83
' Poor thing ! ' he says ; ' Poor thing ! '
Generosity can't quite understand his tone. But after all, it
is not worth troubling about.
One evening Generosity comes to Tab's bedroom to have a
chat with her. She is quite condescending and good-tempered
and pleasant.
' We shall have to part from dear Bertha soon, I fear,' she says.
Tab says ' Why ? ' in an odd voice.
' Why ! ' echoes Generosity impatiently, ' I should have thought
even you would have seen how devoted he is to her.'
Tab says ' Yes ' feebly, and does not raise her foolish old face.
' I am perfectly certain of it,' continues Generosity.
Tab bends a little lower over her fine darning, and says nothing.
And Generosity, aggravated at her unresponsiveness, observes.
' And very glad I am of it. I always consider to be unmarried is
in some degree a slur upon a woman's character.'
With this Parthian shot she "retires.
While Tab is singing that night in a ridiculous old voice which
always breaks on the top notes, the War Office bends to turn a
page and says something to her through the song. After that
Tab's quavers and trills are more ridiculous than ever ; and when
she takes down her music her primly mittened hand shakes like a
leaf. Generosity is particularly caustic that evening ; and Tab's
answers are wider of the mark than usual ; so much so that the
Eldest says to the War Office that she really believes Tab is in
love with someone. She has been so truly idiotic lately ; so
frightfully sentimental, you know.
The War Office says ' Indeed,' and looks at the Eldest through
his eyeglass, as usual, in a sort of mild surprise.
That evening he has an interview with Generosity and John.
Generosity's surprise is not mild, nor her indignation ; and she is
constrained to tell Tab that she has behaved like a viper.
The War Office and Tab are believed to be supremely happy ;
so frightfully sentimental, you know. Generosity after a time
consents to visit them. As they have a delightful house for the
girls to stay in and see a great deal of nice society (masculine),
she makes herself very affable and affectionate. The War Office
is occasionally a little rude to her, and continues to stare at her
through his eyeglass in an extraordinary manner ; but Tab, full
of gratitude for all the kindness she has received, is boundlesslv
tender, loving, and kind.
But then Tab was always a fool,
84
TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES.
I BELIEVE some excellent people are persuaded that this age
is specially marked by the spirit of ' competition,' and that it
must therefore be set down as tainted or degenerate. If by this
they mean that we do not always take the best way to decide
between rivals, and that our tests of individual fitness leave much
to be desired, I should be disposed to agree with them. Too
many men who pretend to be qualifying themselves for a post are
only cramming and calculating how they can best satisfy or
deceive the examiner. They consult a cunning ' coach,' whose
long experience in examinations, or rather the way in which some
particular Board or set of officials will conduct them, enables him
to foresee the day and guess the spot on and in which such and
such an inquiry will be made about the candidate's geography,
algebra, German, or chemistry. Thus he pops a little parcel of
facts and figures into the place where he has reason to suspect that
the spoon of the examiner will be dipped. And when this morsel
is the only bit of meat in the candidate's pot, I quite agree with
our educational conservative croakers in thinking that our exist-
ing methods of discernment are grievously defective, and that it
is possible to swear too much — however seriously — by examina-
tions.
But all life is an incessant, insistent, continuous ' examina-
tion ' ; and to talk of ' competition ' being peculiar to any age is
to talk nonsense. The whole economy, progress — nay, existence
— of this world depends upon it. ' Beasts and all cattle, worms
and feathered fowls,' are born,, live, and die in an atmosphere of
which all the schools, senate-houses, colleges, universities, in exist-
ence, and the entire plant, machinery, and manifold appliances of
the enquiring scholarly official world, are no better than an imita-
tion.
Nothing thrives or survives without ' competition.' I am not
sure when the phrase ' survival of the fittest ' came into being ;
but, anyhow, it is the offspring of some scientific evolutionist
brain, and suggests the picture of a long-drawn procession of
living creatures (though where they got their life from is not-
stated), resulting in the appearance of ' man ' as he now is, and
TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES. 85
an implied assumption that the founder of his family was by no
means a gentleman to be proud of. And yet the remotest efforts
of an ambitious sponge in the development of a Shakespeare,
assuming them to have been successfully made, are kin to those
of a candidate for a university scholarship, or of the leader of
the Opposition who aspires to be Prime Minister, when the one
looks at his rivals sitting round the examination-table, or the
other waits for the ' tellers ' after a motion of ' No confidence ' has
been put to the House. There was no calendar to print the name
of that antediluvian weed which got the better of its companions
and lived to suck the juice of some prehistoric Cambridge meadow,
there was no Hansard to chronicle the success with which one
primeval troop of monkeys subjugated another, and yet the
' records of creation ' go to show us that the ' struggle for exist-
ence ' seen in the college and the senate is only a continuance of
that which determined the ancient survival of the strongest apes
and plants. Every age has been one of ' competition.' This has
furnished the motive of all ' tournaments and matches.' Even
when they may have seemed to be mere spectacles and entertain-
ments, the 'display' has been that of the 'best' endurance and
skill. The performers have striven for applause, competed directly
with opponents, or run a race against time.
Though the retention of the word ' tournament ' links our
modern shows and contests with the most famous of the middle
ages, and though there was much more pageantry of old, with
(possibly) more men killed than at football, the combatants now
come from much greater distances to contend, and a far wider
interest is taken in their strife. There are, indeed, no trumpeters
to signal the opening of a match at Lord's between two hemi-
spheres (this is preceded by a ' toss '), but Australian and English
newspapers announce it to listening millions throughout the
world. Queens of beauty sit on the box-seats of drags instead of
gilded thrones, and when the lists are closed, though no gorgeous
herald proclaims the victor's name, a hundred telegraph clerks
immediately tick off the news to the four quarters of the globe.
There is no splintering of ' lances ' in these days, but 'records' are
broken by more combatants — including iron ocean-going steamers,
as eager as armour-clad knights.
I do not know why the word ' tournament ' has come to be
used in reference to some contests, while others are spoken of as
' matches ' ; but I suppose it implies that a crowd of competitors
86 TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES.
is thinned down till one survives as ' champion,' pairs of com-
batants being pitted against each other to be killed off. Thus, of
all noiseless leisurely contests in the world, that among chess-
players has come to be called a ' tournament ' ; but though the
survival of the fittest player at lawn tennis is said to have engaged
in one, chief solitary honours in leaping, running, throwing the
hammer, &c., are won at ' sports,' the Queen's prize is taken at a
' meeting,' and the single oarsman triumphs after a sculling-
' match,' while if eight row in a boat it is termed a ' race,' the
struggle being known as a ' regatta ' when sails are used. No one
would think of calling the contests at Newmarket or Doncaster
anything but ' races,' though impeded efforts of horses universally
take the name of steeple-' chases.' I should like, however, to
know whether any subtle relationship between ' love ' and ' war '
(wherein alone ' all ' conduct, however cunning and deceptive, is
said to be ' fair ') has given the name of ' engagements ' to the
serious meetings of the two sides. At any rate, however long the
parties may have been beating about the bush or looking for one
another, when they come to realise their intentions the business
is so described.
War between nations is, of course, the greatest outlet or
example of that competitive spirit which produces tournaments
and matches, and we see it rehearsed, on a growing scale, year
after year, in military and naval manoeuvres. Even in this small
island we may perceive, I fancy, an increasing appetite for ' sham
fights,' down to the burning of powder by two or three companies
of volunteers in the fields around a provincial town. But I venture
to think that the first employment of all these instructed men
would, in actual warfare, be most deadly — except so far as they
had learned to ' find cover.' As it is, one does not want the
decision of an ' umpire ' to perceive that whole regiments would
be swept away if they acted in a battle as they sometimes do on
a ' field-day,' when cartridges are blank. No doubt you can learn
much about the unpleasantness of war by marching in the rain
for hours and sleeping on damp ground. The rapid judging of
distances, too (which is of first moment in real warfare), can hardly
be taught except under hurried and suddenly changing conditions ;
but, whatever skill officers may acquire in the handling of ' masses '
at sham fights, the individual soldier himself is likely to have his
eyes very unexpectedly opened when he finds the other side
shooting at him as if he were a ' target,' and without the hoisting
TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES. 87
of a red flag to indicate his intentions or ascertain that no one
was in danger. His first impression on being hit would probably
be that it was ' accidental,' and ought to be reported. Interesting
as sham fights may. be to those who look on and are able to under-
stand what they see, it is hard for any but military readers to get
any entertainment, let alone instruction, out of the long ' reports '
with which they are honoured by the newspapers. The ' sham '
feature of the business comes to be more prominent when it
appears in print, except, perhaps, when some ludicrously gross
blunder has been made, such as the uninitiated can enjoy, but the
nature of which spectators may have missed. At the best, civi-
lians are sorely perplexed by what they see, if the operations are
conducted on a large scale. There is one display of mimic
warfare, though, which is invariably popular, and that is the
military tournament now held every year at Islington. You are
not blinded by dust or soaked with rain, as at Aldershot ; but
samples of every arm in the service are collected for you under
cover and within sight. The impression of the British Army
which this leaves on the mind is unquestionably gratifying. If
a small handful of it is such as this, what must the whole of it
be ? With what sounding whacks, display of skill, and reserve of
energy do not the combatants distinguish themselves ! And the
horses (who, presumably, fail to distinguish between the real and
the sham) enjoy fighting as much as the men. The crowd
rejoices, and even the taxpayer is tempted to believe that he gets
more than he thought for his money.
It is by the naval manoeuvres, however, that the British public
(at least, the reading part of it) is most bewildered. It seems so
impossible for a big ship to conceal itself on the flat sea that the
notion of two fleets playing hide-and-seek would appear to be a
mere nautical joke. Still, the fact that the ' Blue ' has really
spent a week or so looking in vain for the ' Ked ' opens one's eyes
to the deceptive publicity of the ocean, and hints at the incal-
culable mischief which can be done by a swift solitary privateer.
That is one of the lessons set by these naval manoeuvres. They
also show the great inferiority of steam to ' wind ' in the conduct
of war at sea. In the first place, sheer seamanship — skill in
making the best use of a breeze (once thought to have been a
British excellence) — becomes wholly useless. This is recognised
by the fact that some of the latest-built and (presumably) deadliest
fighting-ships have no masts or sails. The advantage (such as it
88 TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES.
is) of this is, however, shared by both sides when two rich nations
are pitted against each other afloat. An obvious ' disadvantage '
appears in the fact that when a fleet is ' under sail ' (to use the
old term), if one or two ' break down,' they must be left behind,
to be an easy prey ; otherwise, the progress of all has to be
delayed, and thus the immediate (or projected) scheme of the
admiral in command is knocked on the head. Moreover, even if
no bearings ' heat,' no pipes burst, no boilers ' prime ' (whatever
that means), and the whole squadron is equally supplied with fuel,
so that (no accidents happening) it could hold together through-
out the same cruise, all must in time go somewhere to ' coal.'
Our old ships were not compelled to return periodically for a fresh
supply of wind, or to send out stores of it beforehand to distant
ports. Nor were governments obliged to pay so much for it ' per
ton.' Altogether, one does not wonder at the expressive language
of old ' salts ' when they say what they think about the ' iron
pots ' in which hundreds of good men can be sent to the bottom
by a sneaking torpedo-boat, without the chance of firing a shot or
striking a blow.
Turn from this ghastly prospect to some life-giving forms of
competition. It is difficult to say whether cricket, football, or a
boat-race presents the most wholesome attractions, and produces
the best results both in the individual and in the ' side ' or crew.
Perhaps they are most evident in cricket. There a man learns
not only to back up his fellows with loyalty, but is provided with
legitimate opportunities for distinguishing ' himself.' I know that
in the starting of a rustic club every one wants to ' bowl.' The
action commends itself as being distinctly and repeatedly aggres-
sive. But though obvious excellence finally determines that the
handling of the ball shall be exclusive, each man has a ' bat ' in
his hand at each innings, and with it the chance, not only of
shedding honour on his county or side, but of improving an indi-
vidual ' record ' without detracting from the glory of his com-
panions. Nay, the more he distinguishes ' himself the more are
they pleased and the public appreciative. Of course this comes to
pass, to a certain extent, in a football match, or a boat-race. But,
in cricket, individual prowess is far more distinctly perceptible
and recognised. All can easily perceive and apprehend that per-
sonal performance which may be missed in the rush and scrimmage
of football. So also in a boat-race. The ' cox ' or captain may be
aware that much is owing to this or that man, and. possibly, that
TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES. 89
without his individual exertions (however well the rest pulled) the
race might have been lost. But those on the bank can hardly
be expected to know this. To them it is the crew which wins,
and they pay no heed to the skilled reporter's remark that the
rowing of ' number five ' was super-excellent.
This effacement of ' self ' (though each ought to feel as if
the result depended upon his doing his very best) commends our
chief ' corporate '..games to the moralist and the sportsman, inas-
much as it teaches the virtues of harmony, obedience, and
(especially to the captain or umpire) of responsibility. It is not
always, of course, that the ruling of these officials is recognised
with a smile ; still, it is final, however trying and secretly resented.
I think of an incident at a country cricket match where a rustic
judge had been strictly instructed that no appeal could be allowed
from his decisions. A ' bail ' somehow came off the wicket.
' How's that, umpire ? ' said the batsman. ' Out,' cried he.
' Yeow lie ! ' was the response. ' I kneaw I du,' replied the judge
(in fact, he had been looking another way at the moment, but the
word had been spoken) — ' I kneaw I du, but I'll ha' yeow out for
all that ! '
In spite of an occasional miscarriage of justice, however, and
though too many men spend their athletic youth in ' pot-hunting,'
one is glad to see reported prominence given to matches in which
success inevitably depends upon the unselfishness of the players,
and the interest of the public upon a conviction that there can be
no ' cross ' in the matter. Sometimes, indeed, a ' side ' goes to
pieces under an apparently unaccountable influence; but, as a
rule, the great law that ' a game is not lost till it is won ' keeps it
together to the last. Spectators, especially at cricket, seldom
wholly despair for their friends, and the men themselves, who have
played many a match while young, carry into later life an unde-
fined but deeply rooted conviction that it is always well to work in
accord with others, and bad to ' give in,' however black the outlook
may be.
It is curious that when men have contests among themselves
: fair play ' is regarded as essential by the players and the public,
but that the moment they are associated with horses the whole
business is tainted with deceit. How is it that an animal, emi-
nently capable of honest attachments, and careless of results (since
when his rider is killed on his back he returns eager to the charge),
should give such an ill odour to the words ' horsey ' and ' jockey ' ?
90 TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES.
But so it is. Though gentlemen of unquestioned honour are con-
spicuous on the ' turf,' and any one found to be guilty of cheating,
from the nobleman to the ' welsher,' meets with severe sentence,
if not Lynch law, something in the atmosphere of a horse-race
forbids an interest in it to the chief representatives of social
morality. Nothing, indeed, is said against the presence of a Judge
at Newmarket ; but if an Archbishop were to be seen in the
' paddock ' the most distant relations of Mrs. Grundy would be
held to be justly offended, and an impulse given to Disestablish-
ment. Nobody, however, objects to his taking an interest in the
University boat-race, and if he should happen to have rowed
in it himself, and write his own memoirs, you may be sure he
does not forget to mention it with proud complacency.
Talking of horses, the match between the fox and the hounds
is less likely to commend or justify itself to the non-sporting
public in these days, by reason of the multitude of hunting prints
which are exhibited in shop windows. The unsupported pluck of
Reynard, the overwhelming majority of dogs, and the crowd of
riders, accentuate the contrast between the two sides so much that
(according to a foxhunter's view of the matter) one is tempted
into heretical thoughts. The hunting of carted deer, or, as it has
been called, the ' chasing of a tame cow from one market-garden
to another,' does not lend itself to the efforts of impassioned art.
I do not call to mind a print of ' buckhounds ' in full cry, and if
there were fewer representing the glory of being ' in at the death '
(the odds being fifty to one against the defendant) foxhunters
might enjoy themselves quite as much, and the business (unrealised
in its details by the engraver) be left to the indulgent imagination
of the unsportsmanlike.
I wonder how many of my readers were ever present at a
billiard-match. It is intensely interesting to those who know
something of the game, but, I should think, soon dull beyond
endurance to others. Then, too, you must be comparatively near
to the table in order to apprehend the niceties of the performance,
and realise the mischief of hard hitting. It is, indeed, the almost
drawling gentleness of a good player which fails to win the
admiration of the unlearned. He hardly seems to make a ' stroke '
at all. The noun is far too energetic to suit the little taps and
touches with which he wins the game. But it is an abiding
lesson for a beginner to see a ' champion ' play.
Of all the ' tournaments ' I ever saw, one among ' dairymaids '
TOURNAMENTS AND MATCHES. 91
at an agricultural show was perhaps the last to associate itself
with that heroic procedure which such a word suggests. There
were about forty of them, armed with ' churns,' and started at the
same moment to make butter against time. Each came provided
with a watch, and the temptation was almost irresistible to turn
the handle of the machine as quickly as possible. But no ; butter
must be ' humoured,' not driven. The silent lists were filled with
the provokingly deliberate ' flip, flop ' of forty churns. One of
the slowest combatants won the race. I never realised more
plainly that ' most haste is worst speed.'
The air is so heavily charged with the spirit of ' competition.'
and every paper feels itself bound to give so much space to
' sporting intelligence,' that it would be endless to attempt a pro-
duction of, even a list of the shapes under which 'tournaments'
and ' matches ' present themselves. Still, it might be worth re-
membering that ' recreation ' and the real enjoyment of play are
often wholly forgotten or ignored in the voracious effort to ' break
a record.'
92
A WIDOWS TALK
BY MES. OLIPHANT.
CHAPTER I.
THE Bamptons were expecting a visitor that very afternoon : which
made it all the more indiscreet that young Fitzroy should stay so
long practising those duets with May. It was a summer afternoon,
warm and bright, and the drawing-room was one of those pretty
rooms which are as English as the landscape surrounding them —
carefully carpeted, curtained and cushioned against all the eccen-
tricities of an English winter, yet with all the windows open, all
the curtains put back, the soft air streaming in, the sunshine not
too carefully shut out, the green lawn outside forming a sort of
velvety extension of the mossy soft carpet in which the foot sank
within. This combination is not common in other countries,
where the sun is so hot that it has to be shut out in summer, and
coolness is procured by the partial dismantling of the house.
From the large open windows the trees on the lawn appeared like
members of the party, only a little withdrawn from those more
mobile figures which were presently coming to seat themselves
round the pretty table shining with silver and china which was
arranged under the acacia. Miss Bampton, who had been watch-
ing its arrangement, cast now and then an impatient glance at the
piano where May sat, with Mr. Fitzroy standing over her. He
was not one of the county neighbours, but a young man from
town, a visitor, who had somehow fallen into habits of intimacy it
could scarcely be told why. And though he was visiting the
Spencer-Jacksons, who were well known and sufficiently creditable
people, nobody knew much about Mr. Fitzroy. It is a good
name : but then it is too good a name to belong to a person
of whom it can be said that nobody knows who he is. A Fitzroy
ought to be so very easily identified: it ought to be known at
once to which of the families of that name he belongs — very
distantly perhaps — as distantly as you please ; but yet he must
somehow belong to one of them.
This opinion Miss Bampton, who was a great genealogist, had
stated over and over again, but without producing any conviction
A WIDOW'S TALE. 93
in her hearers. Her father asked hastily what they had to do with
Fitzroy that they should insist on knowing to whom he belonged.
And May turned round upon her little, much too high, heel and
laughed. What did she care who he was ? He had a delightful
baritone, which ' went ' beautifully with her own soprano. He was
very nice-looking. He had been a great deal abroad, and his
manners were beautiful, with none of the stiffness of English-
manners. He did not stand and stare like Bertie Harcourt, or
push between a girl and anything she wanted like the new curate.
He knew exactly how to steer between these two extremes, to be
always serviceable without being officious, and to insinuate a
delightful compliment without saying it right out. This was
May's opinion of the matter : and then he had such a delightful
voice ! So that this stranger had come into the very front of
affairs at Bampton Leigh, to the disturbance of the general
balance of society, and of many -matters much more important
than an agreeable visitor, which were going on there. For ex-
ample, Bertie Harcourt had almost been banished from the house :
and he was a young Squire of the neighbourhood with a good
estate and very serious intentions ; while the Spencer- Jacksons,
with whom Mr. Fitzroy was staying, were not above half pleased to
have their novelty, their new man, absorbed in this way. Mrs.
Spencer-Jackson was a lively young woman who liked to have a
cavalier on hand, whom she could lend, so to speak, to a favourite
girl as a partner, whether at carpet dance or picnic, and dispose of
according to her pleasure — an arrangement which Mr. Fitzroy
had much interfered with by devoting himself to Bampton-Leigh.
These things were being turned over in her mind by Miss
Bampton, while she sat looking out upon the lawn where every-
thing looked so fresh and cool under the trees. She was busy
with her usual knitting, but this did not in any way interfere with
the acuteness of her senses, or the course of her thoughts. Though
May and she were spoken of as if on the same level, as the Miss
Bamptons, this lady was twenty years older than her sister, and
had discharged for half of that time the functions of mother to
that heedless little girl. May had made Julia old, indeed, when
she had no right to be considered old. When the mother died she
had been a handsome quiet young woman, thirty indeed, which is
considered, though quite falsely, an unromantic age, yet quite
capable of being taken for twenty-eight, or even twenty-five, and
with admirers and prospects of her own. After her mourning
94 A WIDOW'S TALE.
was over she had become Miss Bampton, the feminine head of the
house, managing everything, receiving the few guests her father
cared to see, who were almost all contemporaries of his own, as if she
were as old as any of them — and had moved up to a totally
different level of life. Such a transformation is not unusual in a
widower's house. Miss Bampton took the position of her father's
wife rather than of his daughter, and no one thought it strange.
If she sacrificed any feelings of her own in doing so, no one found
it out. She was a mother to May ; she had found her position, it
seemed, taken possession of her place in the world, at the head of
a house which was her own house, though it was not her husband's
but her father's, It was generally supposed that the position
suited her admirably, and that she had never wished for any other :
which indeed I agree was very probably the case, though in such
matters no one can ever be confident. It was thus that she hap-
pened to be so absorbed in May, so watchful of this (she thought)
undesirable interposition of Mr. Fitzroy, of the partial with-
drawal of Bertie Harcourt, and of many things of equal, or rather
equally little, moment to the general world.
And this was the afternoon when Nelly Brunton, the little
widowed cousin from India, was coming on her first visit since her
return. It was true that a year had elapsed or more since the
death of Nelly's husband : but Miss Bampton felt that to receive
the poor little widow in the very midst of the laughter, the songs,
the foolish conversation and excitement of a love affair, or at the
least a strong flirtation, was the most inappropriate thing that
could be conceived. Poor Nelly with her life ended, so soon —
come back with all gaieties and gladness for ever shut out, the
music silenced, the very sight of a man (Miss Bampton felt) made
painful to her — to a life much more subdued and quiet than old-
maidenhood, she who had always been such a bright little thing,
full of fun and nonsense ! Ofood Julia figured her cousin to her-
self in a widow's cap (which, however, whatever people may say, is
a most becoming head-dress to a young woman), pale, smiling
quietly when her sympathy was called upon, shrinking aside a
little from a laugh, thinking of nothing but her two little children,
in whom she would, no doubt, poor thing, begin to live a subdued
life by proxy — and whom she had called, in that very touching
letter, the sole consolations of her life. Poor little Nelly ! who
would no doubt break down altogether when she came in to
this old place, which she had known in the brightness of her
A WIDOW'S TALE. 95
youth — and who ought, at least, to be received by her relations
alone, not in a stranger's presence. Miss Bampton grew very
restless and unhappy as the time went on. She heard the pony
carriage drive out, which May ought to have driven down to the
station to meet her cousin. May had found time to run out to
tell Johnson that he must go himself, that she could not be ready,
and the sound of the wheels upon the gravel felt like a reproach
to Julia who was not in the least to blame. How dreadful to send
only a servant to meet her — considering how much had come and
gone since she last stopped at that station ! When the carriage
had gone, Miss Bampton, who felt it her duty, though she was
not in the least wranted, to remain in the drawing-room while all
this practising was going on, could not keep still. She went and
came into the inner drawing-room, she took out books from the
shelves and put them back again, she laid down her knitting and
took it up, she looked at the clock first in one room, then in
another, and compared them with her watch. Finally, she came
up to the performers just as they came to the end of a song.
' That was very nice,' Miss Bampton .said. ' I think you have
it perfect. May, poor Nelly may be here at any moment ; don't
you think you should shut the piano before she comes in ? '
' Why ? ' said May, swinging round upon her stool to look her
sister in the face.
' Oh ! Well, dear, I don't know that I can explain. Nelly, that
used to be so fond of all these things herself, coming home a
widow, deprived of everything — I think that explains itself,
dear.'
' Is this lady, then, a statue of woe, covered with crape and
white caps and streamers ? ' said Fitzroy.
' I think I see Nelly like that,' cried May, with her fingers
running up and down the keys. ' We can manage this trio when
Nelly comes. You know, Julia, she was always the merriest little
thing, ready for any fun. What nonsense to try to make us
frightened of Nelly ! '
' In the first place, she is much older than you are,' said Miss
Bampton, with something as nearly like anger as she ever showed
to her sister, ' so how you can speak so confidently — I can't tell, I
am sure, whether she may wear a widow's cap. They don't, I
believe, in India ; but I am very certain, May, that you should
have gone down to the station to meet her, and that it will be a
painful thing for her, poor dear, though I hope the feeling may
96 A WIDOW'S TALE.
not last — to come back to this house after her trouble, she that has
been so happy here.'
'Why does she come, then?' said May, with a pout. 'If I
had thought we were to give up everything to Nelly, and go sigh-
ing through all the house '
' Weep upon her shoulder,' suggested the young man, in a low
tone.
' I must say,' cried Miss Bampton, fluttering her feathers like
a dove enraged, ''that though this sort of talk may be funny and
fashionable and all that, I find it in very bad taste. There is the
carriage coming back, and if you have no real sympathy for your
cousin, I hope you'll at least shut down the piano and meet her
without a song on your lips and a grin on your face ! '
This tremendous Parthian shaft Miss Bampton discharged as
she hurried out, with an almost pleased consciousness, soon to be
changed into remorse, of the force of the dart. A grin on May's
face ! To think that her laugh, which Mr. Fitzroy compared to
silver bells and all manner of pretty things, should be spoken of
as a grin ! May closed the piano with a noise like a blow.
'We shall have to stop, I suppose,' she said, impatiently,
' though I did want so much to try over that last again.'
' And I suppose I ought to fly,' said Fitzroy. ' Must I ? I
should like to have one peep at this wonderful widow before I leave
you, dissolved in tears '
' Oh, don't talk nonsense ! ' said May, with the faintest little
frown upon her forehead. It is one thing to laugh or jeer in your
own person at your family arrangements, and quite another thing
to have your laugh echoed by a stranger. ' I suppose I must go
and meet her,' she added, quickly, and hurried out, leaving him
alone by the piano.
If Mr. Fitzroy had been a young man of delicate feelings, it
is probable that he would have disappeared by the window, and
delivered his friends from his unnecessary presence at such a
moment. But his feelings were quite robust so far as other people
were concerned, and his curiosity was piqued. He stood calmly,
therefore, and waited till the party returned. He listened to Miss
Bampton's little cries and exclamations, subdued by the distance
but yet distinguishable. ' Dear Nelly ! dear Nelly ! So glad, so
glad to see you ! Welcome back to us all ! Welcome ! oh, my
dear, my dear ! ' Then a little sound of crying, then ' Oh, Nelly,
dear ! ' from May ; and kisses, and a note or two of a new voice,
' Dear old Ju ! dear Maysey,' different, not like the tones of the
A WIDOW'S TALE. 97
sisters, which resembled, much unlike as their personalities were.
Then there sounded old Mr. Bampton's tremulous bass. ' Well,
Nelly, my dear ; glad to see you back again.' To all this commo-
tion Percy Fitzroy listened, amused at the self-revelation in the
different tones. It was highly impertinent on his part to stay,
and without reason ; but his mind was not much disturbed by that.
Then the little procession streamed in, May first, pushing open
the door, Miss Bampton after, with the newcomer's arm affection-
ately and tightly drawn through hers, Mr. Bampton lumbering
behind, with his heavy tread. The newcomer — ah ! she was cer-
tainly worth a second look. She was covered with crape, with a
long veil falling almost to her feet ; but it was apparent to
Fitzroy's very sharp and experienced eyes that the crape was rusty
and brown, and probably $ occasion, put on for her first appearance
and to impress her relations. I don't know what it was in Mrs.
Brunton's face which gave the young man of the world this
impression. There are people who understand each other without
a word, at a glance. Mrs. Brunton's face was a very pretty one,
much prettier than May's, who had not much more than the
beaute de diable, the first fi eshness and bloom of a country girl,
to recommend her. The yoing widow had better features ; she
had a lurking something in the corners of her mouth, which
looked like ' a spice of wickedness ' to the audacious stranger.
She lifted her eyes with a little /entiment to survey ' the dear old
room,' prepared to sigh ; but caught, with a lightning glance, the
unknown young man in it, with the faintest elevation of her eye-
brows, postponing for a moment that ' suspiration of forced
breath,' which, however, followed all the same, with only an
infinitesimal delay. * The dear old room,' said Nelly ; ' nothing
changed except ' — and then came the round, full, long-drawn sigh.
Mr. Fitzroy felt that he had done well to wait ; there was fun to
be anticipated here. He caught May's eyes slightly dubious, and
elevated his own brows with a look that called back the smile to
her face. Then he crossed the room to the door, under shadow of
Mr. Bampton's back, and giving a little pressure to her hand in
parting, whispered * To-morrow ? ' as if it were for that question
he had stayed. May gave him a smile and a nod, and he hastened
away. What could be more discreet ? Even Miss Bampton, full
of wrath against him for his lingering, opened her mouth in sur-
prise when she found he had disappeared so unobtrusively, and had
nothing to say.
VOL. XXI. — NO. 121, X.S. 5
98 A WIDOW'S TALE.
CHAPTEE II.
WHEN Mrs. Bmnton's bonnet with the long veil was taken off, and
her long cloak which was half covered with crape, she presented a
very agreeable figure in a well-fitting dress, which indeed was
black, but in no special way gloomy, and pleasantly ' threw up *
her light brown hair and pretty complexion. The crape which
was rather shabby was indeed more or less worn — if not for effect
as Percy Fitzroy supposed — at least by way of response to a.
natural prejudice in favour of 'deep' mourning, which Nelly
knew to exist among the English kindred, apt as they were to for-
get that a long time had elapsed since that crape was a necessity
and quite congenial to her feelings. The tears which had come
to her eyes when she first saw her cousins, the sigh with which
she had greeted the dear old room (though kept back for half a
second by the unexpected sight of a stranger), were quite authentic
and genuine. Much indeed had passed over her head since she
had been last there, much since she had met the ' dear old Ju f
and little Maysey of her youthful recollections. The over-experi-
enced young man who had fixed his cynical eyes upon Mrs.
Brunton set it all down as fictitious, with a wisdom which is still
more ignorant and silly than foolishness. He took the smile of a-
buoyant nature which lay perdu about the corners of her mouth
for an equally cynical amusement at the role she had to play.
And he was entirely wrong, as such penetrating observers usually
are. She was ready to smile whenever an occasion should arise,
but at that moment she was very ready to cry. When they took
her out upon the well-known lawn, and established her in the very
same old chair which she remembered, before the same tea-things,
the old silver teapot, the china which she would have recognised
anywhere, Nelly burst out crying in spite of herself. ' I don't
believe there is a cup cracked of the whole set,' she said, ' and to-
think how many things have happened to me ! ' May, quite
touched, threw herself down on her knees by Nelly's side and
clasped her arms round her cousin's waist (' And I dared to think
the child was unfeeling ! ' Miss Bampton, remorseful, said to her-
self), while Julia bent over her and kissed her, and even old Mr.
Bampton stroked her shoulder with his heavy hand, saying, ' You
must keep up your heart, Nelly — you must try to keep up your
A WIDOW'S TALE. 99
heart.' And then presently they all dried their eyes, and sat down
in comfortable chairs and took their tea.
It was all as natural as the sunshine and the rain. Mrs.
Brunton had not perhaps great cause to be an inconsolable
widow ; and she was not so. Her husband, had he been the
bereaved person, would probably by this time have married again,
and she had no thought of doing that. But she had felt his loss
keenly, and the change in her life and all the unexpected differ-
ences in her lot which separated her from so many of her contem-
poraries to whom nothing had happened. Fortunately the
unfortunates in this world often come to feel a certain superiority
in their experience to those who have had no trouble, to whom
nothing has happened, which modifies the great inequalities of
the balance ; and this had some share in Nelly's feelings. The
cousins had been happy and at peace< all the time during which
she had ' gone through ' so much ? but she felt herself on such a
height of experience and development over their heads as no
words could say. They had never known what trouble was — they
were here with their old china, their old silver teapot, polished !
as if that was the great business in life ; not a cup was cracked,
not a chair displaced, old Sinnett the butler stepping softly across
the noiseless grass, with the cake basket, just as he had always
done. After Nelly had cried with a full heart, she laughed, look-
ing round, as she took her tea. ' Does nothing ever happen over
here ? ' she said ; ' are you all exactly as you used to be before I
went away ? '
' Ju has never gone off, you see ; she can't bring any man to
the point,' said the old heavy father with a laugh.
' Oh papa ! ' said the gentle Julia — ' but Nelly knows your
naughty ways.'
' Yes, I know my uncle's naughty ways — and 'that he gives
thanks on his knees night and morning that Julia has never
brought any man to the point : for what would Bampton-Leigh
do without her ? ' Nelly cried.
'• Oh there's me ! ' said May.
4 That little thing ! ' said Mr. Bampton ; ' she is in the other
line, quite the other line. I can't go out for my walk in the
morning but some young fellow or other comes trying to make up
to me — I'm May's father, Nelly, now-a-days : that's what I am to
those young men.'
' I saw one in the drawing-room,' said Mrs. Brunton $ ' I sup-1
5—2
100 A WIDOW'S TALE.
pose it was one of them. It gave me quite a start to see a
stranger there.'
' And very bad taste of him,' said Miss Bampton, reddening ;
' the very worst taste ! I suppose he stopped to see whether you
were nice-looking enough to please him, Nelly.'
' Nothing of the sort ! ' cried May ; ' he stopped to finish a song
we were practising. Julia is always saying disagreeable things of
Mr. Fitzroy.'
Nelly had not the air of finding it very disagreeable that the
young man had waited to see whether she was nice-looking. She
smoothed back her hair, which curled a little on her forehead, and
said with a smile : ' That was why you couldn't come to meet me at
the station, May.'
* It is for a concert in the village,' said May, with a great flush
of colour.
4 Oh ! ' said Julia hastily, ' you must not think, Nelly, it was
the child's fault. I gave all the hints I could, but we could not
get him to go away. He is one of those society men, as people
call them, who do exactly what they please and never mind what
you say.'
' Julia is so dreadfully prejudiced — she is nothing but a bundle
of prejudices ! '
' And is there nothing new but Mr. Fitzroy ? — if that is his
name,' Nelly said.
. Then they began to tell her of all the vicissitudes of the
country life, the people who had been married, the children who
had been born, a point on which Nelly, being a mother herself,
was very curious — and the sons who had gone away to seek their
fortune. Mr. Bampton by this time had taken his tea and gone
in again, so that the ladies were alone with their gossip ; and Mrs.
Brunton sat and listened with a smile, in the relief of having got
the first meeting over, and the first shock of the old recollections.
She felt at her ease now, not disturbed by any fear of criticism, or
of meeting in Julia's eye a reminder that she ought to have had
her hair covered by a cap. If truth must be told, it had wounded
Julia's feelings much to see her cousin take off her bonnet so
simply, without putting up her hand to her head and saying ' But
I have no cap ! ' as ladies who wear that article generally do. Miss
Bampton, however, had still a hope that when Nelly dressed for the
evening it might appear, covering her with the appropriate crown
of sorrow. All was not lost as yet, though already indeed Julia
A WIDOW'S TALE. 101
had begun to feel a regret that the pretty hair should be covered
up, and was in a state of mind to forgive Nelly if that outward and
visible sign was not in her wardrobe at all.
When Nelly came down to dinner it was a shock, but not so
great a shock as Miss Bampton, had she foreseen it, would have
expected. She had no cap — but then her dress was in such very
good taste ! It was of very thin black stuff, almost transparent,
faintly showing her shoulders and arms through, but made quite
up to the throat and of a material which was very black and
' deep,' with no lustre or reflections in it, not even jet or any of
the deadly-lively ornaments with which mourning is ' lighted up.'
It made her look very slim, very young, very much like a girl — •
but poor Nelly could not help that. And nothing, Miss Bampton
said to herself, could be nicer than Nelly was. She asked May
about her concert that was coming off, and begged that she might
be told what songs she was goingN to sing. ' I might help you a
little/ she said ; ' I could play your accompaniments at least.'
And so she did, helping her, for Nelly was a good musician, and
giving her a great many hints — as good as a lesson, May acknow-
ledged. And later in the evening when Mr. Bampton came in
and asked if she could not sing for him that old-fashioned song
she used to sing, Nelly, sighing a little, and smiling, and with a
tear in her eyes, sang ' My mother bids me bind my hair ' with a
pathos in her voice for Lubin who was away, that made the good
Julia cry. She dashed off after that into another lighter song that
meant nothing, to take away the taste of the first, she said, which
was a little too much for her. Oh no, she had not given up her
singing — but nobody had asked her for that old song for years.
' Shows what fools they are now-a-days — in music as well
as everything else,' Mr. Bampton said.
The next day Nelly offered most good-naturedly to help May
and Mr. Fitzroy with their accompaniments — and the next they
tried the trio, which was accomplished with great success. She
was a better musician and had a much finer voice than May — and
before her visit was half over it was she who sang with Fitzroy,
taking the leading part in all the concerted music. There were
two or three small parties, and it was decided by everybody that it
was with Nelly's soprano, not May's, that the baritone went so well.
* Dear May's is a delicious little voice,' said Mrs. Spencer- Jackson,
' so pure and so sweet ; but Mrs. Brunt on has a great deal of
execution, and she has been so well trained. It is what I call
102 A WIDOW'S TALE.
artificial singing, not sweet and childlike, like dear May's. But
then so is Percy Fitzroy's — these are the two that go together.'
Perhaps there was a secret inclination on the part of Mrs. Spencer-
Jackson to give a little prick to the Bamptons who had stolen her
young man from her. But he was now more away from her than
ever. He had always something that called him to Bampton-
.Leigh, and, if she had disliked to have him carried off by May,
there was a still stronger reason for objecting to his entire absorp-
tion in Mrs. Brunton. However, among most of the audience
which listened to their music — whether in the continual rehearsal
of which all but the singers were tired — or at the village concert
where Nelly, ' for such a good motive,' was persuaded to lay aside
her scruples and take a part — the same idea was prevalent. These
were the two that went together. It had always been a delusion
in respect to May Bampton. Her little chirp of a voice never
could hold its place along with Mr. Fitzroy's baritone : which
shows how people deceive themselves when their own vanity is
concerned. Thus the whole neighbourhood concurred in the
verdict. And poor little May, much surprised, was left out of it
without any preparation or softening to her of the event. Percy
Fitzroy had never been her lover, so that there was nothing at all
to blame him for. If the girl had taken foolish notions into her
head, there was nobody to blame but herself.
May, for her part, was so much surprised when Fitzroy trans-
ferred his attentions to her cousin that she could not believe her
eyes. He came as often as ever, and he was ready enough to
throw her a crumb of kindness, a scrap of compliment, a morsel
of conversation in something of the old tones. She was not
jealous of Nelly, or what she and Julia called her strong voice ;
but when the little girl, new to all perfidies, perceived that the
man who had hung about her and charmed her was turning all
the artillery of whispers and glances in another direction, and that
Nelly, in her black dress — Nelly, who was a widow, who ought to
be entirely above the region of flirtation — was the object of these
seductions, a cruel astonishment was the first feeling in her breast.
She had been flattered and pleased and amused by the little eclat
of Fitzroy's subjugation. She now stood by in amazement, and
watched the change without understanding it. At first everybody
had been so sorry for Nelly; and it was easy to imagine that
Fitzroy, too, shared that admirable sentiment. A widow, so
young ! though, now that it came to this, May began secretly to
count up Nelly's years, and to decide that at thirty Nelly was not
A WIDOW'S TALE. 103
,so very young ; that she had quite reached the shady side of life,
when troubles were to be calculated upon. At twenty, thirty is a
great age : it means more than maturity — it is the beginning of
•decadence. After all, why was Nelly so much to be pitied ? And
there was such a thing as carrying pity too far. May did not
know how to account at first for the change in her own feelings
towards her cousin, any more than for the change in her own
position, so strangely brought about — the change from being the
first, always considered, to being in a manner nobody at all.
CHAPTER III.
3Iiss BAMPTOX'S sentiments during this sudden change of circum-
stances were more remarkable than those of May, for she was as
much dismayed and startled as her sister, and much more angry,
understanding the whole process better ; while at the same time
.she was, in the midst of her indignation, more or less satisfied to
.see that Fitzroy's attentions, which had made her so uneasy, were
•coming to an end. This is a state of mind which it is very dirfi-
•cult to describe in so many words. The excellent Julia would
have believed herself ready, before Nelly came, to welcome any-
thing which should break the charm of the stranger's fascina-
tions, and restore May to her previous much more trustworthy
.suitor; but when this deliverance came in the shape of Mrs.
Brunton, her anger and resentment and sense of downfall were
quite unreasonable. That any one — any man in his senses
.should turn from May to Nelly ! that the fresh and delightful
bloom of the girl should be left neglected for the attractions of
the maturer woman ; that May, in her own house, the young prin-
cess of everything, should be thrust into the second place, and
Nelly — Nelly, whose day was over — made the principal attraction !
This was almost more than Miss Bampton could bear. And to see
May sitting by with her needlework, or pretending to read, while
Nelly and Fitzroy sang, and turned over the music and talked to
•each other, as musical people do, ' Do you remember that phrase ? '
' Oh, don't you recollect this ? ' with a few bars played on the piano,
.and how ' the melody comes in here,' and how ' that cadenza
was repeated there,' and so forth and so forth, interspersed with
•exclamations of ecstatic admiration — produced in Julia's mind an
•exasperation which it was almost impossible sto subdue. Even
Mr. Bampton, who took so little notice, had said once or twice,
104 A WIDOW'S TALE.
' Why isn't May singing ? ' when he came in for his cup of tea.
And May, taking it all like the darling she \vas, not sulky at allr
saying a word when there was any room for her to come in, making
her first experience in life, but so sweetly, so patiently, through
all her surprise.
This changed altogether, however, the character of the scene
in the drawing-room at Bampton-Leigh, where now the two sisters
who were the mistresses of the place pursued their occupations^
almost as if they had been alone, while the little vaudeville,,
operetta, genteel comedy, or whatever you please to call it, went
on at the piano. Miss Bampton felt that she had no call whatever
to provide the scenery, as it were — the good piano, the pretty
room, the tea-table, with all its agrements, for this drama. When
May was the heroine it was all befitting and natural — but for
Nelly ! Miss Bampton's fingers trembled over her knitting, as she
sat bursting with indignation. The only thing to console her wa&
that she had never in her life so admired her little sister. How
beautifully May behaved ! When Julia, in an access of that fury
which sometimes moves the mildest, said fiercely, under her
breath, to her sister working at the window j ' I can't bear this-
much longer ! ' May lifted up pathetic eyes and cried, ' Why ?
You used to like it well enough,' said the young martyr, steadily,,
yet with a pale cheek, ignoring any change. Oh, what a darling
she was ! and set aside in her own house by that little Nelly, a
widow, who ought to be thinking of very different things.
I do not know how to justify Nelly's conduct in these circum-
stances, and yet I do not think she was so much to blame as
appears at a first glance. Mrs. Brunton's spirit, much subdued
and cast down for a time, had risen before she came to visit her
relations in the country, by the natural movement of life and
youth, and the sense that after all her existence was not over,
though she had tried hard to persuade herself that it was. It was
not at all over ; it was very warm and lively in her veins, despite
of everything she had gone through. Poor Jack was gone. She
had been very faithful to Jack, suffering no one to say a word
against him either living or dead. She had not blamed him for
giving very little thought to the comfort of his wife and children
after he was gone. But now that he was gone, and his grave-
green, and her crape rusty and worn out, it was not natural that
she should continue to pose, like a statue of woe leaning upon an
urn. That was not at all the role which she had felt herself to be-
capable of playing. And she had never felt herself the venerable
A WIDOW'S TALE. 105-
matron which she appeared to May. She was young ; her blood
was still running fast in her veins ; her little children made no claim
yet upon her for anything but kisses and smiles, and the cares
which an excellent nurse made light. And Nelly, for a long time
sequestered from every amusement, amused herself with relish as
soon as it came within her reach. She was scarcely aware at first
that she was taking May's admirer from her. Little Maysey !
Why, she was only a child, not old enough for that sort of diver-
sions. She had plunged into the music, into the fun, into that
little excitement of flirtation which comes on so easily, without
intention, without at all perceiving any other effect. And, indeed,
she only awoke to what she had done quite suddenly one evening
when there was a dinner party at Bampton-Leigh, and when, after
the gentlemen came back to the drawing-room, she had been
called upon to sing with Mr. Fitzroy for the delight of the party,
and without waiting for any special^entreaty had complied. When
they sang one song they were asked for another, in the most
natural way in the world.
' That is one of May's songs,' said some one who was near the
piano.
'Oh, is it?' cried Nelly, 'I have sung it several times with
Mr. Fitzroy.'
' But it is one of May's songs all the same,' insisted this inju-
dicious person. ' I have heard her sing it very often, also with
Mr. Fitzroy.'
' Yes,' said young Harcourt, who was present, and who was still
more angry than Julia to see May seated at the other end of the
room talking to an old lady. ' It is certainly one of May's songs :
and nobody could sing it so sweetly,' the young man added, with
fire in his eyes.
' By the way,' said the indiscreet person, ' how is it, with sc-
much music going on, that we have not had a song from May ? '
' Oh, May — has not been singing much for some time,' said
Miss Bampton, with a little quiver in her voice.
And Mrs. Brunton, startled, gave a sudden look round the
room. She saw Fitzroy placing the music upon the piano in a
deliberate, conscious way, which made it apparent to her suddenly
awakened faculties that he was aware of the meaning in these
O
words ; and she caught young Harcourt's look fixed somewhat
fiercely upon herself: and Julia, who had turned her head away
and would not look at her at all : and May, in the background,
smiling and talking to the old lady, talking very fast, smiling a
106 A WIDOW'S TALE.
little more than she meant, looking pale and ' out of it ' — that
curious condition which is not to be described, but which betrays
itself to a looker-on. All this Nelly saw with a sudden awakening
to the real state of affairs, which ought, of course, to have occurred
to her before. And for a moment shame and compunction were
strong in her.
' I am so glad,' she said. ' It is far more suited to her voice
than mine : and I want so much to hear her sing it. Please, Mr.
Harcourt, go and ask her. I hadn't sung for ever so long before
I came here,' she added, apologetically, to the little circle round
the piano, ' and they made me begin again ; and I never know
when to stop — so that I have scarcely heard May. Isn't it a dread-
ful confession to make ? ' she said, with an embarrassed laugh.
' You have so strong a voice,' said Miss Bampton, melting a
little. ' May's voice is a little thing after yours.'
' May herself is a little thing beside me,' said Mrs. Brunton,
sitting down apart from the piano. ' I am almost old enough to
be her mother ! ' She felt that in saying this she had made fully
the amende honorable to May.
But May would not sing, though she was entreated by all the
company. She had her little dignity. ' Oh, no,' she said, ' I
could not sing after Nelly — Nelly has so much stronger a voice
than I have. Oh, please no ! '
' There is nobody who sings so sweetly as you do,' said young
Harcourt, delighted with the opportunity.
But May would not be persuaded. I don't know that Mrs.
Brunton was altogether pleased to hear her voice described as so
' strong.' That is not always a complimentary adjective, and it
gave her an amusement tempered with annoyance to hear her
organ thus classified. She could not help a little half-angry smile,
nor could she help meeting Fitzroy's eye, whose position at the
piano, with no one to join him, was a little absurd. He was
putting aside the music, looking exceedingly annoyed and rather
fierce ; but when their eyes met he, too, laughed. They under-
stood each other at once, and when, after this little incident, the
music was stopped altogether, he came and sat by her, anxious to
communicate his feelings. * What a ridiculous business ! ' he said.
' How silly ! to put a stop to everything for the gratification of a
little absurd jealousy ! '
' Jealousy ! ' said Nelly ; < that would be the most absurd of all
— if there was any jealousy in it. There is very little reason for
•any one to be jealous of me.'
A WIDOW'S TALE. 107
' I do not think so,' said Fitzroy, in a low voice.
And then Nelly felt again how very foolish it was to remark
upon such simple incidents in this strain.
' You don't understand my cousins,' I see,' she said. ' It is
nothing of the kind; but it is extraordinarily foolish of me to
have absorbed everything, and forgotten that May was not a child
any longer. She always seems a child to me.'
' She looks quite as old as you do,' her companion said.
' Oh, nonsense ! she is full ten years younger than I am. How-
ever, it does not matter so much, for I am going away.'
' So soon ? ' murmured Fitzroy.
' Soon ! I have been here a fortnight — away from my little
children.' Mrs. Brunton found it expedient to quench his tone of
devotion by putting all her disadvantages in the foreground. He
looked at her with more meaning than he had ever felt in his life
in his eyes.
' Would it be indiscreet to ask where you were going ? ' he
said.
' Not at all ; I am going home. I have a little house at Haven
Green, where my children are.'
'I am going, too,' he said. 'May I come and see you? I
shall be for some time in town.'
' Oh, if you are in the neighbourhood,' said Mrs. Brunton ; and
she turned aside to talk to some one on the other side, an old
friend, with whom her colloquy was not conducted in such subdued
tones. And soon the name of Haven Green, and the fact that her
children were there awaiting her, and that she was going almost
immediately, floated from one to another through the room.
Miss Bampton heard it, and her heart rose ; yet it smote her when
she thought these incidents over to feel that she had herself been
almost guilty of suggesting to Nelly that it would be better if she
went away. As for May, she had seen the conversation, the two
heads bent, the exchange of looks, the evidently subdued tone of
the communications that passed between them. The poor girl
scarcely knew how to behave when Fitzroy approached her some
time after. She had been foolish about the song — she had shown
her feelings, which is to a girl in such circumstances the worst of
sins. Should she tell him she had a headache, or a sore throat, or
anything that would excuse her ? But he did not leave her the
time to invent any excuse.
' I am so sorry,' he said, carrying the war into the enemy's
country, ' that you would not sing with me to-night : for it will be,
108 A WIDOW'S TALE.
I fear, one of the last times, if not the very last, that I shall have
the chance.'
May's poor little heart seemed to cease to beat. "What a sudden r
dreadful punishment was this for her little gentle self-assertion !
' The last time ? ' she cried. ' Oh, are you going away ? '
' I must, I fear,' he said. ' I have been idling too long, and I
seem to have outstayed my welcome. I did think that you would
have sung with me this last night.'
' Oh, Mr. Fitzroy ! ' was all that May could say. She had hard
ado to keep the tears out of her eyes.
CHAPTER IV.
BAMPTON-LEIGH felt very blank and vacant when both these people
who had troubled its peace went away. Had Nelly gone alone and
Mr. Fitzroy remained, it is possible that there might have been
some consolation; indeed, May, in her inmost heart, had looked
forward to that period as to a time of peace, when the disturbing
element being removed — the ' strong ' voice of Nelly, and those
amusing and enlivening social qualities in which it was natural
that a matron of her age should excel a timid girl — things might
return to their original condition, and Fitzroy once more hang
•ver her, and encourage her exertions, and praise the sweetness of
her voice, which ' went ' so well with his. Perhaps May had not
been aware how eagerly she had been looking forward to this time :
and the abyss into which she fell when her hopes came to an end
so suddenly, the dull and dreadful vacancy, which was all that
remained to her, was almost more than she could bear. It was her
first experience of disappointment and deprivation. She had been
the spoiled child all her life of her father's house. Whatever she
had wanted had been got for her, had it been in any way possible
to attain it : and May had never wished for anything that was
quite unattainable, until she wished, yet would not for the world
have , expressed the wish, for the visits, the songs, the fascination
of Percy Fitzroy's society, which had come to her without asking,
without any action or desire of hers. This gives additional sharp-
ness to the stab of such losses — that the thing which makes your
life desolate when it is taken away, has come accidentally, as it
were, unsought — to add to and then to annihilate the happiness of
(as in this instance) a poor little girl, who had been quite happy
without it, who had not wanted it when it originally appeared.
A WIDOW'S TALE. 109
Poor May felt that she had no share in bringing on this doom,
which to her youthful consciousness seemed to have overwhelmed
her for ever. She had not wanted Mrs. Spencer-Jackson to invite
him ; she had not suggested to Julia to bring him to Bampton-
Leigh ; she had not even begun the singing, poor little May ! She
was a perfectly innocent victim. And now, alas ! she could not
bring back the happy unconscious state to which Percy Fitzroy
was unknown. The afternoons did not return to her as they had
existed before — full of cheerful occupations and amusements. They
were blank, and vacant, and impoverished, full of a wistful longing.
Oh, if he were but here ! Oh, if she could but hear his voice,
and join in his singing again ! She spent hours at the piano,
dreaming that he was by her side, murmuring over her part,
recalling all the past delights. Poor little May ! When the girls
from the Kectory came to play tennis, which they did more often
than usual, at Miss Bampton's instigation, instead of being glad
to see them, May hated the sight of their well-known faces. She
said to herself that she was sick, altogether sick, of her life.
And if May was thus miserable, it may be imagined how much
more miserable was the elder sister, who suffered all that May
suffered, and the additional burden of blaming herself for all the
unthought-of steps that had brought it about. Why had she
allowed Fitzroy to come at all ? Why had she permitted all that
singing, those constant attentions which stole May's heart away ?
Why, having done that, had she asked Nelly ? Oh, what a fool,
what a fool she had been all round ! It was always she who was
to blame whatever happened — she, with such a dear little sister to
take care of! — she ought to be a dragon in respect to gentlemen,
and never allow one to come near unless she knew his character
and could trust him ; and she knew nothing of Fitzroy's character.
And then, when that harm was done by her fault, to think that
she should go and invite Nelly, and throw everything into confu-
sion ! Was there ever so abominable, so wicked, a thing to do ?
Had she asked Nelly at the first (these italics were all Miss
Bampton's, deeply, trebly underlined in her thoughts), everything
would have been well ; for then it would have been Nelly and this
stranger, this unknown, untrustworthy man, who would have
attracted each other, and May would have gone free. But no ! if
she had intended to make mischief, to make everything as bad as
could be, she could not have managed better. It is all my fault,
she said to herself — all, all, my fault. It was she, indeed, and not
Percy Fitzroy, who had broken May's heart !
110 A WIDOW'S TALE.
Thus it will be seen that these two persons left chaos and
•untold confusion behind them when they went away. Mrs. Brunton
looked very wistfully at her cousins when she took leave of them.
She had the air of wishing to ask their pardon. But then it
would have been an offence, an insult, to ask pardon — for what ?
for taking May's lover from her, for being preferred to May!
Better to bear the stain of blackest guilt, to submit to an ever-
lasting breach, than to insult May by suggesting that. And yet
Nelly was very sorry and ashamed of herself, though supported
underneath these two sentiments by a certain softening of com-
placence and gratified vanity, which she would not have acknow-
ledged for the world. That she, poor Jack's widow, hardly out of
her weeds (indeed, she left Bampton-Leigh in the same crape
bonnet, with the long veil, in which she had arrived), should have
interfered with May's love affair, should have taken her place, and
carried on something which she could not to herself deny to be
very like a flirtation with her young cousin's admirer ! How
terrible, how treacherous, how shocking it was ! At the bottom
of her heart there remained that dreadful little guilty sense that
there was pleasure in it ; that to be still capable, amid all her dis-
advantages, of touching a man's heart, was something not dis-
agreeable : but this she did not own to herself. She was very
tender to May all that last morning, praising her and flattering
her with the intention of making up a little for her fault ; and she
looked very wistfully in Julia's face, and would fain, very fain,
have said something. But Miss Bampton was much on her
dignity, and had a look which forbade all such effusions. ' I hope
you will like your new house,' Miss Bampton said. ' For my part,.
I think you would have been a great deal better in the country —
not so near town.'
' But it is quite in the country,' said Nelly.
' Nothing which is within ten minutes of town by the railway
can be called the country,' said Julia with great severity. ' I
hope it may be good for the children — of course it will be much
livelier for yourself.'
' Indeed, I don't see how it can be very lively for myself,' cried
Nelly, feeling this attack upon her. 'I know nobody but the
clergyman's family — and the society is not usually very lively in
such places — if I wished for lively society,' she added in an
equally serious tone.
' Oh, my dear Nelly, you will wish for it ! ' cried her cousin.
« It is not to be expected that you should shut yourself up for ever
A WIDOW'S TALE. Ill
at your age. And then it will be so handy for town — you will
have all your friends coming to see you from town.'
And a look passed between these ladies which did away with
the recollection of many years of love and friendship — a look
which said on one side — You know that you have asked him to-
come to see you ! — and on the other with a flash, Well ! and what
then ! — notwithstanding that Julia's heart was full of charity, and
Nelly's of compunction. But Mrs. Brunton was stirred up to self-
defence, and Miss Bampton had in her all the fury of the outraged
dove.
' Well ! she is gone,' said Miss Bampton coming back to May
who stood at the window of the hall looking out very gravely at
her cousin's departure. Julia did not recollect now how angry
she had been with May for not driving to the station to meet Mrs.
Brunton. But neither of them thought of accompanying her
when she went away. May stood at the hall window while Julia
went out to the door, and they both looked after the disappearing
carriage with a seriousness that was alarming to see. It might
have been a funeral after which they were gazing, instead of Nelly
in her mourning bonnet and with all her little boxes. ' Well ! r
said Miss Bampton, ' she is gone at last, and I am sure I am very
glad. I never thought Nelly Bampton could have changed so in
half a dozen years.'
' Has she changed ? ' said May, with a quiet air of indifference
turning from the window, ' And I don't see why you should say
at last. For after all she has only been a fortnight here.'
' A fortnight too long,' Miss Bampton said.
' You are such a very strange person, Julia, one never under-
stands you,' said her young sister. ' Why in the name of wonder
did you ask Nelly to come here, if she has been a fortnight too
long ? What absurdity that is ! She thinks she had a most
successful visit, I feel sure/
' If she calls that success ! '
' What ? ' said May, looking fiercely into Miss Bampton's eyes.
But that was what the poor mother-sister dared not to say.
If she had uttered the name of Percy Fitzroy, May would have
turned upon her, with what angry disdain ! ' Mr. Fitzroy ! what
could he possibly have to do with it?' May would have said.
Miss Bampton did not venture to bring upon herself such a re-
sponse as that.
' Oh, nothing ! ' she said. ' I am always making mistakes.
Nelly is — not at all what she used to be, dear. Matrimony is not
112 A WIDOW'S TALE.
good for some people, and ladies in India get dreadfully spoiled
sometimes. They are accustomed to so much attention. There
are not so many of them there as here, and they are never
•contented if they have not every man they see at their feet.'
' I did not remark that in Nelly,' said May, who was very
pensive, and so wounded and sore in her poor little heart that it
did her good to be disagreeable to Julia. ' There was Bertie
Harcourt, for instance, whom she took no notice of — and who I am
.sure was not at her feet.'
' Ah, Bertie Harcourt ! ' cried Miss Bampton, ' He — ' she paused
•on the pronoun for greater emphasis, speaking with fervour —
•* He — is a heart of gold.'
' Is he ? ' said May indifferently ; ' you seem to imply that
others are different — and indeed I think that it would be much
more comfortable to have a heart like other people.'
< Oh, May ! '
' I wish you would stop all that,' cried May angrily ; ' when
you get into one of your moods, Julia, you are intolerable. I
wish you would let Nelly Brunton alone : I don't see anything
remarkable about her,' the girl said with a toss of her head,
walking back into the drawing-room, where she flung the piano
open, and began to sing in the most defiant manner. It was a
wet day, the lawn swept by a white blast of rain, and all the trees
-cowering piteously as if running in for shelter. Poor Miss Bamp-
ton sat down in a deep chair to hide herself, feeling as if she had
been the occasion of all that had happened, and that it was
natural she should suffer accordingly. And when presently May
ran singing upstairs, and the door of her room was heard to shut
upon her, poor Julia did not follow. She dared not follow; for
the first time in her life poor little May, now finding out what it
was to be grown up and a woman, had to bear her moment of
bitterness by herself. I need not say that Julia cried silently all
the time, sunk in the depths of the big chair, so that Mr. Bampton
when he came in, in quest of tea or something to break the
dullness of the afternoon, saw nobody in the room, and went out
.again calling indignantly for Ju and Maysey, and demanding of
the butler in angry tones whether this afternoon of all others,
when no one could go out or do anything to amuse one's self, there
was to be no tea.
(To "be continued.')
THE
COENHILL MAGAZINE.
AUGUST 1898.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER V.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
Do not give dalliance
Too much the rein ; the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood.
' AND what do you intend to do with yourself ? ' asked Lady Can-
tourne when she had poured out tea. ' You surely do not intend
to mope in that dismal house in Russell Square ? '
' No, I shall let that if I can.'
' Oh, you will have no difficulty in doing that. People live in
Russell Square again now, and try to make one believe that it is
a fashionable quarter. Your father stayed on there because the
carpets fitted the rooms, and on account of other ancestral
conveniences. He did not live there — he knew nothing of his
immediate environments. He lived in Phoenicia.'
' Then,' continued Guy Oscard, ' I shall go abroad.'
'Ah ! Will you have a second cup ? Why will you go abroad ? '
Guy Oscard paused for a moment. ' I know an old hippo-
potamus in a certain African river who has twice upset me. I
want to go back and shoot him.'
' Don't go at once ; that would be running away from it — not
from the hippopotamus — from the inquest. It does not matter
being upset in an African river ; but you must not be upset in
London by — an inquest.'
' I did not propose going at once,' replied Guy Oscard, with a
peculiar smile which Lady Cantourne thought she understood.
VOL. XXI. — NO. 122, N.3. 6
114 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' It will take me some time to set my affairs in order — the will,
and all that.'
Lady Cantourne waited with perfectly suppressed curiosity,
and while she was waiting Millicent Chyne came into the room.
The girl was dressed with her habitual perfect taste and success,
and she came forward with a smile of genuine pleasure, holding
out a small hand neatly gloved in Suede. Her ladyship was
looking not at Millicent but at Guy Oscard.
Millicent was glad that he had called, and said so. She did
not add that during the three months that had elapsed since Jack
Meredith's sudden departure she had gradually recognised the
approaching ebb of a very full tide of popularity. It was rather
dull at times, when Jack's letters arrived at intervals of two and
sometimes of three weeks — when her girl friends allowed her to
see somewhat plainly that she was no longer to be counted as one
of themselves. An engagement sits as it were on a young lady
like a weak heart on a schoolboy, setting her apart in work and
play, debarring her from participation in that game of life which
is ever going forward where young folks do congregate.
Moreover, she liked Guy Oscard. He aroused her curiosity.
There was something in him — something which she vaguely sus-
pected to be connected with herself — which she wanted to drag
out and examine. She possessed more than the usual allowance
of curiosity — which is saying a good deal ; for one may take it
that the beginning of all things in the feminine mind is curiosity.
They want to know what is inside Love before they love. Guy
Oscard was a new specimen of the genus homo ; and while remain-
ing perfectly faithful to Jack, Miss Millicent Chyne saw no reason
why she should not pass the time by studying him, merely, of
course, in a safe and innocent manner. She was one of those
intelligent young ladies who think deeply — about young men.
And such thinking usually takes the form of speculation as to
how the various specimens selected will act under specified
circumstances. The circumstances need hardly be mentioned.
Young men are only interesting to young women in circum-
stances strictly personal to and bearing upon themselves. In a
word, maidens of a speculative mind are always desirous of finding
out how different men will act when they are in love ; and we all
know and cannot fail to applaud the assiduity with which they
pursue their studies.
' Ah ! ' said Miss Chyne, ' it is very good of you to take pity
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 115
upon two lone females. I was afraid that you had gone off to the
wilds of America or somewhere in search of big game. Do you
know, Mr. Oscard, you are quite a celebrity ? I heard you called
the "big-game man" the other day, also the "travelling fellow.'"
The specimen smiled happily under this delicate handling.
' It is not,' he said modestly, ' a very lofty fame. Anybody
could let off a rifle.'
' I am afraid I could not,' replied Millicent, with a pretty little
shudder of horror, ' if anything growled.'
' Mr. Oscard has just been telling me,' interposed Lady Can-
tourne conversationally, ' that he is thinking of going off to the
wilds again.'
' Then it is very disappointing of him,' said Millicent, with a
little droop of the eyelids which went home. ' It seems to be
only the uninteresting people who stay at home and live humdrum
lives of enormous duration.' "
' He seems to think that his friends are going to cast him off
because his poor father died without the assistance of a medical
man,' continued the old lady meaningly.
' No — I never said that, Lady Cantourne.'
' But you implied it.'
Guy Oscard shook his head. ' I hate being a notoriety/ he
said. ' I like to pass through with the crowd. If I go away for
a little while I shall return a nonentity.'
At this moment another visitor was announced, and presently
made his appearance. He was an old gentleman of no personality
whatever, who was nevertheless welcomed effusively, because two
people in the room had a distinct use for him. Lady Cantourne
was exceedingly gracious. She remembered instantly that horti-
culture was among his somewhat antiquated accomplishments,
and she was immediately consumed with a desire to show him
the conservatory which she had had built outside the drawing-
room window. She took a genuine interest in this abode of
flowers, and watered the plants herself with much enthusiasm —
when she remembered.
Added to a number of positive virtues the old gentleman
possessed that of abstaining from tea, which enabled the two
horticulturists to repair to the conservatory at once, leaving the
young people alone at the other end of the drawing-room.
Millicent smoothed her gloves with downcast eyes and that
demure air by which the talented fair imply the consciousness of
6—2
116 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
being alone and out of others' earshot with an interesting member
of the stronger sex.
Ofuy sat and watched the Suede gloves with a certain sense of
placid enjoyment. Then suddenly he spoke, continuing his
remarks where they had been broken off by the advent of the
useful old gentleman.
' You see,' he said, ' it is only natural that a great many people
should give me the cold shoulder. My story was a little lame.
There is no reason why they should believe in me.'
' I believe in you,' she answered.
' Thank you.'
He looked at her in a strange way, as if he liked her terse
creed, and would fain have heard it a second time. Then sud-
denly he leant back with his head against a corner of the piano.
The fronds of a maidenhair fern hanging in delicate profusion
almost hid his face. He was essentially muscular in his thoughts,
and did not make the most of his dramatic effects. The next
remark was made by a pair of long legs ending off with patent-
leather boots which were not quite new. The rest of him was
invisible.
' It was a very unpleasant business,' he said, in a jerky, self-
conscious voice. ' I didn't know that I was that sort of fellow.
The temptation was very great. I nearly gave in and let him do
it. He was a stronger man than I. You know — we did not get
on well together. He always hoped that I would turn out a
literary sort of fellow, and I suppose he was disappointed. I tried
at one time, but I found it was no good. From indifference it
turned almost to hatred. He disliked me intensely, and I am
afraid I did not care for him very much.'
She nodded her head, and he went on. Perhaps he could see
her through the maidenhair fern. She was getting more and
more interested in this man. He obviously disliked talking of
himself — a pleasant change which aroused her curiosity. He was
so unlike other men, and his life seemed to be different from the
lives of the men whom she had known— stronger, more intense, and
of greater variety of incident.
' Of course,' he went on, ' his death was really of enormous
advantage to me. They say that I shall have two or three
thousand a year, instead of five hundred, paid quarterly at Cox's.
He could not prevent it coming to me. It was my mother's
money. He would have done so if he could, for we never dis-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 117
guised our antipathy for each other. Yet we lived together, and
— and I had the nursing of him.'
Millicent was listening gravely without interrupting — like a
man. She had the gift of adapting herself to her environments
in a marked degree.
' And,' he added curtly, ' no one knows how much I wanted
that three thousand a year.'
The girl moved uneasily and glanced towards the conservatory.
' He was not an old man,' Guy Oscard went on. ' He was
only forty-nine. He might have lived another thirty years.'
She nodded, understanding the significance of his tone.
' There,' he said with an awkward laugh, ' do you still believe
in me ? '
' Yes,' she answered, still looking into the conservatory.
There was a little pause. They were both sitting forward in
their chairs looking towards the conservatory.
' It was not the money that tempted me,' said Guy very
deliberately, ' it was you.'
She rose from her chair as if to join her aunt and the horti-
cultural old gentleman.
'You must not say that,' she said in little more than a
whisper, and without looking round she went towards Lady
Cantourne. Her eyes were gleaming with a singular suppressed
excitement, such as one sees in the eyes of a man fresh from a
mad run across country.
Guy Oscard rose also and followed more deliberately. There
was nothing for him to do but to take his leave.
' But,' said Lady Cantourne graciously, ' if you are determined
to go away you must at least come and say good-bye before you
leave.'
' Thanks ; I should like to do so, if I may.'
' We shall be deeply disappointed if you forget,' said Millicent,
holding out her hand, with a smile full of light-heartedness and
innocent girlish friendship.
118 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER VI.
UNDER THE LINE.
Enough of simpering and grimace,
Enough of vacuity, trimmed with lace.
' CURSE this country! Curse it — curse it!' The man spoke
aloud but there was no one near to hear. He shook his skinny
yellow fist out over the broad river that crept greasily down to the
equatorial sea.
All around him the vegetable kingdom had asserted its
sovereignty. At his back loomed a dense forest, impenetrable to
the foot of man, defying his puny hand armed with axe or saw.
The trees were not high, few of them being above twenty feet, but
from their branches creepers and parasites hung in tangled pro-
fusion, interlaced, joining tree to tree for acres, nay for miles.
As far as the eye could reach either bank of the slow river was
thus covered with rank vegetation — mile after mile without
variety, without hope. The glassy surface of the water was
broken here and there by certain black forms floating like logs
half hidden beneath the wave. These were crocodiles. The river
was the Ogowe, and the man who cursed it was Victor Durnovo,
employe of the Loango Trading Association, whose business it was
at that season to travel into the interior of Africa to buy, barter,
or steal ivory for his masters.
He was a small-faced man, with a squarely aquiline nose and a
black moustache which hung like a valance over his mouth.
From the growth of that curtain-like moustache Victor Durnovo's
worldly prosperity might have been said to date. No one seeing
his mouth had before that time been prevailed upon to trust him.
Nature has a way of hanging out signs and then covering them up
so that the casual fail to see. He was a man of medium height,
with abnormally long arms and a somewhat truculent way of
walking, as if his foot was ever ready to kick anything or any
person who might come in his way.
His movements were nervous and restless although he was
tired out and half-starved. The irritability of Africa was upon
him — had hold over him — gripped him remorselessly. No one
knows what it is, but it is there, and sometimes it is responsible
for murder. It makes honourable European gentlemen commit
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 119
crimes of which they blush to think in after days. The Powers
may draw up treaties and sign the same, but there will never be
a peaceful division of the great wasted land so near to Southern
Europe. There may be peace in Berlin, or Brussels, or London,
but because the atmosphere of Africa is not the same as that of
the great cities, there will be no peace beneath the Equator.
From the West Coast of Africa to the East men will fight and
quarrel and bicker so long as human nerves are human nerves.
The irritability lurks in the shades of boundless forests where men
may starve for want of animal sustenance, it hovers over the broad
bosoms of a hundred slow rivers haunted by the mysterious croco-
dile, the weird hippopotamus. It is everywhere, and by reason of
it men quarrel over trifles and descend to brutal passion over a
futile discussion.
Victor Durnovo had sent his boatmen into the forest to find a
few bananas, a few handsful of firewood, and while they were
absent he gave vent to that wild unreasoning passion which is in-
haled into the white man's lungs with the air of equatorial Africa.
For there are moral microbes in the atmosphere of different
countries, and we must not judge one land by the laws of
another. There is the fatalism of India, the restlessness of New
York, the fear of the Arctic, the irritability of Africa.
' Curse this country ! ' he shouted, ' curse it — curse it ! Kiver
and tree — man and beast ! '
He rose and slouched down to his boat which lay moored to
a snag alongside the bank, trodden hard to the consistency of
asphalte by a hundred bare feet. He stepped over the gunwale
and made his way aft with a practised balancing step. The after
part of the canoe was decked in and closed with lock and key.
The key hung at his watch-chain — a large chain with square
links and a suggestive doubtfulness of colour. It might have
been gold, but the man who wore it somehow imparted to it a
suggestion of baser metal.
He opened the locker and took from it a small chest. From
this he selected a bottle, and, rummaging in the recesses of the
locker, he found an unwashed tumbler. Into half a glass of water
he dropped a minute quantity from the bottle and drank off the
mixture. The passion had left him now, and quite suddenly he
looked yellow and very weak. He was treating himself scientific-
ally for the irritability to which he had given way. Then he re-
turned to the bank and laid down at full length. The skin of his
120 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
face must have been giving him great pain, for it was scarlet in
places and exuding from sun-blisters. He had long ago given up
wiping the perspiration from his brow, and evidently did not dare
to wash his face.
Presently a peacefumess seemed to come over him, for his
eyes lost their glitter and his heavy lids drooped. His arms were
crossed behind his head — before him lay the river.
Suddenly he sat upright, all eagerness and attention. Not a
leaf stirred. It was about five o'clock in the evening, the stillest
hour of the twenty-four. In such a silence the least sound would
travel almost any distance, and there was a sound travelling over
the water to him. It was nothing but a thud repeated with
singular regularity; but to his practised ears it conveyed much.
He knew that a boat was approaching, as yet hidden by some
distant curve in the river. The thud was caused by the contact of
six paddles with the gunwale of the canoe as the paddlers
withdrew them from the water.
Victor Durnovo rose again and brought from the boat a second
rifle, which he laid beside the double-barrelled Eeilly which was
never more than a yard away from him, waking or sleeping.
Then he waited. He knew that no boat could reach the bank
without his full permission, for every rower would be dead before
they got within a hundred yards of his rifle. He was probably
the best rifle-shot but one in that country — and the other, the
very best, happened to be in the approaching canoe.
After the space of ten minutes the boat came in sight — a long
black form on the still waters. It was too far away for him to
distinguish anything beyond the fact that it was a native boat.
' Eight hundred yards,' muttered Durnovo over the sight of his
rifle.
He looked upon this river as his own, and he knew the native
of equatorial Africa. Therefore he dropped a bullet into the
water, under the bow of the canoe, at eight hundred yards.
A moment later there was a sound which can only be written
' P-ttt ' between his legs, and he had to wipe a shower of dust from
his eyes. A puff of blue smoke rose slowly over the boat and a
sharp report broke the silence a second time.
Then Victor Durnovo leapt to his feet and waved his hat in the
air. From the canoe there was an answering greeting, and the
man on the bank went to the water's edge, still carrying the rifle
from which he was never parted.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 121
Durnovo was the first to speak when the boat came within
hail.
' Very sorry,' he shouted. ' Thought you were a native boat.
Must establish a funk — get in the first shot, you know.'
' All right,' replied one of the Europeans in the approaching
craft, with a courteous wave of the hand, ' no harm done.'
There were two white men and six blacks in the long and
clumsy boat. One of the Europeans lay in the bows while the
other was stretched at his ease in the stern, reclining on the canvas
of a neatly-folded tent. The last-named was evidently the leader
of the little expedition, while the manner and attitude of the man
in the bows suggested the servitude of a disciplined soldier slightly
relaxed by abnormal circumstances.
' Who fired that shot ? ' inquired Durnovo, when there was no
longer any necessity to shout.
' Joseph,' replied the man in the stern of the boat, indicating
his companion. ' Was it a near thing ? '
' About as near as I care about — it threw up the dust between
my legs.'
The man called Joseph grinned. Nature had given him
liberally of the wherewithal for indulgence in that relaxation, and
Durnovo smiled rather constrainedly. Joseph was grabbing at the
long reedy grass, bringing the canoe to a standstill, and it was some
moments before his extensive mouth submitted to control.
' I presume you are Mr. Durnovo,' said the man in the stern of
the boat, rising leisurely from his recumbent position and speaking
with a courteous savoir-faire which seemed slightly out of place in
the wilds of Central Africa. He was a tall man with a small
aristocratic head and a refined face, which somehow suggested an
aristocrat of old France.
' Yes,' answered Durnovo.
The tall man stepped ashore and held out his hand.
' I am glad we have met you,' he said. ' I have a letter of in-
troduction to you from Maurice Gordon, of Loango.'
Victor Durnovo's dark face changed slightly ; his eyes —
bilious, fever-shot, unhealthy — took a new light.
' Ah ! ' he answered, ' are you a friend of Maurice Gordon's ? '
There was another question in this, an unasked one ; and Victor
Durnovo was watching for the answer. But the face he watched
was like a delicately carved piece of brown marble, with a
courteous impenetrable smile.
6—5
122 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' I met him again the other day at Loango. He is an old
Etonian like myself.'
This conveyed nothing to Durnovo, who belonged to a different
world, whose education was, like other things about him, an un-
known quantity.
'My name,' continued the tall man, 'is Meredith — John
Meredith — sometimes called Jack.'
They were walking up the bank towards the dusky and unin-
viting tent. .
' And the other fellow ? ' inquired Durnovo, with a backward
jerk of the head.
' Oh — he is my servant.'
Durnovo raised his eyebrows in somewhat contemptuous
amusement, and proceeded to open the letter which Meredith had
handed him.
' Not many fellows,' he said, ' on this coast can afford to keep
a European servant.'
Jack Meredith bowed and ignored the irony.
' But,' he said courteously, ' I suppose you find these coloured
chaps just as good when they have once got into your ways ? '
' Oh, yes,' muttered Durnovo. He was reading the letter.
' Maurice Gordon,' he continued, ' says you are travelling for plea-
sure— just looking about you. What do you think of it ? '
He indicated the dismal prospect with a harsh laugh.
' A bit suggestive of Hell,' he went on, ' eh ? How does it
strike you ? '
' Finer timber, I should think,' suggested Jack Meredith, and
Durnovo laughed more pleasantly.
' The truth is,' he explained, ' that it strikes one as a bit absurd
that any man should travel up here for pleasure. If you take my
advice you will come down-stream again with me to-morrow.'
He evidently distrusted him ; and the sidelong, furtive glance
suggested vaguely that Victor Durnovo had something farther up
this river which he wished to keep concealed.
' I understand,' answered Meredith with a half-suppressed
yawn, ' that the country gets finer farther up — more mountainous
—less suggestive of — Hell.'
The proprietors of very dark eyes would do well to remember
that it is dangerous to glance furtively to one side or the other.
The attention of dark eyes is more easily felt than the glances of
grey or blue orbs.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 123
Jack Meredith's suspicions were aroused by the suspicious
manner of his interlocutor.
' There is no white man knows this river as I do, and I do not re-
commend it. Look at me — on the verge of jaundice — look at this
wound on my arm ; it began with a scratch and has never healed.
All that comes from a month up this cursed river. Take my
advice, try somewhere else.'
' I certainly shall,' replied Meredith. ' We will discuss it after
dinner. My chap is a first-rate cook. Have you got anything to
add to the menu ? '
'Not a thing. I've been living on plantains and dried
elephant-meat for the last fortnight.'
' Doesn't sound nourishing. Well, we are pretty well provided,
so perhaps you will give me the pleasure of your company to
dinner ? Come as you are : no ceremony. I think I will wash
though. It is as well to keep up these old customs.'
With a pleasant smile he went towards the tent which had just
been erected. Joseph was very busy, and his admonishing voice
was heard at times.
'Here, Johnny, hammer in that peg. Now, old cups and
saucers, stop that grinning and fetch me some water. None of
your frogs and creepy crawly things this time, my blonde beauty,
but clean water, comprenny ? '
With these and similar lightsome turns of speech was Joseph
in the habit of keeping his men up to the mark. The method
was eminently successful. His coloured compeers crowded round
him ' all of a grin,' as he himself described it, and eager to do his
slightest behest. From the throne to the back-kitchen the secret
of success is the art of managing men — and women.
CHAPTER VII.
THE SECRET OF THE SIMIACINE.
Surtout, Messieurs, pas de zele.
>
SUCH was the meeting of Victor Durnovo and Jack Meredith.
Two men with absolutely nothing in common — no taste, no past,
no kinship — nothing but the future. Such men as Fate loves
to bring together for her own strange purposes. What these
purposes are none of us can tell. Some hold that Fate is wise.
124 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
She is not so yet, but she cannot fail to acquire wisdom some day,
because she experiments so industriously. She is ever bringing
about new combinations, and one can only trust that she, the
experimenter, is as keenly disappointed in the result as are we,
the experimented.
To Jack Meredith Victor Durnovo conveyed the impression of
little surprise and a slight local interest. He was a man who was
not quite a gentleman ; but for himself Jack did not give great
heed to this. He had associated with many such ; for, as has been
previously intimated, he had moved in London society where there
are many men who are not quite gentlemen. The difference of a
good coat and that veiled insolence which passes in some circles
for the ease of good breeding, had no weight with the keen son
of Sir John Meredith, and Victor Durnovo fared no worse in his
companion's estimation because he wore a rough coat and gave
small attention to his manners. He attracted and held Jack's
attention by a certain open-air manliness which was in keeping
with the situation and with his life. Sportsmen, explorers, and
wanderers were not new to Jack ; for nowadays one may never
know what manner of man is inside a faultless dress-suit. It is
an age of disappearing, via Charing Cross station in a first-class
carriage, to a life of backwooding, living from hand to mouth,
starving in desert, prairie, pampas or Arctic wild, with, all the
while, a big balance at Cox's. And most of us come back again
and put on the dress-suit and the white tie with a certain sense of
restfulness and comfort.
Jack Meredith had known many such. He had, in a small
way, done the same himself. But he had never met one of the
men who do not go home — who possess no dress-coat and no use
for it — whose business it is to go about with a rifle in one hand
and their life in the other — who risk their lives because it is their
trade and not their pleasure.
Durnovo could not understand the new-comer at all. He saw
at once that this was one of those British aristocrats who do
strange things in a very strange way. In a degree Meredith
reminded him of Maurice Gordon, the man whose letter of intro-
duction was at that moment serving to light the camp fire. But
it was Maurice Gordon without that semi-sensual weakness of
purpose which made him the boon companion of Tom, Dick,
or Harry, provided that one of those was only with him long
enough. There was a vast depth of reserve — of indefinable pos-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 125
sibilities, which puzzled Durnovo, and in some subtle way inspired
fear.
In that part of Africa which lies within touch of the Equator,
life is essentially a struggle. There is hunger about, and where
hunger is the emotions will be found also. Now, Jack Meredith
was a past-master in the concealment of these, and, as such, came
to Victor Durnovo in the guise of a new creation. He had lived
the latter and the larger part of his life among men who said, in
action if not in words, I am hungry, or I am thirsty ; I want
this, or I want that ; and if you are not strong enough to keep it,
I will take it from you.
This man was different ; and Victor Durnovo did not know —
could not find out — what he wanted.
He had at first been inclined to laugh at him. What struck
him most forcibly was Joseph, the .servant. The idea of a man
swaggering up an African river with a European man-servant was
so preposterous that it could only be met with ridicule ; but the
thing seemed so natural to Jack Meredith, he accepted the servi-
tude of Joseph so much as a matter of course, that after a time
Durnovo accepted him also as part and parcel of Meredith.
Moreover, he immediately began to realise the benefit of being
waited upon by an intelligent European, for Joseph took off his
coat, turned up his sleeves, and proceeded to cook such a dinner
as Durnovo had not tasted for many months. There was wine
also, and afterwards a cigar of such quality as appealed strongly to
Durnovo's West Indian palate.
The night settled down over the land while they sat there, and
.before them the great yellow equatorial moon rose slowly over the
trees. With the darkness came a greater silence, for the myriad
insect life was still. This great silence of Central Africa is
wonderfully characteristic. The country is made for silence, the
natives are created to steal, spirit-ridden, devil-haunted, through
vast tracts of lifeless forest where nature is oppressive in her
grandeur. Here man is put into his right place — a puny, insigni-
ficant, helpless being in a world that is too large for him.
' So,' said Durnovo, returning to the subject which had never
really left his thoughts, ' you have come out here for pleasure ? '
' Not exactly. I came chiefly to make money, partly to dispel
some of the illusions of my youth, and I am getting on very well.
Picture-book illusions they were. The man who drew the pictures
had never seen Africa.'
126 WITH EDGED TOOI^.
'This is no country for illusions. Things go naked here —
damned naked.'
' And only language is adorned ? '
Durnovo laughed. He had to be alert to keep up with Jack
Meredith — to understand his speech ; and he rather liked the
necessity, which was a change after the tropic indolence in which
he had moved.
( Swearing, you mean,' he replied. ' Hope you don't mind it ? '
' Not a bit ! Do it myself.'
At this moment Joseph, the servant, brought coffee served up
in tin cups.
' First-class dinner,' said Durnovo. ' The best dinner I have
had for years. Clever chap, your man ! '
The last remark was made as much for the servant's edifica-
tion as for the master's, and it was accompanied by an inviting
smile directed towards Joseph. Of this the man took no notice
whatever. He came from a world where masters and masters'
guests knew their place and kept it, even after a good dinner.
The evening had turned out so very differently from what he
had expected that Durnovo was a little carried off his equilibrium.
Things were so sociable and pleasant in comparison with the
habitual loneliness of his life. The fire crackled so cheerily, the
moon shone down on the river so grandly, the subdued chatter of
the boatmen imparted such a feeling of safety and comfort to the
scene, that he gave way to that impulse of expansiveness which
ever lurks in West Indian blood.
' I say,' he said, ' when you told me that you wanted to make
money, were you in earnest ? '
' In the deadliest earnest,' replied Jack Meredith, in the half-
mocking tone which he never wholly learnt to lay aside.
' Then I think I can put you in the way of it. Oh, I know it
seems a bit premature — not known you long enough, and all that.
But in this country we don't hold much by the formalities. I
like you. I liked the look of you when you got out of that
boat — so damned cool and self-possessed. You're the right sort,
Mr. Meredith.'
' Possibly — for some things. For sitting about and smoking
first-class cigars and thinking second-class thoughts I am exactly
the right sort. But for making money, for hard work and steady
work, I am afraid, Mr. Durnovo, that I am distinctly the wrong
sort.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 127
'Now you're chaffing again. Do you always chaff? '
' Mostly ; it lubricates things, doesn't it ? '
There was a little pause. Durnovo looked round as if to make
sure that Joseph and the boatmen were out of earshot.
' Can you keep a secret ? ' he asked suddenly.
Jack Meredith turned and looked at the questioner with a
smile. His hat had slipped to the back of his head, the light of
the great yellow moon fell full upon his clean-cut sphinx-like face.
The eyes alone seemed living.
' Yes ! I can do that.'
He was only amused, and the words were spoken half-mock-
ingly ; but his face said more than his lips. It said that even in
chaff this was no vain boast that he was uttering. Even before
he had set foot on African soil he had been asked to keep so many
secrets of a commercial nature. So many had begun by impart-
ing half a secret, to pass on in due course to the statement that
only money was required, say, a thousand pounds. And, in the
meantime, twenty-five would be very useful, and, if not that, well,
ten shillings. Jack Meredith had met all that before.
But there was something different about Durnovo. He was
not suitably got up. Your bar-room prospective millionaire is
usually a jolly fellow, quite prepared to quench any man's thirst
for liquor or information so long as credit and credulity will last.
There was nothing jolly or sanguine about Durnovo. Beneath
his broad-brimmed hat, his dark eyes flashed in a fierce excitement.
His hand was unsteady. He had allowed the excellent cigar to go
out. The man was full of quinine and fever, in deadly earnest.
' I can see you're a gentleman,' he said ; ' I'll trust you. I want
a man to join me in making a fortune. I have got my hand on
it at last. But I'm afraid of this country. I'm getting shaky,
look at that hand. I've been looking for it too long. I take you
into my confidence, the first comer, you'll think. But there are
not many men like you in this country, and I'm beastly afraid of
dying. I'm in a damned funk. I want to get out of this for a
bit, but I dare not leave until I set things going.'
' Take your time,' said Meredith quietly and soothingly ; ' light
that cigar again and lie down. There is no hurry.'
Durnovo obeyed him meekly.
' Tell me,' he said, ' have you ever heard of Simiacine ? '
' I cannot say that I have,' replied Jack. ' What is it for,
brown boots or spasms.'
128 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
4 It is a drug, the most expensive drug in the market. And
they must have it, they cannot do without it, and they cannot
find a substitute. It is the leaf of a shrub, and your hatful is
worth a thousand pounds.'
' Where is it to be found ? ' asked Jack Meredith. ' I should
like some — in a sack.'
' Ah, you may laugh now, but you won't when you hear all
about it. The scientific chaps called it Simiacine, because of an
old African legend which, like all those things, has a grain of
truth in it. The legend is, that the monkeys first found out the
properties of the leaf, and it is because they live on it that they
are so strong. Do you know that a gorilla's arm is not half so thick
as yours, and yet he would take you and snap your backbone
across his knee ; he would bend a gun-barrel as you would bend
a cane, merely by the turn of his wrist ? That is Simiacine. He
can hang on to a tree with one leg and tackle a leopard with his
bare hands — that's Simiacine. At home, in England and in
Germany, they are only just beginning to find out its properties ; it
seems that it can bring a man back to life when he is more than
half dead. There is no knowing what children that are brought
up on it may turn out to be ; it may double the power of the
human brain — some think it will.'
Jack Meredith was leaning forward, watching with a certain
sense of fascination the wild, disease-stricken face, listening to the
man's breathless periods. It seemed that the fear of death, which
had gotten hold of him, gave Victor Durnovo no time to pause
for breath.
' Yes,' said the Englishman, ' yes, go on.'
' There is practically no limit to the demand that there is for
it. At present the only way of obtaining it is through the
natives, and you know their manner of trading. They send a
little packet down from the interior, and it very often takes two
months and more to reach the buyer's hands. The money is sent
back the same way, and each man who fingers it keeps a little.
The natives find the leaf in the forests by the aid of trained
monkeys, and only in very small quantities. Do you follow me ? '
' Yes, I follow you.'
Victor Durnovo leant forward until his face was within three
inches of Meredith, and the dark wild eyes flashed and glared
into the Englishman's steady glance.
' What,' he hissed, ' what if I know where Simiacine grows
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 129
like a weed ? What if I could supply the world with Simiacine
at my own price ? Eh — h — h ! What of that, Mr. Meredith ? '
He threw himself suddenly back and wiped his dripping face.
There was a silence, the great African silence that drives educated
men mad, and fills the imagination of the poor heathen with wild
tales of devils and spirits.
Then Jack Meredith spoke, without moving.
' I'm your man,' he said, ' with a few more details.'
Victor Durnovo was lying back at full length on the hard dry
mud, his arms beneath his head. Without altering his position
he gave the details, speaking slowly and much more quietly. It
seemed as if he spoke the result of long pent-up thought.
' We shall want,' he said, ' two thousand pounds to start it.
For we must have an armed force of our own. We have to
penetrate through a cannibal country, of the fiercest devils in
Africa. It is a plateau, a little plateau of two square miles, and the
niggers think that it is haunted by an evil spirit. When we get
there we shall have to hold it by force of arms, and when we send
the stuff down to the coast we must have an escort of picked
men. The bushes grow up there as thick as gooseberry bushes in
a garden at home. With a little cultivation they will yield twice
as much as they do now. We shall want another partner. I
know a man, a soldierly fellow full of fight, who knows the natives
and the country. I will undertake to lead you there, but you will
have to take great care of me. You will have to have me carried
most of the way. I am weak, devilish weak, and I am afraid of
dying ; but I know the way there, and no other man can say as
much ! It is in my head here ; it is not written down. It is
only in my head, and no one can get it out of there.'
' No,' said Meredith, in his quiet, refined voice, ' no, no one
can get it out. Come, let us turn in. To-morrow I will go down
the river with you. I will turn back, and we can talk it over as
we go down stream.'
CHAPTER VIII.
A RECRUIT.
Said the Engine from the East,
' They who work best talk the least.'
IT is not, of course, for a poor limited masculine mind to utter
heresies regarding the great question of woman's rights. But as
things stand at present, as in fact the fore-named rights are
130 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
to-day situated, women have not found comprehension of the
dual life. The dual life is led solely by men, and until women
have found out its full compass and meaning, they can never lead
in the world. There is the public life and the private ; and the
men who are most successful in the former are the most exclusive
in the latter. Women have only learned to lead one life ; they
must be all public or all private, there is no medium. Those who
give up the private life for which Providence destined them, to
assume the public existence to which their own conceit urges them,
have their own reward. They taste all the bitterness of fame
and never know its sweets, because the bitterness is public and
the sweets are private.
Women cannot understand that part of a man's life which
brings him into daily contact with men whom he does not bring
home to dinner. One woman does not know another without
bringing her in to meals and showing her her new hat. It is
merely a matter of custom. Men are in the habit of associating
in daily, almost hourly, intercourse with others who are never
really their friends and are always held at a distance. It is
useless attempting to explain it, for we are merely reprimanded
for unfriendliness, stiffness, and stupid pride. Soit! Let it go.
Some of us, perhaps, know our own business best. And there are,
thank Heaven ! amidst a multitude of female doctors, female
professors, female wranglers, a few female women left.
Jack Meredith knew quite well what he was about when he
listened with a favourable ear to Durnovo's scheme. He knew
that this man was not a gentleman, but his own position was so
assured that he could afford to associate with anyone. Here,
again, men are safer. A woman is too delicate a social flower to
be independent of environments. She takes the tone of her
surroundings. It is, one notices, only the ladies who protest that
the barmaid married in haste and repented of at leisure can raise
herself to her husband's level. The husband's friends keep silence,
and perhaps, like the mariner's bird, they meditate all the more.
What Meredith proposed to do was to enter into a partnership
with Victor Durnovo, and when the purpose of it was accom-
plished, to let each man go his way. Such partnerships are
entered into every day. Men have carried through a brilliant
campaign — a world-affecting scheme, side by side, working with
one mind and one heart ; and when the result has been attained
they drop out of each other's lives for ever. They are created so,
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 131
<
for a very good purpose, no doubt. But sometimes Providence
steps in and turns the little point of contact into the leaven that
leaveneth the whole lump. Providence, it seems — or let us call
it Fate — was hovering over that lone African river, where two
men, sitting in the stern of a native canoe, took it upon themselves
to pre-arrange their lives.
A month later Victor Durnovo was in London. He left behind
him in Africa Jack Meredith, whose capacities for organisation
were developing very quickly.
There was plenty of work for each to do. In Africa Meredith
had undertaken to get together men and boats, while Durnovo
went home to Europe for a threefold purpose. Firstly, a visit to
Europe was absolutely necessary for his health, shattered as it was
by too long a sojourn in the fever-ridden river beds of the West
Coast. Secondly, there were rifles, ammunition, and stores to be
purchased, and packed in suitable cases. And, lastly, he was to
find and enlist the third man, ' the soldierly fellow full of fight,'
who knew the natives and the country.
This, indeed, was his first care on reaching London, and before
his eyes and brain were accustomed to the roar of the street life
he took a cab to Kussell Square, giving the number affixed to the
door of a gloomy house in the least frequented corner of the
stately quadrangle.
' Is Mr. Guy Oscard at home ? ' he inquired of the grave man-
servant.
' He is, sir,' replied the butler, stepping aside.
Victor Durnovo thought that a momentary hesitation on the
irt of the butler was caused by a very natural and proper feeling
of admiration for the new clothes and hat which he had pur-
chased out of the money advanced by Jack Meredith for the outfit
of the expedition. In reality the man was waiting for the visitor
to throw away his cigar before crossing the threshold. But he
waited in vain, and Durnovo waited, cigar in mouth, in the
dining-room until Gruy Oscard came to him.
At first Oscard did not recognise him, and conveyed this fact
by a distant bow and an expectant silence.
' You do not seem to recognise me,' said Durnovo with a
laugh, which lasted until the servant had closed the door. ' Victor
Durnovo ! '
' Oh — yes — how are you ? '
Oscard came forward and shook hands. His manner was not
133 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
exactly effusive. The truth was that their acquaintanceship in
Africa had been of the slightest, dating from some trivial services
which Durnovo had been able and very eager to render to the
sportsman.
' I'm all right, thanks,' replied Durnovo. ' I only landed at
Liverpool yesterday. I'm home on business. I'm buying rifles
and stores.'
Guy Oscard's honest face lighted up at once — the curse of
Ishmael was on him in its full force. He was destined to be a
wanderer on God's earth, and all things appertaining to the wild
life of the forests were music in his ears.
Durnovo was no mean diplomatist. He had learnt to know
man, within a white or coloured skin. The effect of his words was
patent to him.
' You remember the Simiacine ? ' he said abruptly.
1 Yes.'
' I've found it.'
' The devil you have ! Sit down.'
Durnovo took the chair indicated.
' Yes, sir,' he said, ' I've got it. I've laid my hand on it at
last. I've always been on its track. That has been my little
game all the time. I did not tell you when we met out there,
because I was afraid I should never find it, and because I wanted
to keep quiet about it.'
Guy Oscard was looking out of the window across to the dull
houses and chimneys that formed his horizon, and in his eyes
there was the longing for a vaster horizon, a larger life.
' I have got a partner,' continued Durnovo, ' a good man — Jack
Meredith, son of Sir John Meredith. You have, perhaps, met
him.'
' No,' answered Oscard ; ' but I have heard his name, and I
have met Sir John — the father — once or twice.'
' He is out there/ went on Durnovo, ' getting things together
quietly. I have come home to buy rifles, ammunition and stores.'
He paused, watching the eager, simple face.
' We want to know,' he said quietly, ' if you will organise and
lead the fighting men.'
Guy Oscard drew a deep breath. There are some Englishmen
left, thank Heaven ! who love fighting for its own sake, and not
only for the gain of it. Such men as this lived in the old days
of chivalry, at which modern puny carpet-knights make bold to
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 133
laugh, while inwardly thanking their stars that they live in the
peaceful age of the policeman. Such men as this ran their thick
simple heads against many a windmill, couched lance over many
a far-fetched insult, and swung a sword in honour of many a
worthless maid ; but they made England, my masters. Let us
remember that they made England.
' Then there is to be fighting ? '
' Yes,' said Durnovo, ' there will be fighting. We must fight
our way there, and we must hold it when we get there. But so
far as the world is concerned, we are only a private expedition
exploring the source of the Ogowe.'
' The Ogowe ? ' and again Guy Oscard's eyes lighted up.
' Yes, I do not mind telling you that much. To begin with,
I trust you ; secondly, no one could get there without me to lead
the way.'
Guy Oscard looked at him with some admiration, and that
sympathy which exists between the sons of Ishmael. Durnovo
looked quite fit for the .task he set himself. He had regained his
strength on the voyage, and with returning muscular force his
moral tone was higher, his influence over men greater. Amidst
the pallid sons of the pavement among whom Guy Oscard had
moved of late this African traveller was a man apart — a being much
more after his own heart. The brown of the man's face and hands
appealed to him — the dark flashing eyes, the energetic carriage of
head and shoulders. Among men of a fairer skin the taint that
was in Victor Durnovo's blood became more apparent — the shadow
on his finger-nails, the deep olive of his neck against the snowy
collar, and the blue tint in the whites of his eyes.
But none of these things militated against him in Oscard's
eyes. They only made him fitter for the work he had undertaken.
' How long will it take ? ' asked Guy.
Durnovo tugged at his strange, curtain-like moustache. His
mouth was hidden ; it was quite impossible to divine his thoughts.
' Three months to get there,' he answered at length. ' One
month to pick the leaf, and then you can bring the first crop
down to the coast and home, while Meredith and I stay on at the
plateau.'
' I could be home again in eight months ? '
' Certainly ! We thought that you might work the sale of the
stuff in London, and in a couple of years or so, when the thing is
in swing, Meredith will come home. We can safely leave the
134 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
cultivation in native hands when once we have established our-
selves up there, and made ourselves respected among the tribes.'
A significance in his tone made Guy Oscard look up in-
quiringly.
'How?'
* You know my way with the natives,' answered Durnovo with
a cruel smile. ' It is the only way. There are no laws in Central
Africa except the laws of necessity.'
Oscard was nothing if not outspoken.
' I do not like your way with the natives,' he said, with a
pleasant smile.
' That is because you do not know them. But in this affair
you are to be the leader of the fighting column. You will, of
course, have carte blanche?
Oscard nodded.
' I suppose,' he said, after a pause, ' that there is the question
of money ? '
' Yes ; Meredith and I have talked that over. The plan we
fixed upon was that you and he each put a thousand pounds
into it ; I put five hundred. For the first two years we share the
profits equally. After that we must come to some fresh arrange-
ment, should you or Meredith wish to give up an active part in
the affair. I presume you would not object to coming up at the
end of a year, with a handy squad of men to bring down the crop
under escort ? '
* No,' replied Oscard after a moment's reflection. ' I should
probably be able to do that.'
' I reckon,' continued the other, ' that the journey down could
be accomplished in two months, and each time you do the trip
you will reduce your time.'
'Yes.'
* Of course,' Durnovo went on, with the details which he knew
were music in Oscard's ears, ' of course we shall be a clumsy
party going up. We shall have heavy loads of provisions, ammu-
nition, and seeds for cultivating the land up there.'
' Yes,' replied Guy Oscard absently. In his ears there rang
already the steady plash of the paddle, the weird melancholy song
of the boatmen, the music of the wind amidst the forest trees.
Durnovo rose briskly.
' Then,' he said, ' you will join us ? J may telegraph out to
Meredith that you will join us ? '
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 135
' Yes,' replied Oscard simply. ' You may do that.'
' There is no time to be lost,' Durnovo went on. ' Every
moment wasted adds to the risk of our being superseded. I sail
for Loango in a fortnight ; will you come with me ? '
' Yes.'
' Shall I take a passage for you ? '
' Yes.'
Durnovo held out his hand.
' Good-bye,' he said. ' Shall I always find you here when I
Want you ? '
' Yes — stay, though ! I shall be going away for a few days.
Come to-morrow to luncheon, and we will settle the preliminaries.'
' Right — one o'clock ? '
' One o'clock.'
When Durnovo had gone Guy sat down and wrote to Lady
Cantourne accepting her invitation to spend a few days at Can-
tourne Place, on the Solent. He explained that his visit would
be in the nature of a farewell, as he was about to leave for Africa
for a little big-game hunting.
(To be continued.')
136
NIGHT LIFE.
I DON'T mean these words in the sense which would naturally have
been attributed to them by Tom and Jerry of Corinthian memory,
nor yet in that which they would doubtless bear on the lips of Tom
and Jerry's modern descendants and nearest representatives, the
Chappies of the Gaiety. I write them rather in an austere spirit
of scientific severity. I use them biologically. The world, as
Artemus Ward once sagely remarked, ' continues always to revolve
upon its axis once in every twenty-four hours, — subject only to the
laws of nature and the Constitution of the United States.' Now,
this industrious diurnal revolution of our planet naturally divides
the time of its inhabitants into two halves, a lighter and a darker
one ; and these two halves have produced in the long run marked
results upon the habits and development of various species of
plants and animals, including bats, owls, newspaper editors, night-
ingales, policemen, burglars, the common glow-worm, and the
night-flowering cereus. And yet, so far as I can at present dis-
cover, till I sat down this evening to the music of the cicalas,
with the object of inditing this profound contribution to the philo-
sophy of life, no single biologist has ever endeavoured to examine
in one wide general view the effects upon life brought about by
the constant and measured alternation of light and darkness. The
Iliad of the Night has yet to be written.
Let us suppose for a moment a world always equally illuminated
by a constant sun, and we can see at a glance that a great many
creatures which inhabit this planet as we actually know it could
have no existence. There would be no room for nocturnal animals
of any sort : no jackals, no nightjars, no moths, no fireflies, and,
roughly speaking, I fancy, no pure white flowers to wear in one's
buttonhole. The existence of a darker half to every twenty-four
hours has called into being a whole crowd of beasts and birds and
reptiles and insects which would not otherwise have been evolved,
and has encouraged the development of whole races of plants which
lay themselves out to cater in various ways for the needs or wishes
of these nocturnal animals. And the manner in which this
primary division of time on our planet has worked out such changes
NIGHT LIFE. 137
in organic evolution is full of instructiveness, I venture to believe,
as to the methods and devices of nature in general.
To begin with a very large and widespread phenomenon, on
which almost all the rest ultimately depend, the distinction of
sleeping and waking itself is mainly based upon the existence of
day and night as alternating conditions. If the sun always shone,
we should never go to bed : sleep would not have been developed.
It is true, nocturnal animals sleep and wake just as much as
diurnal ones ; and a drowsy owl, blinking and nodding in the garish
light of daytime, is a familiar object for the unphilosophic contempt
of the young, the gay, the giddy, and the thoughtless. But then,
all such animals are themselves descendants of creatures which
were once for many ages diurnal ; they learnt the trick of alternate
sleeping and waking while their ancestors were still well-behaved
day-roaming creatures ; and when, like Tom and Jerry, they took
incontinently to the vicious practice of ' turning night into day,'
they merely reversed the usual process, long since become organic,
and slept through the hours when the rest of the world was alive
and waking. The habit itself, viewed abstractly, is one which
could never have arisen except for the regular alternation of light
and darkness. There is no particular reason why we or any other
animals should rest on an average about eight or nine hours out
of every twenty-four (I accept the computation of a justly popular
poem without further discussion), save for the fact that eight
hours is about the average time during which there isn't light
enough for an ordinary animal to get about with comfort at his
usual avocations. If there are animals at all analogous to our own
in Mars or Venus, we would naturally expect them to sleep and
wake alternately for a period which would be entirely determined
by the duration of day and night in their own planet.
Observe, too, that this most fundamental distinction due to day
and night is wholly relative to the sense of sight, and can affect
only those types of life which are sufficiently high to have evolved
for themselves eyes or something like them. Plants, it is true,
being dependent for their growth upon the chemical action of rays
of sunlight that fall upon their surface, have an equally wide dis-
tinction of day-functions and night-functions with the highest
animals ; they eat and digest in the light, and grow or repair
themselves through the hours of darkness. But the lowest animals
have no such marked division of nocturnal and diurnal habits ;
with ceaseless industry they roll about through the waters by day
VOL. XXI. — NO. 122, N.S.
138 NIGHT LIFE.
and night alike, seeking by touch alone whom or what they may
devour in their native medium. If they rest occasionally for
digestion and repair, it is at irregular periods — sometimes for a few
minutes, sometimes for hours or even days together. If you dry
them up, they remain mummied for a year ; if you moisten them
once more, they start at once on their travels. In one word, they
have no distinct periodicity of any sort. But as soon as eyes are
evolved, and in proportion to the perfection and height of their
development, animals begin to divide their lives markedly into two
main portions — a waking and a sleeping one ; a more and a less
active. While light is supplied them abundantly to see their way
about, they move around the world in search of food, or prey, or
mates, or laying-places ; the moment night comes on they retire
to nests or lairs and become torpid and motionless.
That is, briefly put, the origin of sleep. Every organ needs
rest and repair from time to time ; though the amount of rest
required is sometimes almost infinitesimal, as in the case of the
heart, whose tissues are continually rebuilt in the scarcely per-
ceptible second of interval between one beat and another. The
nervous system, however, being a delicate mechanism, requires a
good deal of rest, and a good deal of repairing ; what we call sleep
is really nothing more than the time when our nervous system is
laid by for repairs, and when, accordingly, we cease to think or
feel in any way. While day continues, most animals with eyes
find it convenient and advisable to go about their business un-
molested in the open ; when night comes on, and enemies might
harm them, they retire to their holes, their lairs, or their burrows,
and, assuming a passive condition, allow the food they have eaten
to repair automatically the losses of the system
"Now if only the world had been all arranged beforehand in
accordance with the designs of that famous king of Spain who
regretted he hadn't been consulted before the creation, it would
probably consist of just these three divisions of organisms — plants
that work and eat by day, while they rest and grow and exhale by
night ; eyeless animals, that work or rest at irregular intervals ;
and animals with eyes, that work and wake and eat by day, while
they rest and sleep and repair themselves at night-time. But the
world as actually constituted is a great deal more varied and
complex than that. It has march and counter-march. The habit
of flesh-eating has introduced into it many minor variations and
distinctions, and amongst them is the practice of turning night
NIGHT LIFE. 139
into day, which was at first a practice of the most defenceless,
unprotected, and decadent animals. Creatures which, if they
showed their noses in the broad sunlight, were sure to be snapped
' up and eaten by beast or bird or reptile or amphibian, secured for
themselves somehow a miserable immunity by never crawling out
till after the advent of twilight. ' While the others are asleep,'
they said to themselves in effect, ' there's a chance for poor us to
pick up a mouthful of victuals.'
It began with the insects and other small fry of creation.
They were the earliest night-birds. Whole hosts of midges and
petty flying things soon pervaded the darkness, when larger and
better equipped species were sleeping quietly in their beds, on
bank or hillside. Beetles and cockchafers and earwigs in-
numerable, that dared not move abroad by day for fear of their
natural enemies, the birds and lizards,* took it out by scouring the
world at night, and feeding on weeds or dead animals or one
another. Cockroaches and crickets of various sorts and shapes
covered themselves with the cloak of evening for their marauding
expeditions. Mosquitoes and gnats found it .greatly to their
advantage to suck their victims' blood while the victims were
indulging in gentle slumber. Even certain butterflies came to
the conclusion that nocturnal habits suited their needs better than
the common day-flying customs of their kind, and developed into
moths, whose dingy hues answer to their acquired trick of seeking
their food in the dusk of evening. Thus the world grew peopled
with a whole fauna of skulking and night-haunting creatures,
most of which were insects or slugs or snails, or armadillo-like
woodlice. Night became the refuge of the losers and laggards in
the struggle for existence.
It is the way of Nature, however, to plot and counterplot. She
is all one perpetual game of cross-purposes. No sooner does one
creature invent a splendid way of avoiding its enemies than
straightway another creature, not to be outdone, discovers a fresh
plan for circumventing and destroying it. By the time the world
had been pretty well filled with evening-flying midges, and hawk-
moths, and beetles, the birds and mammals, becoming alive to
the situation, began to develop new kinds of evening-flying swifts
and bats and nightjars, on purpose to devour them. The goat-
suckers are our best-known English representatives of these night-
roaming birds ; they make a sptcialite of cockchafer-hunting,
though they are by no means averse to a good fat moth, and
7—2
140 NIGHT LIFE,
will put up at a pinch with anything nice in the way of a beetle.
They fly with their yawning mouths wide open, and have acquired
a specially wide gape and a curious fringe of sticky hairs at the
edge of their beaks, on purpose to aid them in their task of insect- "
hawking. Swifts also catch their prey in much the same manner,
by flying through the air with their mouths wide open ; but they
are rather early morning and late evening birds than truly
nocturnal. As to the poetic nightingale, beloved of bards, that
famous minstrel lives mainly on grubs and night-feeding cater-
pillars, which he picks off the boughs in the intervals or rests of
his divine melody. I am sorry that I find myself thus compelled
to give away by this disclosure the idyllic Philomela ; but the
interests of truth demand the sacrifice.
Most curious in origin of all nocturnal insect-hunters, how-
ever, are the leathery-winged bats, which may be regarded, practi-
cally speaking, as very tiny monkeys, highly specialised for the
task of catching nocturnal flies and midges. Few people know
how nearly they are related to us. They belong to the self-same
division of the higher mammals as man and the apes ; their
skeleton answers to ours, bone for bone, and joint for joint, in an
extraordinary manner; only the unessential fact that they have
very long fingers with a web between as an organ of flight, pre-
vents us from instantly and instinctively recognising them as
remote cousins, once removed from the gorilla. The female bat
in particular is absurdly human. Most of them feed off insects
alone ; but a few, like the famous vampire-bats of South America,
take a mean advantage of sleeping animals, and suck their blood
after the fashion of mosquitoes, as they lie defenceless in the forest
or on the open Pampas. Others, like the flying foxes of the
Malay Archipelago, make a frugal meal off fruits and vegetables ;
but even these are confirmed and persistent night-flyers. They
hang head downward from the boughs of trees during the hot
tropical day-time, but sally forth at night, with Milton's sons of
Belial, to rob the banana-patches and invade the plantain-grounds
of the industrious native. The bat is a lemur, compelled by dire
need to become a flying night-bird.
A large proportion of the smallest and most defenceless
mammals in our own age have also taken perforce to nocturnal
habits. "We get an intermediate stage of this process well exempli-
fied in the rabbit, which, though sufficiently adapted to a diurnal
life, is often driven by circumstances over which he has no control
NIGHT LIFE. 141
to venture out in the evening or early morning only. But many
other species, in order to avoid extinction, have had to acquire
much more thoroughgoing nocturnal ways. This is particularly
the case with the whole group of antique and belated animals
technically known as the insectivores — a very early and central
type of mammals, once much more widely developed, some few
members of which still manage to drag out a miserable existence
either by living underground, like the common mole, or by skulk-
ing out at night like the hedgehog and the shrew-mouse. Not
only do they gain protection for themselves by their nocturnal
habits, but also they are enabled to catch their prey more readily,
as they live for the most part on a cheap and sustaining diet of
slugs, snails, beetles, and common earthworms. All these are
night-roamers ; for the earthworm, too, is nocturnal in his tastes ;
he comes out stealthily in the dark, as Darwin has told us, to feed
on leaves, at the time when he is least likely to be devoured by
the enterprising blackbird or the musical skylark ; and as a
reward for his caution he is too often eaten up by the skulking
hedgehog or the greedy shrew-mouse.
The cycle of slaughter does not stop here, however. Nature,
the poet assures us, ' is one with rapine.' In proportion as small
nocturnal mammals developed on the earth, and thus afforded an
opportunity for some fitting creature to pounce upon them and
eat them, the birds of prey saw an opening forthwith for fresh
species to evolve, and straightway blossomed out into a nocturnal
offshoot, the race of owls, on purpose to fill this new and promising-
niche in the economy of Nature. ' Nocturnal rodents eat slugs
and snails,' said the ancestral owl : ' here's a chance for me to eat
the nocturnal rodents.' Owls, in short, are essentially falcons
which have taken to hunting by night instead of by day, and have
devoted their principal attention to rats, mice, shrews, and other
crepuscular mammals rather than to their earlier diet of larks and
sparrows. But most owls even now are far from bigoted in the
matter of hunting, and will impartially devour leverets, young
rabbits, moles, lizards, the nestlings of other birds, and even fish
when they can manage to catch them. Their eyes are specially
adapted for seeing by night, and seem to be deficient in the nerve-
elements required for perceiving colour. Probably no other race
on earth is so highly organised for a nocturnal existence ; and no
other preys so much on its fellow night-birds. It devours the
devour ers.
142 NIGHT LIFE.
In tropical countries, where the struggle for life seems to rage
even fiercer than in the temperate regions, a vast number of
animals have been driven by want to seek their livelihood in
the dark, through stress of competition. There are the howler
monkeys, for example, who make night hideous in large tracts of
South American forest, beginning their dismal music as soon as
evening sets in, and only retiring for the day as dawn purples the
horizon. There are the lemurs of Madagascar, so called because,
like ghosts, they walk by night and withdraw at cock-crow — .
strange, stealthy, noiseless creatures with great wistful poetical
eyes and enlarged pupils : monkeys that prey on birds and insects
in the gloomy depths of their native forests. There is the slender
loris, a graceful and beautiful beast, with eyes like a gazelle's, but
treacherous manners, who pounces upon birds as they sleep in
their little nests, creeping silently upon them from behind like an
Indian upon the war-path, and affording no indication of his
hateful presence till he is within arm's reach of his slumbering
victim. There is that curious little nondescript animal, the aye-
aye, who attracted so much attention a few years ago at the
Zoo — a quaint small beast, half monkey, half rodent, who comes
forth by night in search of fruits or insects, and crawls through
the woods with cat-like pace upon butterfly or caterpillar. And
there is that other odd connecting-link, the galeopithecus, or
' flying monkey ' — a lemur well on his way to develop into a bat ;
ape-like in form, but with a membrane stretched loose between
his arms and legs after the rudimentary fashion of the flying
squirrel, by means of which he glides from tree to tree with a sort
of half jump, half flight, very curious to witness. These are but
a few of the nocturnal mammals of the monkey and lemur type,
ancient ancestors of our own, gone wrong through keeping such
very late hours, and now stranded for the most part in islands or
peninsulas of extreme antiquity.
The very early group of the edentates or toothless animals,
once dominant on earth, is also represented in our modern world
by few but nocturnal and isolated species. The best known are
the sloth, the armadillo, the South African earth-hog, the scaly
pangolin, and the great ant-eater. All of them show a most
unsportsmanlike tendency to creep upon their prey unawares by
night, and to hurry it to a slippery internal grave without one
word of warning. In New Zealand, where indigenous mammals
are unknown, the place of the edentates is efficiently taken by a
NIGHT LIFE. 143
nocturnal bird, the kiwi or apteryx, which is a sort of wingless emu
or cassowary, specialised for a night-haunting and insect-eating
existence. Its trade mark is its long and slender bill, excellently
adapted to prying out earth-worms from their narrow tunnels, or
extracting slugs from the wet moss and peat in which it seeks its
livelihood.
Most of these nocturnal beasts, you will observe, are inferior or
belated types, driven to earn a precarious living in the dark places
of the world, and often confined to remote islands or uncivilised
peninsulas. As a rule, indeed, it may be said that dominant
species are diurnal in their habits ; and this is especially the case
with the larger herbivores, very few of which care for the darkness.
It is otherwise, however, with the carnivores, whose deeds are evil.
They can creep upon their prey more easily by night. Hence
almost all the cat tribe, including the king of beasts himself, are
more or less nocturnal. The hyenas, again, prefer to do their
scavenging work by night, as do also the jackals. The civets and
genetts crawl slowly upon their prey under cover of the darkness.
Our English representative of these night-roaming carnivores is
the poor harmless badger, who feeds for the most part on bees and
wasps, though he subsists to some extent on a vegetable diet. The
bears are in most cases rather nocturnal than diurnal, except in the
instance of the so-called sun-bears, whose food consists almost
entirely of fruits and the young shoots of palm trees. Thus
nocturnal animals fall into two groups : one, petty and defenceless ;
the other, fierce and dominant.
It is noteworthy that in almost every race and climate the
colours of nocturnal animals are dingier and gloomier than those
of their diurnal allies and representatives. This difference is due,
of course, to sexual selection, which cannot exert itself upon
colours or spots in the darkness. The butterflies, for example, are
beautifully arrayed ; their night-flying cousins, the moths, are
dull grey or whitish. Day-birds are often decked in brilliant
hues, like pheasants, toucans, macaws, and sun-birds ; the owls
and nightjars, on the contrary, are dull and inconspicuous. Our
English swift is just an aberrant humming-bird, who has taken to
hawking flies in the northern twilight, and grown black accord-
ingly. Most parrots come forth gorgeous in red, blue, and yellow ;
but the nocturnal New Zealand owl-parrot, whose name sufficiently
proclaims his skulking nature, has acquired a coat of dingy grey-
green, exceedingly like that of many owls and goat-suckers. And
144 NIGHT LIFE.
go on throughout ; a creature so brightly coloured as the blue-faced
mandril, or the great bird-of-paradise, is always sure to display
his fine feathers or brilliant decorations to his observant mate in
full flood of sunshine ; while, conversely, night-roamers like bats,
and ratels, and wombats, and bears, are always remarkable for
their unobtrusive coloration.
One way exists, however, in which nocturnal animals may
make an effective display to attract their mates, and that is the
system of phosphorescent flash-signals adopted by the glow-worm
and the fire-fly. It may also be noted that an unusually large
proportion of nocturnal animals have musical voices, or make loud
love-calls. The nightingale and nightjar are well-known instances
in point in- northern climates ; visitors to Southern Europe will
remember to their cost the tree-frogs and cicalas that make sleep
impossible ; while the howler monkeys, the laughing hyenas, and
the screaming lemurs of the forest, are equally familiar pests to
tropical travellers. All the loudest and most persistent voices are
voices of the night. The whip-poor-will and the katy-did are as
common in Massachusetts as the cuckoo in England ; while the
strident noises made by the numberless insects, which rub their
legs against their sides so as to attract their mates, effectually
banish sleep in many parts of tropical America.
Even in the plant-world somewhat similar effects are produced
by the alternation of day and night. As we all know, there are
day-blooming and nights-blooming flowers. The former lay them-
selves out for the fertilising visits of bees and butterflies ; they
are generally decked in red, blue, yellow, or purple, and have
often lines, spots, or markings on their petals which point to the
nectaries and so act as honey-guides. The night-blooming flowers,
on the other hand, lay themselves out for the visits of moths or
other crepuscular insects ; and therefore have recourse to some-
thing like the tactics of the fire-flies and the glow-worms. They
are usually pure white, and the petals are often of such a peculiar
texture that they seem to glow with internal light in the dim
shades of evening. At times one might almost fancy they were
stained by nature with some curious forerunner of luminous paint,
so strongly do they reflect every invisible ray of the faint twilight.
They thus succeed in catching the eyes of moths, which, of course,
are specially modified for receiving and perceiving the slender
stimulus of dusk and the gloaming. But the nocturnal flowers
have no lines or spots, because these last could never be perceived
NIGHT LIFE. H5
in the grey gloom of evening. They make up for it, however, by
being heavily scented ; indeed, almost all the strong white flowers,
like jasmine, tuberose, gardenia, stephanotis, cereus, and syringa,
which are such favourites with florists, belong to night-blossoming
plants, specially adapted to attract the eyes and noses of night-flying
insects. Perhaps that may be why the gilded youth of the Gaiety
so specially affect these luscious white exotics. I may add, in
passing, that not a few nocturnal animals are also provided with
similar allurements for their roaming mates, in the shape of
musky or other powerful perfumes;
I might pursue this theme through many outlying spheres of
life, the human included ; but, if I am strong, I am merciful. I
will omit all mention of the dormouse, the porcupine, the jerboa,
the opossum. I will let the public off the agouti, and the dasyure,
and the tanrec, and the kinkajou — those sweetly-named beasts —
as well as the remainder of the instances collected in my notes,
and will content myself with this brief and imperfect exposition
of the origin and genesis of the night side of Nature. Even so
hasty a sketch may suffice to suggest how large a part in the pro-
duction and fixing of species has really been borne by the daily
rotation of our planet, and how much the night as well as the day
is pervaded at all points by living creatures. On the whole, I
believe, almost a third of the animals now inhabiting our globe
are more or less nocturnal in structure and habit.
7-5
146
CHARACTER NOTE.
THE SOLDIER-SERVANT.
La politesse de 1'esprit consists A penser des choses honnetes et delicates.
THOMAS has been through the Mutiny. Thomas has a number of
medals of which, very likely, he is vastly proud but which he
never wears. Thomas has very seldom been heard to give an
account of his exploits. But then he is very seldom heard to give
an account of anything, being a perfect bulwark of silence, and
preferring to contribute nothing towards a conversation except a
few grunts.
Manners, indeed, are not Thomas's strong point. The Mutiny
may have rubbed them off. Or he may always have despised
them. He is now employed as a gardener and handy-man on
week-days, while on Sundays he blows the organ at a neighbouring
church with indomitable perseverance and strength.
It must not, however, be supposed that Thomas knows — or
wishes to know — anything about matters ecclesiastical. He blows
the organ with the air of one who would say, ' This seems to me
damned nonsense. Why can't you say your prayers without all this
noise ? Still, you must have your whims, I suppose, and I must
humour them.' He so far humours the whims of the Parson -in-
Chief as to take down for his benefit the Easter texts with which
the guileless Thomas has ornamented the church at Christmas. It
appears very likely to Thomas that one verse of Scripture does
quite as well as another, and is equally true at any season of the
year. But he undoes his handiwork with a perfectly good-natured
scornfulness and with the best-tempered and impolitest of grins
upon his countenance.
Thomas, both as gardener and churchman, has the old soldierly
virtue of implicit obedience developed to an extent for which the
ordinary civilian is quite unprepared. When his mistress— a lady
of vacillating turn of mind — says, ' Thomas, you really must kill
that cat,' on the spur of an impetuous moment, the cat is in dying
agonies five minutes later, and while the mistress is lamenting its
decease in the drawing-room, she can behold Thomas from the
CHARACTER NOTE. 147
windows, mowing the lawn in the calm consciousness of virtue and
with an unmoved diligence.
When the master complains that the whole flower-garden con-
tains nothing but pinks — which Thomas has been growing, with
much trouble, in serried ranks like an army — by the next morning
there is not a single pink left in the garden, and Thomas may be
seen quietly pitchforking a bonfire behind the shrubbery.
Thomas's horticultural instincts incline as a rule towards the
useful rather than the beautiful, and he cultivates vast quantities
of cabbages with perfect steadfastness and indifference to the fact
that no one wants or eats them. But he has so much of the true
gardener nature within him — in his case entirely free and untram-
melled— that when Miss Laura trips into the garden with a smile,
a rustic basket, and a pair of scissors, he shouts from the cabbage-
bed, ' Why don't you leave them 'ere roses alone ? ' And Laura
retires quite abashed into the house. ' Thomas's rudeness is
really dreadful, Charles,' says the mistress. When he is shown
the new baby and asked if it is not a remarkably fine child, he is
understood to say, with his contemptuous smile, and between
grunts, ' Pretty fair, pretty fair,' and when the mistress points out
to him some beautiful drawings in a weekly paper illustrative of
the Mutiny, he gives way to a deeply scornful guffaw.
It is surmised that Thomas has, on the whole, rather a poor
opinion of the weaker sex. He listens to the mistress's This will
be best, Thomas, or perhaps that, or what do you think of a third
(and totally opposite) alternative ? with a good-natured tolerance
for a race of beings who cannot make up their minds, or have no
minds to make up.
He never flirts with the maids, his disposition being infinitely
removed from any species of gallantry. Besides, he has a wife at
home. The wife — familiarly 'Liza — is a voluble and excited female
of shrewish tongue and a particularly energetic temper. Fifteen
years ago, when she beguiled the unwary Thomas into matrimony,
she may very likely have been an attractive person in her style.
That Thomas could at any time have been attractive in his style
is scarcely conceivable. But very likely his stalwart six feet and his
red coat did much better than the honeyed words and flattering
phrases of which he can never have had to accuse himself.
Thomas sits at home in the evenings after his work and tran-
quilly peruses an exciting manual on bulbs. As a rule Thomas
does not hold much with reading. Considering it an unpractical
148 CHARACTER NOTE.
and even feminine employment, and having met in the course of
his own experience a number of good men who did particularly
well without it.
But Bulbs are a duty. They may also be a refuge from ' 'Liza.'
So strong is the force of habit that her running accompaniment of
volubility does not in the least disturb the placid Thomas at his
literature.
When 'Liza is more than usually objectionable — which happens
on an average about once a week — Thomas sends her to Coventry.
She abuses him with a tongue which it is to be feared is not a
little coarse. But it is conceivable that the army has prepared
Thomas for some slight lack of refinement, just as it has inculcated
in him a habit of indomitable self-control. Thomas never abuses
'Liza. He is a rock of patience and silence. He immerses himself
deeply in the bulbs and sits calm and unmoved amid the domestic
thunders.
Thomas has children. Boys, for the most part, to whom he has
conscientiously done his duty by a periodical thrashing in the back
yard. Albeit Thomas has a heart for these children — a heart
which is even very soft and kind. And there is a rough justice in
his treatment of them which they very likely prefer to the mother's
unreasonable kisses and blows.
There is one little daughter to whom Thomas's affection goes
out with a great strength and devotion. The little daughter
has inherited to a marked degree Thomas's silent ways and
faithful heart. Her mother, with the terrible plain speaking of
the poor, has condemned her to her face as an unlikely child
and as ugly as they're made. And Nellie has hidden that poor
ugly little face on her father's rough shoulder, and has found in his
awkward kindness and homely care for her as happy a child-life as
can be.
She sits on Thomas's knee while he reads ' Bulbs.' He takes
her to church with him on Sundays, seats her near him, and
addresses encouraging, and audible, remarks to her in the pauses
of his organ-blowing.
On Bank Holidays and other gala occasions the two go country
walks together. Neither of 4hem says much, both considering
very likely that conversation mars enjoyment, and that they get a
great deal too much of it at home. But Thomas has Nellie's
small hand in his vast horny palm, and it is to be believed that
they understand each other perfectly.
CHARACTER NOTE. 149
On one memorable occasion they spend a happy day at
Margate. The beauties of sands black with excursionists, and of
a jetty packed to suffocation, appeal to both very much indeed.
Perhaps upon the principle that one is never so much alone as in
a crowd. Or with the idea that this is seeing a fashionable
watering-place at the height of its glory, and to perfection. Or
merely because they are together.
Nellie is very tired after so long a day. Tired, pale, and
shivering, and 'Liza says, ' You've done for this child, drat you ! '
with a great deal of force and energy, and carries Nellie up to bed
in a temper. 'Liza, like a great many other people, is always
cross when she is anxious. And that night Thomas tramps a long
six miles for the doctor. There is a cold fear creeping about his
heart, the presence of which he is, somehow, afraid of acknow-
ledging, and he says to the doctor, ' ^Not much wrong — nothing
but a cold,' several times over, and with deep grunts. It is
nothing but a cold at first. But it is a cold that turns to a high
fever, which rages in Nellie's frail body and beats down her feeble
strength. Thomas does not leave her room for a week. His
master considers so much devotion very unnecessary, and inti-
mates to Thomas that his place cannot be kept open for him.
And Thomas damns the place quietly, and lets it go — as he would
let go heaven for Nellie. He nurses the child as a woman might.
Or, perhaps, as no woman could. He is profoundly ignorant of
disease. It is to be feared that he is at times profoundly foolish.
The child loses strength every day before his eyes. The delirium
and fever fight fiercely for her weakly life. It is her father's part
to watch a struggle in which he can do nothing, and his rugged
face gets haggard and ghostly. Nellie lives — so far as she can be
said to be living at all — upon milk and brandy ; and one day, the
first for a fortnight, Thomas leaves her in charge of 'Liza. He
walks over to the doctor. A rapid walk, full of purpose, during
which he takes no heed of anything by the way. He implores the
doctor — a request which is, somehow, pathetically ignorant and
ridiculous — to let Nellie have something solid to eat.
' 'Liza could do a beefsteak very tender,' he says. And there
is a look so miserable and desperate in the man's face that the
doctor does not even feel like smiling.
It takes more than medical assurance to convince Thomas that
Nellie wants anything but ' strengthening up.' He arrives at the
surgery at all sorts of unseemly hours of the night and day to
150 CHARACTER NOTE.
reiterate his request. He has the dogged persistence of a great
ignorance and a great love.
If there can be any pathos in connection with a beefsteak —
which is manifestly impossible — Thomas puts it there.
The delirium leaves Nellie one twilight, and the father fancies
as he watches her that she knows he is near. He sits by her all
through the sultry night. The little house is very quiet indeed,
the voluble Eliza having gone to sleep downstairs. Before dawn
Nellie stirs a little and smiles as if her dreams were happy. Her
poor little life goes out quietly with the stars, and her father is
roused from a broken sleep by the chill of the wasted hand lying
in his own.
In a few days 'Liza has already begun to derive a good deal of
consolation from some deeply woeful mourning and the celebrity
and glory imparted to her from being a near relation of a corpse.
She enjoys a relish in the shape of a bloater, and a few friends to
her tea, with a good deal of zest and any number of easy tears,
while Thomas sits alone with ' Bulbs ' in front of him, reading it
with a dogged sense of duty, and comprehending not a word.
Thomas cannot derive any consolation from his friends —
having only a very few, and at no time, even the happiest, treat-
ing them to confidence and conversation. Perhaps his grief is of
that kind which words would not at all relieve. Perhaps, after
all, it is much like the trouble of more highly cultivated persons,
and he fears sympathy as one fears a touch upon an open wound.
He resumes his work, his master having repented of his hard-
ness, or found that Thomas is necessary to the place, or both.
And Thomas, having been at all times a very temperate person,
puts by from his week's wages a modest allowance usually devoted
to beer. He makes many other, if no greater sacrifices for the
same object. 'Liza talks of putting by something, too, towards
Nellie's memorial stone. 'Liza says they must do something
'andsome by the child. It is characteristic of them both that
'Liza only talks and Thomas only does.
Thomas is deputed to choose the stone. There are tears in
his eyes, perhaps, which obscure his sense of the beautiful — or he
has no such sense at all. Only wants Nellie — in 'Liza's phrase —
to be done by 'andsome. Wants to show her, by spending a great
deal of money that he can very ill afford, how dear she is to him
and how faithfully his heart keeps her memory. Perhaps he
thinks — the uneducated have such ideas — that she looks down
CHARACTER NOTE. 151
from some baby heaven and approves an erection which, it must
be confessed is unmitigatedly hideous and pagan. 'Liza takes a
great deal of pride in pointing out the stone to her friends, in
mentioning its price, and recalling the expenses of the funeral.
But Thomas is pleased only because Nelly will be pleased too.
He goes often to contemplate the grave in the churchyard, and
derives from its gloomy hideousness a comfort and easing of
sorrow which he does not find elsewhere. Very plebeian and un-
educated ? Yes ; but it may be that in its vast heart Providence
takes account of griefs so simple, and itself provides for them
these simple consolations.
Years after, when Thomas still gardens grumpily, and despises
Miss Laura's essays in horticulture with perfect good humour
and impoliteness, a small circumstance reveals that Nellie is still
unforgotten.
' Drat this place ! ' says 'Liza, who is still voluble and emphatic,
and she votes that they retire upon their savings and end their
days fashionably at Eamsgate.
Thomas does not give any reason why this plan does not
please him. Perhaps he thinks that reason is wasted upon women
— particularly upon 'Liza. Perhaps his contempt of words and
habits of silence have deepened with time. And they have always
been deep. Or perhaps he has no reason to urge — only a feeling.
And anyone who thinks that Thomas would ever urge his feelings
can know nothing at all about him.
But when 'Liza can swear it's because he won't leave our
Nellie, who has been a corpse these ten years, there is no knowing
that she may not be right.
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES.
WE have still a few, a very few, of the earliest buildings left to us
in which Nonconformists met as soon as it was legal for them to do
so. Whilst it was unlawful for more than five persons to meet for
the purpose of worship, except in their respective parish churches, in
consequence of the Conventicle Act, we know there were gatherings
in private houses, and in such places as barns, and in the open
air, according to circumstances. When legalised by the Act of
Toleration the building of small, unpretending chapels was carried
on throughout the land with much enthusiasm, though generally
they were placed in secluded situations. Altogether, about a
thousand of them were built, it is computed, within twenty years
of the passing of the Act. Gradually most of these early meeting-
houses have been replaced by more important and more imposing
structures. But, as stated, we have still a few remaining that are
sacred to the memory of the earliest claimants for freedom in the
matter of religious opinions.
Hinckley chapel, or the ' great meeting,' in Hinckley, Leices-
tershire, is an interesting example. The congregation was origin-
ally gathered together by one of ' the glorious two thousand '
clergymen who vacated their benefices in preference to conforming
with the conditions laid down in the Act of Uniformity passed in
May 1662. His name was Henry Watts, and he was Eector of
Sweepstone. Word has been handed down to us that he at first
retired to Weddington on his eviction, but subsequently removed
to Barwell, which is situated about a mile and a half from Hinck-
ley, and that he used to preach at Hinckley on Sunday after-
noons ; but it is not clear that there was a chapel there at the
time, as in the days of one of his immediate successors the
meetings were held in the minister's house. A small tablet
inserted between the two tiers of windows on one of the fronts of
the present chapel gives the date A.D. 1722 as that of its erection.
However, in memoranda concerning Dr. Doddridge there is men-
tion that this well-known divine preached his first sermon in the
old meeting-house at Hinckley which was taken down in that
year, 1722. It is possible, therefore, that the present edifice is
an enlargement of the structure that was used by the first Xon-
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES. 153
conformists ; and, on the other hand, equally likely that it covers
the same amount of ground, but was made lighter and loftier at
that date. It is about fifty feet square, and built of ripe old red
bricks and covered with red tiles. It is approached by a narrow
lane, and stands in a small grassy graveyard, where those who
worshipped in it buried their dead, and placed upon the tomb-
stones marking their resting-places quaintly devout and argumen-
tative utterances, such as ' A wit's a feather, and a chiefs a rod.
An honest man the noblest work of Grod ;' and again, ' Stay, read,
prepare, reflect whilst this you view, Who next must die, un-
certain, why not you ? '
On crossing the modest threshold and entering the building
that was so much to the conscientious, thoughtful people living
in the heart of England then, our eyes fall upon the same
objects that met the view of the ardent spirits who inaugurated
the undertaking in 1722, and brought it to a successful issue.
There are the same pews ; there is the same pulpit, though
a sounding-board with which it was originally furnished has
been removed ; and there is the oaken gallery added in 1727.
All the woodwork is dry and mellow with its years and use. As
we look upon the empty seats it is impossible not to people them
with the first demure and devout congregation, pleased with
their new building, and content with their own steadfastness
that stood between them and the old places of their forefathers
in the parish church close by. There were articles of attire
worn then that are only known to us now by the occasional
allusions to them that we come across in the literature of the
time — perukes, jumps, falling-bands, whisks, sacques, for instance ;
and it would not be too much to assume that the merits of these,
and perhaps the advantages of the new hoops over the old
farthingales, may have come into the thoughts of some of the
younger women, against their will and to be driven away again
directly, as they sat trying to give their whole attention to the long
discourse of the minister. Into the thoughts of their elders would
doubtless occasionally stray some of the details of the recent Sache-
verell riots, or of the later disturbances in which the meeting-
houses at Acres Field, Manchester, and Monton and Blackley were
wrecked, not unmixed with satisfaction that Parliament had voted
sufficient sums for the rebuilding of them, which fact created a
precedent for future compensation under similar circumstances
elsewhere. The officiating minister conducted an academy for
154 SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES.
the ministry, as many others did at that time ; though Mr. Watts
and an intermediate predecessor had kept sufficiently in touch
with the Established Church to receive burial in the church-
yards at Barwell and Hinckley respectively. There would be an
atmosphere of peace, simplicity, and learning in the little place,
then, that still seems to linger in it. There were many disturb-
ing influences in other parts of the kingdom consequent upon the
readjustment of things after the rising in favour of the son of
James II., and great excitement in Change Alley in consequence
of the South Sea Bubble, and news still more likely to affect the
leading industry of the town concerning the making of thread in
Scotland ; but as we look upon the places that know them no
more, we can only think of the quiet footsteps, the bowed heads,
the grave deportment of the first members of the congregation
as they crossed the threshold and took their seats in confiding
silence, and trust, with a great trust commensurate with their own,
that it is well with them now.
A great change had come over the manner of building
throughout the land at the close of the seventeenth century. The
soft and sumptuous curves of the mediaeval church-builders, their
mouldings full of shadows, their carvings full of fancies, their
well- wrought windows filled with tracery and divided by mullions,
and perhaps transoms too, their deeply recessed doorways with
rows of receding columns and other enrichments, their resolute
buttresses, embattled towers and tapering spires and spirelets,
had lost their charm. Straight lines, horizontal and perpendicular,
smooth surfaces, plain rectangular window-openings .with plain
flat lintels and sills scarcely projecting from the walls, and simple
doorways that were mere entrances and expressed nothing of the
salutation and invitation made apparent in the buildings of an
older time, became the rule. We are apt to associate this change
with the greater changes of the period, and doubtless it was
affected by them to some extent ; but the revival of an apprecia-
tion of classic architecture, as testified by the rebuilding of St.
Paul's in the classic manner, was the chief cause of the adoption
of the new style of building. The builders of the early Non-
conformists' chapels only followed in the wake of the innovators,
and executed their work in the fashion of the day. It is true
that iconoclasm, recoilment, and protest left their marks upon many
of the ancient edifices ; and that there were impressions in some
minds that grotesque gargoyles, stately arches, calm sculpture and
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES. 155
gorgeous stained glass were ' diabolic ; ' but the simple severity of
the new buildings was the result of the reception of the new taste.
In the North the Act of Uniformity spread as much conster-
nation as elsewhere, and in the county of Northumberland nearly
forty livings were left vacant, of which three were in Newcastle-
upon-Tyne. The clergy who left' their respective benefices are
known in several instances to have held meetings directly in or
near their own houses, and to have kept their friends and followers
together. One of these was the Eev. Thomas Trurent, vicar of
Ovingham, who, when opportunity offered after the Restoration,
obtained a licence to be a congregational teacher in his own
house, and that his house might be used for preaching. He died
in 1676. Within six years of his death we hear of a congregation
still assembling in the immediate neighbourhood at Horsley-on-
Tyne. At first, it is thought, these worshippers met in the attic
of the new minister's house, to which they ascended by means of
a ladder and a trap-door ; but in the beginning of the last century
they were in possession of a meeting-house adjoining it. A deed
of transfer dated November, 1721, speaks of both house and
chapel being made over to certain trustees in consideration of the
sum of 351. ; and another deed, still extant, tells us of the pur-
chase of a small farm to be annexed to the meeting-house or
chapel, to the end that the rents and profits from it should be
applied to the maintenance and support of the minister of it,
which farm is known to this day as the Whig's farm, and has
given rise to the occasional application of the term Whig's
chapel to the meeting-house. This chapel is a small plain stone
building well calculated by its sturdiness to resist the stress of
north-country storms. There is a sun-dial on the front of it
between the two principal windows. It is entered now by a small
porch which is of a later date than the rest of the homely
structure, and ^ve may see in the old plain stonework the traces
where the olden doorway has been filled in. The aspect is touch-
ingly and impressively reverential, as well as indicative of the
scanty means at the disposal of the worshippers. There is an old
house in the village with a similar sun-dial upon it, and the date,
1705, cut upon the lintel of the door. And there is a wayside
hostelry close by, called the Iron Sign, which Mr. Maberley
Phillips, who has read a pleasant and precise account of this
meeting-house to the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, suggests
may have some reference to Cromwell's Ironsides.
156 SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES.
In 1715 there were, in all, twenty-five dissenting congrega-
tions in Northumberland. About this time George West, a
wealthy merchant, who was a Baptist, bought an old building in
an entry at the foot of Tuthill stairs, that had been formerly used
by the Corporation as a place of assemblage, which was made
into a meeting-house. There was a large wainscotted room on the
ground floor with an ornamented ceiling, with pews in it, on one
of which were two hands for the reception of the official sword
and mace. This was used as the meeting-house ; and the upper
part of the building was made into the minister's house. This
has since been superseded by a more commodious structure ; but
it is still standing very hoary as to its stonework, with many signs
of wear and tear in its gables, brickwork, and mullioned windows.
Other centres were formed in Alnwick, Morpeth, Lowick, and
Hexham at an early date. As early as 1660 no fewer than 215
persons were indicted at the Alnwick Sessions for not frequenting
their parish church as required by law ; and immediately after the
passing of the Act of Uniformity twenty-four persons, mentioned
by name in records preserved in Durham, were presented at the
Archdeacon's Court and charged with Nonconformity. The Vicar
of Alnwick, Gilbert Kule, was another of the ' glorious two
thousand ; ' but he left the town and studied and practised medi-
cine, leaving others for a time to continue the work he had begun.
In 1682 Kobert Blount, who had been ejected from Kirkharle
Vicarage, was presented for holding a Conventicle in his house ;
and in 1685 several other Alnwick persons were informed against
for assembling together in a house in the Barnyards for the exer-
cise of religion in other manner than according to the Church of
England, who were all bound over to appear when they were
required to do so. Robert Blount, however, continued to preach
in different places, prosecuted and excommunicated and with
writs out against him, or licensed to preach, according to the
ascendency of different parties, till he finally settled down in
Horsley, a few years after the death of the Rev. Thomas Trurent
of Ovingham. Among those in this list of persons presented was
a John Tait, whose tombstone was dug up at the beginning of this
century in the grass-laid space surrounding the first chapel built
in Alnwick for the Nonconformists. This erection, which has the
date 1780 incised on one of its stones, probably to mark its first
extension when its accommodation was found insufficient for the
numbers frequenting it, stands in an opening on the north side of
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES. 157
a steep street leading to one of the four gateways with which the
great stone wall that once surrounded the town was furnished. It
is a plain, smoothly chiselled stone rectangular structure, with long
plain round-headed sash windows, covered with one long line of
slated roofing, with a difference in the masonry at about two-
thirds of its height that shows where its altitude has been increased
at a more recent period, probably to admit of the addition of a
large semicircular gallery within, and other marks which show
that it has been lengthened at some previous time also. In
front of it, near the doorway, now stands the thick square tomb-
slab of the John Tait mentioned. There is an inscription cut
upon it in seventeenth-century letters, which is here and there
obliterated, leaving only to be deciphered : —
JOHN TAIT LAID THIS PLASE
THEE ONLY
FFOR TRVTH AND
O WITNESS GARTH AND
HERE JACOB LIKE
HIS BLISSD BONS TO INTERRE
NO WHERE ELSE WOWLD
BUT INS BOWGHT SEPVLCHRE
E. T. IPSISSIMI JOAN IS: VXOR
1669
VIVAT POST FUNERA VIRTVS.
The disposal of people's bones seems to have been a matter of
considerable local interest in those days. According to evidence
before the High Commission Court in 1633, one Robert Brandling
vowed he would have the bones of the Vicar of Alnwick ; among
the papers collected by Sir John Coke, Secretary of State to King
Charles I., recently printed, there is a petition from this same
Robert Brandling praying his Majesty to take tender consideration
of the evil life of Robert Stevenson, preacher of God's word at
Alnwick, who not only declared he would have his bones also, but
that he would make dice of them when they came into his pos-
session. It may have been that this controversy about bones made
John Tait particular as to the place of his interment, although
burial in gardens was not uncommon at the time ; or he may have
given the garth on which the chapel was buift as testimony of his
convictions. His tombstone and a pewter plate, or alms-dish,
inscribed 'Remember the Poor 1689 Heb xiii Luke 12. 33,'
158 SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES.
are two of the earliest relics that have been preserved in this
chapel. There is a monument on the floor of the chancel of the
parish church to the memory of the first minister, Dr. Harle,
placed there by his widow in 1729. A succeeding minister, the
Rev. John Calder, seems to have endeavoured to set things upon
a permanent basis by making a conveyance of the meeting-house
and the little building south of it, commonly used as a vestry,
and all the dwelling-house, stable and garden behind the same, to
trustees as a meeting-house for the worship of God by the con-
gregation of Protestant Dissenters formerly known as belonging
to Dr. Harle, and afterwards to Mr. Waugh, and at the time to
himself, 1769. We may see, then, that this meeting-house was
originally built in a garden that was within the confines of the
fortified wall of this ancient border town ; and that it consisted
at first of four plain stone walls with plain rectangular window
openings and one doorway, the whole being without ornament or
enrichment of any kind ; that it was afterwards lengthened, pro-
bably in 1780 when that date was cut upon a certain central stone ;
then altered again when the tomb-slab to the memory of John
Tait was found in 1813; and finally heightened and enlarged to
contain 450 sittings in 1838. It is exactly two hundred years
ago that the first minister, who had been ordained by other
ministers at Morpeth, entered upon his labours.
Another early chapel of a different kind of interest to those of
the fearless, hardy, strict-minded north-countrymen was that in
the metropolis, in Tottenham Court Eoad, known as Whitefield's
Tabernacle, of which Whitefield laid the foundation stone in
1756. This was a large square building of two stories of much
more architectural pretension, for it had a fapade with pilasters
and a pediment, and its roof sloped up from its four sides to a
central ornamental columniated cupola surmounted by a ball. In
a large green-baized pew in it worshipped Selina, Countess of
Huntingdon, whose devotion and enthusiasm linked her name
inseparably with both the building and the congregation ; and to
it came many other celebrities of the day, including Horace Wai-
pole, Lord Chesterfield, Goldsmith, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin
Franklin, and the historian Hume. David Garrick, who sympa-
thised with Whitefield's earnestness and intrepidity, and owned
himself surpassed in oratorical power by him, sent 5001. in the
course of its erection ' to pay the workmen.' It is said that,
though enlarged to seat four thousand worshippers, it was too
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES. 159
small to accommodate the crowds that flocked to it in days when
London was by no means the vast assemblage of human beings
that it has since become. The two Wesleys, Toplady, the author
of ' Eock of Ages,' and Irving, are among the long list of great
awakening preachers who have prayed and preached from its
pulpit. Various additions from time to time, however, including
the portico and mosque-like minarets or towers that have been
such familiar features to Londoners for so many years, failed to
ensure its stability, and a short time ago the word went forth that
it was no longer safe to assemble in it ; and now only the old
notice-board is left standing, close to the temporary iron building
that occupies its site. As a part of London of the last century,
when many among the congregation were carried to the doors in
sedan-chairs, and all had to find their way there and home again
through badly paved streets that, after dark, were only dimly
lighted with an oil-lamp here and there, it would have been an
interesting relic to have handed down to those who will come after
us. The year before Whitefield, or Whitfield as he is often called,
laid the foundation of this chapel, Samuel Johnson had completed
and published his dictionary ; Boswell, his biographer, was a lad
of sixteen ; Cowper and Gainsborough were young men ; Dr.
Burney was an organist at Lynn, and had not then set up his
house in St. Martin's Lane; neither had Goldsmith come to
London ; Sterne had not published his Tristram Shandy ; Sarah
Siddons was but a year old ; the deaths of Pope, Steele, and
Bolingbroke were comparatively recent events. All the old diffe-
rences of opinion of the seventeenth century, that were only half
theological because of the large admixture of political considera-
tions in them, were no longer of account, and Whitefield's im-
passioned utterances were hurled at personal and social sins with
a vehemence and tenderness of exhortation that attracted people
of all ranks to his Tabernacle. We know Horace "VValpole affirmed
that his only objection to Whitefield's preaching was that it made
him unable to restrain his tears. In the diary of William Wilber-
force, the philanthropist who did so much for the abolition of
slavery, we may read more contemporary mention of Whitefield.
' Saw old Dr. Stonehouse,' he wrote, ' who applauded G. White-
field. Lord Chesterfield charmed with him.' And again, ' Old
Newton breakfasted with me. He talked in the highest terms of
Whitefield as by far the greatest preacher he had ever known.'
And the same diary, subsequently, gives us a realisation of the
160 SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES.
exaltation of thought that Whitefield and the Wesleys brought
about. Mr. Wilberforce wrote down his remembrance of his intro-
duction to Charles Wesley at Hannah More's house in these
terms : ' I went I think in 1786 to see her, and when I came into
the room Charles Wesley rose from the table, around which a
numerous party sat at tea, and coming forwards to me, gave me
solemnly his blessing. I was scarcely ever more affected. Such
was the eilect of his manner and appearance, that it altogether
upset me, and I burst into tears, unable to restrain myself.' If
this strain was felt thus acutely in private life, we cannot be
surprised that the services in the chapel, whether conducted by
Whitefield or the Wesleys, called forth still more emotional out-
breaks.
In some parts of the country the earliest chapels have beei
quite demolished, as in the case of Lowick Meeting-house, where
the Eev. Luke Ogle ministered when ejected from Berwick-upon-
Tweed, which has been razed to the ground, and Barmoor Castle
built upon its site ; occasionally, too, they have been turned to
base uses when no longer required, as at Stamfordham, where the
old meeting-house has been converted into a stable ; but, fortu-
nately, for the most part they have been incorporated in enlarge-
ments that were considered desirable, as has been the case in Cross
Street, Manchester. There are interesting examples at Toxteth
Park, Liverpool; at Stafford; at Knutsford, Warrington, Bram-
hope, Kendal, Hale, Lydgate near Huddersfield, and Morley. In
Bristol, after the first Baptist congregation became too large to con-
tinue meeting in private houses, a hall was hired that had been par
of a Dominican Friary ; then a warehouse was preferred ; and in 1 67 '
a meeting-house was hired and fitted up that had been previously
used by the Quakers, in which four small rooms were thrown
into one. And here they assembled in times of peace, and were
dispersed in times of persecution, till the end of the century, when
this hall was rebuilt and a vestry added. Thirty years or so after-
wards, a front gallery was inserted, and then side galleries, and in
1757 a baptistery for immersion was built, and the river baptisms
abandoned. Nearly a hundred years afterwards the same building
was again enlarged, and since then additions have been twice made
to it ; but there are still portions of the old side walls pointed out
and it is still the same place where they concealed the preacher
behind a curtain, and blockaded the stairs with women anc
children to frustrate the opposition of those who differed from
SOME EARLY MEETING-HOUSES. 161
them, and where many staunch hearts suffered gladly in a cause
that seemed righteous and good to them.
Down a lane in Swarthmoor still stands the modest little
meeting-house presented by George Fox to the Society of Friends
there. Over the door is a stone lettered 'Ex Dono Or. F. 1688.'
Within the small edifice the walls are whitewashed, the floor
flagged, and the seats unpainted, and padlocked to a desk is the
Bible Fox gave to the congregation, which was printed by Richard
Grafton in 1541. This simple and stern example seems to give
us a venerable as well as veritable page out of the history of early
Nonconformity. Matthew Henry's Chapel, in Chester, is as another
leaf from the same book.
Occasionally we come across picturesque examples in miscel-
laneous works, as in the view of Jordaens, the Meeting-house of
the Society of Friends, in Buckinghamshire, in Smith's Historical
Curiosities, which shows a mellow old bee-and-bird-haunted place
with a sun-dial on its high-up chimney-stack, and Penn's grave
lying in the grass, near..the shadow of its walls. Still more rarely
we are pointed out one of these old places because of its associa-
tion with characters made known to us through fiction, as in the
case of Ramsbottom Chapel, Rossendale, Lancashire, in which the
originals of the Brothers Cheeryble worshipped.
As we look across the land we cannot find more than a very
few examples, however, of the simple structures in which the first
early Nonconformists of various denominations congregated, with
1 the beautiful Puritan pansies,' their wives and daughters. The
larger and newer buildings, that are so numerous, though set apart
for the same sacred purpose, and more sanitary, commodious and
ornamental, are not fraught with the same associations, nor
hallowed with so many memories. The stream of life flowing on
through the centuries, spreading ever wider and wider, carries
away with it many of the old landmarks in the way of opinions
and convictions, and effaces other old standpoints around which
there were once whirls and eddies of contention ; but whatever
changes are brought about by its irresistible course, we must
always look with undiminished interest upon these buildings as
belonging to the staunch, single-minded people whose fervour and
faithfulness gained for us all privileges that none of us are likely
to undervalue.
VOL. XXI. — NO, 122, N.S.
162
A FLORIDA GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
MR. EZRA TUNKS and Miss Mercy Tanks were two of the most
valuable settlers in their part of Polk county, Florida.
Of course they were valuable for very different reasons. Ezra
was reckoned a first-rate settler because he could turn his hands
to many and various • things. He had edited the Clearwater
Chronicle for a fortnight, and he was great at orange-growing and
making wheelbarrows. As Editor, he had started in the above
well-known journal the plan of giving every female new-comer
with a mole on her right arm an acre of excellent land over
and above her family's ownings or purchases. The Clearwater
Chronicle was dispersed all over the Continent, and there was,
subsequently, a decided influx of settlers with and without wives
and daughters having moles on their right arms. His 'Aphorism '
column, as he called it, was thought a very * cute feature of the
Chronicle.' Here are two specimens of his aphorisms :
The old year is rapidly drawing to a close.
Don't overestimate your position, young man.
In addition to all this, Ezra was very hospitable to new-comers,
boarding them with his daughter Mercy at two dollars a day, just
for all the world as if his house were an hotel. As a rule, how-
ever, he sold them land as some set-off to this generosity.
Mercy Tanks was a pretty girl after the American style. That
is to say, she was fascinatingly self-conscious, impudent to the last
degree, with grey eyes showing a desperate amount of shrewdness,
a sweet little mouth and ear, an elegant turned-up nose, and deli-
cate small hands and feet. To trace the origin of these last would
have baffled the genius of the most skilled of anthropologists, for
Mercy's father wore immeasurable boots, her mother (now dead)
had had limbs with appendages as large as President Lincoln's,
and her grand-parents were so plebeian that they were never
mentioned even in the Tunks' democratic home-circle.
To tell the truth, however, though she spoke like a British
kitchenmaid, and had manners inconvenient for polite life, she
A FLORIDA GIRL. 163
was a girl to run after. At least, that was the idea of her that
soon possessed Polk county.
But Mercy, though eighteen (in Florida a full-ripe age for
matrimony), had hitherto mocked mankind. She affected to be
too lazy even to smile upon her suitors, which, of course, made
them yearn all the more for a glance, even though a contemptuous
one, from her lovely eyes. She was fonder of nothiDg than
lolling about in the sunshine, with or without a ten-cent novel
(pirated from the talent of England) in her brown little hand.
Her father adored Miss Tunks, which was quite in the order
of nature. He was certainly an uncouth-looking gentleman to be
blessed with such an offspring. He was lean as a lath, and much
too tall to be symmetrical. A grey tuft of beard hung from his
chin, and gave him something to hold when his hands were at a
loss for occupation. He generally went about in his shirt-sleeves,
wearing a sugarloaf-crowned straw hat immense of brim.
' My gal ! ' said Ezra Tunks one sweltering August day, as he
sat cocked up against the outer wall of his wooden house on the
side of Clearwater Lake, ' I guess we'll have to get a young
Englishman, like other folk. They're real good at hard work while
they last. Them blacks is the very Satan to the pocket at two
dollars the day.'
4 Wai,' exclaimed Mercy Tunks, with one eye upon her father.
She lay extended in the hammock slung between two of the
green posts of the verandah, and one of her fair slim ankles hung
gracefully over the edge of the tissue.
' There's no objection, eh ? '
' None from me, you bet, pa ; niggers ain't sassiety, and I'm
dead weary of Dr. Smith.'
' Ah, there you're kinder wrong, chile. The doctor has a very
pretty balance of dollars in the Jacksonville Bank, I can tell
thee ! '
* Wai, let him. He's five-and-thirty, and full of grey hairs.'
Mr. Tunks laughed ironically.
' Five-and-thirty's the prime time of manhood, and you won't
find many in these parts as have got their wisdom without getting
grey along of it ! '
' Wai, that may be, pa. It don't make any difference to my
feelings for Dr. Smith. You can anyhow fix that Englishman,
and welcome. He ought to be one as can pump, though ! '
Mr. Tunks straightway took a pencil from his waistcoat-pocket
8—2
164 • A FLORIDA GIRL.
and scribbled off the following advertisement, which duly appeared
in the London Times three weeks later :
* A Genuine Opportunity. — Wanted a young gentleman ap-
prentice to the orange -growing. Premium, two hundred dollars.
All found, and the industry taught gratis ; must be strong and
willing to work ; preferred with a knowledge of pumping. Chance
of partnership afterwards, perhaps. Write to Mr. Ezra Tunks,
Clearwater, Polk County, Florida.'
* It's a bit patchey, pa, ain't it ? But it'll do,' murmured Miss
Mercy, as she held the slip between her dapper finger and thumb.
* My goodness ! I wonder who he'll be like to ? '
' Never you mind that, chile. It's made to catch one of the
strong soft sort, and that's what we desiderate, I guess. It's his
arms and legs we pine for, and his bit of money too. It'll give
us excuse to shunt that old hoss, Luke, who eats '
* Lor, papa, if you'd have seen him this very morning at break-
fast. I declare I thought he'd never have done. He packed
about three pounds of rice and grease into his old carcase, and
then said he felt — well, emptyish ! '
' Great Scot ! ' exclaimed Ezra Tunks, paling through his
mahogany-coloured skin. ' A meal like that three times a day !
and rice six cents the pound in the Clearwater stores, let alone
his two dollars a day ! This young Britisher'll come just in time
to dig the sweet taters and cut the cane of the new one-acre
patch. That'll do nicely ! '
* Do Englishmen eat much, pa ? '
' They generally die, my chile — leastways in Florida. There's
a graveyard in Portlock, by the Gulf, with only fifteen heaps in it,
and twelve of them's over British bones. It don't suit their
constitution, I reckon. It's very sad for them, but we can't
help that, can we, if they will come courting of death as they
do?'
* I guess you're right,' murmured Mercy, as she gazed dreamily
across the glittering lake at the dark green woods on the other
side, canopied by the blue heavens. * Times are I can't make out
why God made folks ! '
* My chile, that ain't no business of ours. We show our grati-
tude and wit sufficiently, I reckon, if we use his manufactures just
as smartly as we know how.'
Mercy's only comment upon this wicked philosophy was a
sleepy * Wai.'
A FLORIDA GIRL. 165
It was so hct that she fell asleep the next moment, in spite of
the mosquitoes and the noisy grunting of a mocking-bird in
imitation of an old sow.
CHAPTER II.
THE scene changes to an ancient gabled manor-house in Bucking-
hamshire. An important enough house two or three hundred
years ago : for traces of its past greatness still remained in the
sunken moat on one side, now smoothed off into a paddock.
Formerly peacocks sunned themselves on the green raised bank
of garden at the back of the building. But these fair old times
were gone for Buncombe Manor. Sheep now nibbled the grass to
the very windows of the house, and the 'flower-beds nurtured many
a weed. An air of genteel neglect pervaded the house and grounds
alike.
The same might have been said of Pitt Buncombe, Esq., him-
self, the present owner of the manor. He was sauntering about
the dishevelled lawn in a coat of rusty velveteen with his hands in
his pockets. His countenance was eloquent of hard times, agri-
cultural depression, recalcitrant farmers, unlet homesteads, and
that sort of thing. And yet there was a subdued sweetness in his
expression that told of the gentlemanly heart within him. If you
could have read his thoughts, you would have found them to this
effect :
' A man can put up with Fortune's knocks well enough so long
as they hit him and no one else. But the ricochet ! that's where
the rub comes in. How in the world are the boys going to make
their way in life, handicapped as they are by their gentility ? This
gentility seems a most unmarketable quality, Heaven help us !
' There's Ralph ! He's the very fellow for a soldier, like his
uncles and great-uncles ; but he can't get through his exams., and
mess expenses would break him altogether. Bob, too, poor
fellow, has nothing but his fine face and strong limbs. That last
report of him from Harrow was a nice thing : " Shows extra-
ordinary talent in remaining in a form among boys two and three
years junior to him." And now he has been at home two years —
there's no money for Oxford or Cambridge in his case, even if he
could qualify. Well, well, thank Heaven, a hundred years hence
it will be of no consequence to anyone.'
166 A FLORIDA GIRL.
Mr. Duncombe was proceeding with these unprofitable reflec-
tions, so bitter to the man of sixty, when a lady stepped upon
the lawn by the French window of one of the lower rooms of the
house.
'Head that,' she said, somewhat peremptorily. 'It seems
quite providential.'
* What is it about, Maria ? '
' Read it, and you will see its application fast enough.'
Mr. Duncombe took the Times, and then looked up at his
wife in a faintly scared way.
' You don't mean that you think it would do for either of '
* For Robert, of course.'
' But the inherent vulgarity of the '
' Inherent nonsense ! You are really quite a fool, Pitt. If
the world is to be cut to suit your sons' tastes, well and good ;
the sooner it's done the better for them. But you know — you've
said it yourself scores of times — that they've got to face a new
condition of things. I should say you couldn't do better for him,
and there's an end of it. He's a heavy drag on us now, and we
can't afford it. Put it to him, and you'll see.'
' If he were your own son, Maria '
* If he were my own son, I should settle the matter without
all this weak preamble ; but, as he isn't, I can only give you my
opinion. You will, of course, disregard it ; but I shall at least
have the consolation of knowing that I tried to save one of your
sons from the ruin he's sure to come to if he stays here doing
nothing.'
Mr. Duncombe put his hands to his forehead as his wife sailed
back into the house with an indignant rustle of her dress. He
wandered away from the house, descended the worn old steps that
once connected the park land with the manor gardens, and
strolled idly among the old oaks of the pasture. The leaves were
changing colour fast, and the air was crisper than it ought to have
been in September.
Pitt Duncombe's thoughts were now less pleasant than ever.
This notion that his wife had thrust into his mind was of so
composite a kind. It was natural that a stepmother (especially
when her money was the sole stay of the establishment) should
make no pretence of caring about her stepsons ; but should he,
his boy's father, act as if he also were indifferent to them ?
Florida ! Why, surely that meant death to an Englishman !
A FLORIDA GIRL. 167
Fevers, brawls, the unaccustomed climate, snakes — by one or
other of these causes it seemed to him that the emigrant of gentle
origin was sure to come to a speedy and tragic end.
He sat down on the dry root of an oak-tree, and was endea-
vouring to take a more dispassionate view of the case when the
near crack of a gun made him start upon his feet.
* By Jove, dad ! ' cried a broad-shouldered young man in
knickerbockers, clapping a hand upon his thigh as he held his
smoking gun aside, * I nearly had you. Fancy you being there ! '
* Never mind, Bob. A miss is as good as a '
' As a mile, eh ? I am so fond of those old proverbs, because
a fellow can remember them, somehow. I've potted three and a
half brace — not bad in an hour, you know, is it ? But I say, why
do you look so down, old dad ? '
' Do I ? I didn't know. To tell you the truth, my boy, I was
thinking about you ! '
' Oh, come ! well, I am sorry the thought of me has such an
effect upon you. Tell me, what is it ? I'll do anything — any
mortal thing that man can do — to please you — you know I will,
if I can!'
' Yes, yes, my boy. I was hoping something might happen.
We Buncombes are not so clever as other people, I suppose ! '
*I know I'm a fool, father — always was, to the best of my
recollection. Yet if I could do anything for the old place ! It
makes me wild sometimes.'
* Your stepmother thinks '
( Hang it all, dad, I don't care a partridge-feather what she
thinks. What do you think ? '
1 It is this that has excited her to-day ; read it, if you like. I
have nothing to do with it, one way or the other.'
The young man took the paper, and spent fully two minutes
in digesting Mr. Tunks's advertisement : he was so very slow and
dense.
'I see,' he exclaimed at length, looking up with sparkling eyes.
* Well, I'll go and gladly, though I don't know so much about
pumps. I like that " chance of partnership afterwards." Where-
abouts is Florida, dad ? and how much is a dollar ? Come, dear
old dad, don't make so much of it. What does it matter if one
chick leaves the nest, when there are so many others ? '
Bob Duncombe put his arm round his father's neck, and would
have sacrificed a year's partridge-shooting to know what to say to
168 A FLORIDA GIRL.
chase away the sadness on the old man's face. It was more than
sadness however : it was despair ; for Bob was his favourite son,
and therefore, as he fancied, the one least in the esteem of his
second wife.
'If I were free,' Pitt Duncombe said, somewhat brokenly,
' how I should like to go with you ! We'd make a new house for
the old family, wouldn't we ? '
' Aye, that we would. But I tell you what : if when we've
talked it over, we all like the idea, I'll go out for a year at any
rate. If I don't do much by then, why I can come back, can't I,
like so many others ? '
1 Yes, that's true, my boy ; and there's no knowing what may
happen in a year. Suppose we get home, and have a chat about
it before lunch ? '
This they did, the palaver being held in an old summer-house
at one corner of the lawn.
The result was that Bob Duncombe accepted Florida as his
destiny.
A letter was written to Mr. Tunks (whose name, thought Mr.
Duncombe, was the most frightful feature of a bad business), and
Bob Duncombe followed the letter, with 100Z. in his pocket, two
leathern portmanteaux, and a gun-case. Though he had no know-
ledge of pumping, he surmised, with a shrewdness wonderful in
such a young man, that Mr. Tunks would be perfectly willing to
engage him as an apprentice.
Save for the separation from his father, he much enjoyed the
idea of seeing something of a far country.
CHAPTER III.
WHEN Bob Duncombe arrived at Clearwater he was in tip-top
condition. He had taken his time on the way. Florida folks
seemed to like him. At least, that was the only reasonable way
to explain the several pressing invitations to shoot, yacht, and
fish which he received from casual acquaintances in the Jackson-
ville hotels. Though it went against his conscience, he had said
' yes ' to three of these invitations, and fine fun he had had. The
letters he wrote home to his brother Ealph, all about alligators,
and bear, and panther, and tarpon, made the heir of the Dun-
combes groan with desire to be doing likewise.
A FLORIDA GIRL. 169
And so one sultry October forenoon, just when the sky was
clearing after a tremendous thunderstorm, Bob bowled up to the
Tunkses' bungalow, and jumped down.
' Oh, my stars, sirree ! ' screamed the dusky driver who had
had charge of him in the buggy during the last six hours from
Barton, 'I'm frightful sorry we've met to part. Josh Despair
ain't seen many Britishers to beat you — by gosh, he ain't ! '
' Throw out the luggage, and " Good-bye " to you,' said Bob,
giving the man a dollar for himself. * Anyone in ? ' he cried,
beating upon the door.
' Seems as if there ain't,' observed the darky, with a lingering
grin still on his lips.
* You're sure this is the place — " Ezra Tunks, Clearwater,
Polk County"?' asked Bob, reading the address from his pocket-
book.
1 Dead sure ! They'll be in by-an'-bye, boss. You be patient,
and jes' smoke till they comes. Maybe I'll see a coloured gen-
tleman among the cane, and I'll send him along to the house.
Good-day, boss ; I can't wait, because Mr. Terriss he says, says he,
" the quicker you're back in Barton, the more cents you'll get for
the job ! " '
' Fare thee well then, thou black son of Mammon,' said Bob,
with a flourish of the hand as the dusky driver moved away with
a parting show of white teeth.
Our friend looked about him.
It was a pretty spot for Florida. The white house was built
on the slope of a knoll of light- coloured sand, about fifty feet above
a lake. Between the house and the water was an orchard of
orange-trees in the pink of condition. The red fruit hung by
thousands among the glossy leaves of the shapely trunks. Behind
the house was a tuft of pines, and on either side were more pines
—in fact, the primeval forest. The sun in the clouded heavens
shone upon the lake and the woods beyond, and made as fair a
scene as a somewhat tired traveller could wish to behold.
« This Mr. Tunks ought to be a happy man,' said Bob aloud to
himself.
As he turned to examine the green-shuttered house more
minutely, he saw somebody's head slide away from one of the
windows.
* Oh, I say,' he shouted, < that's mean. Let a fellow in, will
you ? I'm here on particular business.'
8—5
170 A FLORIDA GIRL.
He approached the window, and with appalling rudeness stared
inside the room.
There his eyes met those of Mercy Tanks, who seemed as if
she had not long been out of bed.
The girl's hand went towards a revolver on a table, and she
looked fiercely at the intruder.
Bob took off his hat, with a loud apology, and turned his back,
denouncing himself for a fool as ever, but in his heart deeply inte-
rested in the girl whose pretty grey eyes had glared at him with
such a becoming expression of anger.
He sat down on a portmanteau and fell a-wondering what
would happen. Would the young woman by-and-bye appear and
invite him into the house ? or would he have to wait the home-
coming of Mr. Ezra Tunks ?
A hand on his shoulder aroused him. Mercy had dressed
herself to the best of her ability. * Say, what do you do here ? '
she asked, and he noticed she still held the pistol in her right
-hand.
' Keally,' said Bob, with a most generous bow, 'I can't say
how vexed I feel at being such a cad. 1 wasn't sure I saw anyone,
and I did it to make sure, you know. Please forgive me ? '
' What's a cad ? ' asked Mercy, * and who are you ? ' But she
suddenly changed her tone as she caught sight of his name on a
portmanteau. * You don't say you're the Britisher that wrote to
father and said he was starting right off ? '
A nod and a smile answered her.
' My eyes ! So you're Mr. Eobert Buncombe. Wai, it was
real smart of you. I guess you look good for something, but I
misdoubt it being the kind of something father wants ! '
Mercy's enthusiasm had led her to say so much that she felt
ashamed of herself; not for many a long day had she rattled
off words to such an extent. Without well knowing what
she did, she let her eyes fall before the earnest gaze of Master
Bob.
' May I ask who you are ? ' demanded that young gentleman
in his most dulcet tones.
' Mercy,' she began, and then stopped in a fit of obstinacy.
' Oh, all right ! I ask your pardon for my impertinence, since
you take it so. I thought you might be a relative of Mr. Ezra
Tunks — odd name for a gentleman, isn't it ? '
* Odd or not, young man, he's my father.'
A FLORIDA GIRL. 171
* What ! then you are a Miss Tunks ! Good gracious, I'm so
pleased. We shall be in the same house then, sha'n't we ? By
Jove, that will be pleasant ! I'm right glad I came.'
' I ain't so sure, mister,' remarked Mercy in a tone she meant
to be defiant. She was subtly examining Mr. Duncombe, and
calculating how her papa would tackle this unlikely-looking sub-
stitute for the nigger Luke.
' Say,' she added, * have you ever done any work before ? '
* Faith, no ; but I've seen it done, and I'm pretty willing.'
' There's a many that's that, and they lie low before they know
what's o'clock.'
« Oh, do they ! ' said Bob.
A rather embarrassing silence ensued. Mr. Duncombe was
thinking he should like to tell his companion that she would look
considerably more lovely if she paid more attention to her hair.
Not that it mattered so very much, for he thought her charming
enough as it was, though she did refuse to meet his gaze as often
as he would have liked.
' Are you what they call " a gentleman " — in England ? ' asked
Mercy at length.
' I believe I am. I was born so, you know, and therefore it's
no fault of mine.'
'Then you'll be precious grsen, I reckon — so father would
say. , Will you look around, or could you peck a bit ? '
' I could peck a bit, with pleasure ; but a walk with you would
be much nicer.'
' You're real obliging ! But I ain't accustomed to keep com-
pany with the farm hands '
The next instant she could have bitten her tongue off. She
was not naturally ungenerous, but the temptation to snub this
handsome stranger, who was to take Luke the nigger's place and
die off without being regretted by any one, except her father (and
by him only as if he were a superior sort of beast of burden), was
too strong at the moment.
' I didn't mean that — it was a bit of original sin bursting out,
I guess,' she murmured. ' Come along, if you will.'
* Nothing I should like better,' said Bob cheerily, and more
than ever fascinated by the glow of crimson blood in the girl's
nut-brown cheeks.
They stepped into the garden paddock, between the house
and the orange-groves.
172 A FLORIDA GIRL.
' Pray, Miss Tunks, what's that ? ' asked Bob, pointing to a
row of green plants. ' I must learn the things, you know.'
* Good sakes ! ' exclaimed Mercy, turning upon him. * Don't
you know ? It's a tater. Wai ! '
' Oh, really. Ours are different. You're not offended with
me for not being on bowing terms with a Florida potato, are you ?
I'm not thought much of a fellow at home, and it'll be hard lines
to be despised abroad too, especially when—
< When what ? '
< No. I'd rather not tell you.'
* Do now.'
* You'll think me softer than ever ; for I'm told you American
girls don't grow hearts.'
* That's false. And I sha'n't think any the worse of you ; I
couldn't do that.'
' Oh, thank you. You won't tell your father, then ? '
* I ain't used to tell him everything, you bet. As sure as my
name's Mercy, I'll keep your secret if you want me to.'
1 Oh, is your name Mercy ? I misunderstood you just now.
What a charming name ! — so suggestive of kindness, long-suffer-
ing, and all that, you know.'
1 Say, Mr. Duncombe, you'll never do here,' interposed Mercy,
with an amount of earnestness that sat with uncommon grace
upon her. ' You ain't downright enough. Why don't you tell
me that other reason you were going to mention and didn't ? It
ain't right to shift a lady's desires in that there way.'
' I beg your pardon most humbly, Miss Mercy. I only meant
to say that my people in England are in rather a bad way in
money matters, you know. And so it would be a blow to my dear
old dad if I were to prove a muff here as well as there. Not that
I ever had much chance of being anything else in the old
country.'
* Oh ! ' exclaimed Mercy, scanning him, and with a new light
in her eyes. ' The world's queer. Shouldn't have thought you'd
be taken for a muff — outside s are so deceitful though, pa says.'
A muscular negro slouched up to them from the orange-grove
and nodded grinningly at Miss Tunks.
' Oh, Mr. Duncombe,' exclaimed that young lady under another
wicked inspiration, 'let me introduce you to Luke Cass. He'll
leave to-morrow, I reckon, and you'll fill his place.'
' Delighted to meet Mr. Cass ! How do you do, sir,' said Bob,
A FLORIDA GIRL. 173
offering his hand to the darky, who took it with eagerness, and
wagged his woolly head approvingly as he looked up and down
his successor.
' I kinder think he'll do, missy,' said the negro. ' It wants a
strong 'un, though, for them twelve-foot canes.'
An hour passed, and Miss Mercy began to find the task of
entertaining Mr. Duncombe — even in her fashion — rather a
laborious one. In reply to his inquiries she had told him about
the game in the woods, and had further enlightened him about
the nature of the various trees and products in the garden and
the skirts of the forest. Not that Bob really was a bore to her.
It was the novelty of the incident that told upon her. Though
she felt unaccustomed and decidedly pleasurable thrills of interest
in the young man who had so readily got upon a companionable
footing with her, she longed for a cigarette and a ten-cent romance
— her wonted afternoon dissipation.
Happily, her father came to her relief, and the sardonic
expression on Ezra's long hatchet face as he gazed at the new-
comer reawakened her own interest in him.
' I suppose, Mr. Duncombe,' said Ezra, very shortly, after they
had shaken hands and he had replied to the brisk remarks about
the weather which our friend tendered him in a very amiable
manner, * you have those two hundred dollars along of you ? '
* I have, sir. They are at your service at once, if you like.'
' Thankee, I will, then. We can talk about dockiments and
that later on.'
The transfer of the bank-notes was being made in the open,
equally to the satisfaction of both gentlemen (Bob viewing it as a
guarantee that he would see plenty of Miss Mercy), when the girl
slipped her hand into her father's arm*
1 1 say, pa,' she whispered.
« What is it now ? '
< Ob, 'taint much ; but don't take it from him, father, just to
oblige me.'
' Why, the chile's gone crazy since the morning,' exclaimed
Ezra, glancing at his daughter's ruddied face and then at Bob
Duncombe. * Business is business, ain't it now, Mr. Duncombe ?
Folks that come to Florida hev to pay for it, just as folks that
visit London or Paris hev to. It's paid for here in money as well
as work, but the money's little enough. Certain words I wrote
when I was editor come to my mind : " Some folks that make for
174 A FLORIDA GIRL.
Florida appear to be in search of a land where well-roasted turkeys,
full of stuffing, walk the streets with carving-knives sticking in
their backs. This ain't a land of that sort. Honest labour's the
key to open the Florida heart." Do you say " ditto " to those
sentiments, Mr. Duncombe, or don't you ? It all hinges on that
whether you and me shakes hands on our bargain.'
' Certainly, sir,' said Bob, quite won by the genial candour of
Mr. Tunks's address. ' As you say, business is business, and there-
fore I must beg of you to take the dollars according to the
advertisement.'
' I will, then,' said Mr. Tanks promptly, as he pocketed the
notes. * And now I'll show you the house.'
The old gentleman marched in front, with his goatee beard
shaking elatedly.
This gave Bob an opportunity of whispering the words * Thank
you ' in Miss Mercy's ear, and further giving her a look that sent
all her woman's blood racing towards her heart.
CHAPTER IV.
THAT evening Mr. Ezra Tunks administered to Bob Duncombe a
very grave lecture about his duties as * apprentice to the orange-
growing.'
It appeared that he was to have nothing to do with the
oranges for the next six or seven weeks. Then the time of pick-
ing and packing would have arrived. Meanwhile, he was to do
other work of a considerable kind.
* Just lend me down that there calendar on the wall by your
ear, will you ? ' said Mr. Tunks. It was a card of his own com-
piling. * Kead what it says for October and November.' Bob
read : —
' " October. — Plant same as last month. Put in garden peas.
Set out cabbage-plants. Dig sweet potatoes. Sow oats, rye, &c.
' " November. — A good month for garden. Continue to plant
and transplant, same as for October. Sow oats, barley, and rye,
for winter pasturage crops. Dig sweet potatoes ; house or bank
them. Make sugar and syrup." '
'That's very interesting, Mr. Tunks, though what one would
call in England " a rather large order." '
A FLORIDA GIRL. 175
* We call it much the same here, young man. And don't give
me any chaff, because I can't abide it. I was brought up different
to you, I reckon.'
' Indeed, I'm awfully sorry. I apologise to you.'
' What you've read there you'll hev to do, more or less ; and
you won't forget that there's nothing worse than idleness.'
' I'm not likely to forget that, if I have to plant — how does it
run ? (with a look at the calendar) — oh, I see — same as last
month — garden peas, cabbages, oats, barley, rye for winter '
' Send me patience ! ' burst out Mr. Ezra Tunks, with a
vigorous frown and a dash of his fist upon the table.
But a ringing laugh from outside suddenly cut his passion
short.
' I'll thank you to shut the door,' said Ezra. ' And now,
young man, there's one thing more. You're one of them cool,
darned, sarcy, young cusses (no offence, mind !) that catch hold
of young women's affections. I tell you positive then — I'll hev
no making love to my daughter.'
' Upon my word, sir, this is just a little too much ! ' Bob rose
and took his hat. -
' Oh, it's no use you " sirring " me, and putting on them patri-
cian airs. Plump down again and sip a drink of wisdom. I ain't
an out and out brute, but I know a bit of human nature, and so I
say it. You've got to promise, then, and first time you break it,
back you go to your patrician acres.'
* There's not much of the patrician left about them,' observed
Bob bitterly. 'I'm here, however, and you've got my money,
and so '
' And so you may as well stay a while — that's all right. It's
understood, then, that you, Mr. Robert Buncombe, and my
daughter Mercy are pretty nigh strangers to each other ?
« Well ! '
< And '11 stay so ? '
1 That seems probable.'
* Then it's settled ; and to-morrow, at six, you can turn out and
dig a barrowfull of the sweet taters as a beginning. Good night.'
' Good night,' said Bob, and he departed to the solitude of his
chamber. It was a plain undecorated wooden appendix to the main
house, and daylight shone through the chinks on all sides. The
only article that at all cheered Bob's eyes was a rose in a tumbler
which had not been there when he was in the room before.
176 A FLORIDA GIRL.
Now, it was weak of a man like Ezra Tanks to address a man
like Bob Duncombe in this way. But it was still weaker of him
to tackle his daughter Mercy on the same subject. This he did —
though to his own discomfiture.
Mercy had hitherto had her own way in life. She had been a
dutiful daughter, but it was mainly perhaps because it suited her
temperament to be filial. When, however, her papa solemnly
enjoined her to keep the new hand at a distance, she turned upon
him and charged him with gross behaviour to Mr. Duncombe.
' I heard you, pa, and so I say it ! ' she exclaimed tempestu-
ously.
Then she fella sobbing, and Ezra, after a naughty interjection,
went his way to find comfort in a long green cigar.
The next morning Bob was making acquaintance with the
sweet-potato patch, and wishing the Florida sun was not quite so
hot, when Miss Mercy stepped up to him. It was an hour before
her usual time for rising.
4 Good morning, Mr. Duncombe,' she said with a bright smile.
* Good morning,' said Bob, without lifting his head. He struck
the fork so hard into the ground that he had much ado to pull it
out again.
' Did you have a good time last night, Mr. Duncombe ? — sleep
well?'
< Yes.'
* No insects ? '
« None.'
' You're fine and tight-mouthed this day, I do declare ! ' ex-
claimed Miss Mercy, with a toss of her shoulder.
Bob glanced up at her, and saw that she was as neat again as she
had been the day before. The morning air, too, had put new lustre
into her eyes and freshened her cheeks.
' Look here, Miss Mercy ! ' he said, ramming the fork into the
ground, * I've pledged myself to regard you as a sort of man-at-the-
wheel — not to be spoken to, you know. Your father has a low
opinion of us Englishmen, and so I suppose it's right enough. It's
hard for me, especially when you come to me like this ; but a
man's word is his word, you know.'
* And look here, Mr. Duncombe — a father's a very serious piece
of goods, as I guess none of us would come into creation without
me. But he ain't all the world, especially out here. The young
birds stretch their wings, you know, a deal quicker here than
A FLORIDA GIRL. 177
anywhere else. And so, I'd have you know, I don't reckon
papa's word, on a subject like this, worth a snap, of finger and
thumb.'
She spoke thus with a smart click of her pretty finger and
thumb towards the blue heavens.
' Oh, really,' exclaimed Master Bob, pulsing with admiration of
her.
1 Perhaps you will think it ain't the thing for a gal to say ? '
( No, I don't do any such thing.'
' Come now, that's all right. Lor ! how you do stare at a soul
with those fine eyes of yours ! '
' Do I ? Well, it's very rude of me, but you see your own eyes
are so nice to look at, that I imagine some of their reflection '
' Say ! this is keeping the fifth commandment, ain't it ?
Mercy laughed a tinkling laugh. 'Have you any sisters, Mr.
Buncombe ? '
* Not altogether. They're my father's second wife's daughters,
you know — little maids about as high as this agricultural imple-
ment ! '
' I reckon they're a plague to their mamma, then, ain't they ? '
' In what way ? '
' Oh, in every way — running off into the woods, and not coming
home in time, and that ? '
Mr. Duncombe raised his eyebrows with an amused expression.
'Well, you are an ignorant little puss — I mean, that is I
beg your pardon ; it slipped out quite unawares.'
'Wai, it was a bit rough on a lady.'
Mercy laughed gaily, and her small even white teeth glinted
in the sunlight.
Bob Duncombe also laughed. Then he gripped the fork and
said : ' I must really get on with work. I don't want to vex your
father.'
'Because you like him, or because you're afraid of him — which
is it now ? '
' It's neither, since you press me. It's because I should be
sorry to have to remove out of seeing distance of — somebody.'
' Oh, I'm sorry I'll have to leave you though. Father wants
a pie, and he don't like to think of Kebecca's black fingers mixing
the things, and so I do it.'
' Most fortunate pie ! ' exclaimed Bob, throwing up a knot of
potatoes.
178 A FLORIDA GIRL.
Mercy made the pie standing by the window in a straight line
with Mr. Buncombe's gaze when he paused in his labours and
raised his head. She sang while she worked at it, and as often as
he looked up, to wipe his forehead or stretch himself, his eyes met
hers, and they smiled.
When Ezra Tunks returned from his morning inspection of the
more distant of his plantations, he was not dissatisfied with the
result of Bob's first efforts. Indeed he marvelled, though pru-
dently he kept his marvelling to himself.
* I guess,' he observed calmly, * it ain't the first time you've
dug taters ? '
' It is, though, I assure you,' said Bob.
* That so ! Then you'll do, if you keep your health ; and now
you can come along into the house and eat your meal.'
Being a strong young fellow, Bob had not much to grumble
about at the end of his first day's toil at Clearwater. It was much
the same when a month had passed. By that time, he had tanned
in an amazing manner, and his biceps were of a very respectable
size. He had broadened too, and his appetite had become almost
as remarkable as that of the superseded nigger, Luke Cass.
He was not unhappy. Men like Bob Duncombe seldom are
unhappy until their livers make themselves felt.
But neither was he very contented with his station in life. As
Luke had surmised, he found the twelve-foot cane a vexatious job,
and he lost a good deal of flesh by liquefaction during the process
of harvesting. Still, neither that, nor the Florida sun, made him
any the less stalwart a young man.
The trial of his life was his love for Miss Mercy, which had
grown up in his heart with the strength and rapidity of a plant in
the tropics. There was no shadow of a doubt about it.
It was not so very severe a trial, either. But he did not think
himself absolved from his promise to Ezra, his taskmaster ; and it
was so manifestly inconsistent with the fitness of things for a mere
apprentice, like him, to ask Ezra for the hand of his daughter, that
he preferred to keep his passion as much to himself as possible.
But of course Mercy was in his secret. Nature opened the
girl's young heart to the truth. Ezra asked her once or twice
what had come over her ; she was so much more spruce and fair to
look upon, and dressed her hair in a different way every week, and
talked so much, and smoked less than before. But she easily
baffled the ex-editor.
A FLORIDA GIRL. 179
Bob considered himself on his honour not to make any over-
tures to Mercy. But his eyes spoke for themselves, and Mercy's
eyes responded. And now and again, when Ezra was out of the
way, the girl would come and talk to him, and ask him questions,
and swing her hammock between the trees near where he was
working — to all which, though an emphatic contravention of the
wishes of her papa, he offered no objection.
His love became a still greater trial to him, however, after a
certain day, when he found himself unable to control it any
longer — when, after having taken Mercy in his arms and got from
her an acknowledgment that she loved him as dearly as he loved
her, he went straightway to Ezra Tunks and avowed their mutual
love, and met with a torrent of ill-bred abuse and scorn for his
pains.
' You'll hev to clear out of this in a week,' said Ezra excitedly.
* I'll give you a week to make your plans. You may bet your life
my gal ain't for a chap without a dollar to his name — so there ! '
CHAPTER V.
WHEN he got this reply from Mr. Tunks Bob went and had a spell
at the patent Busby pump. Ordinarily he hated this work — it was
so very provocative of perspiration, and so mechanical. But to-day
it suited his humour. As he moved the handle up and down he
asked himself, * What shall I do ? Shall I go away and never see
her again, or shall I defy Ezra Tunks and all his works ? '
He remembered that it was Mercy who had taught him how to
manoeuvre the Busby pump. How archly pretty she had looked
as she took the iron in her little hand and said : ' You go so, and
it works so.' . And, to make sure that he learnt it properly, he had
held the handle at the same time, and repeated the words, ' if you
go so, it goes so,' and then they had forced the thing up and down
together, stooping and rising in unison, after which they had
laughed in unison.
The pump helped him to settle his plans.
* I won't go,' he resolved ; * unless that old screw returns me
my dollars. He'll never do that : ergo, I don't go.
4 1 won't go because I can't get this girl out of my heart like
other girls. Besides, I don't want to j and that's a still better
reason.
180 A FLORIDA GIRL.
' The upshot is, therefore, that I defy Ezra Tanks and all his
works.'
Ezra Tunks was a simpleton, except in the matter of dollar-
grubbing.
He thought that, when he had smitten Bob Buncombe's aspira-
tions hip and thigh, he had done all that was needful. But he
found that he had still to reckon with his daughter.
Mercy had kept aloof during the fateful interview ; but she
watched it, and guessed the issue.
She saw Bob go his way through the orange-grove with a strong
swing of the arms and an impatient carriage of the head.
She also saw her sire stamp the ground like an irritated horse
and chew up the lower end of the cigar that was between his
teeth. Having done this, he expectorated afar, stuck his hands
into his trouser-pockets in a very vicious manner, and tramped up
and down among a bed of young pine-apples with incredible dis-
regard for the precious plantlings. This he continued to do for
fully half an hour, and then he turned away from the bungalow.
His gun was resting by the cypress palisades near which he passed,
but he did not lift it, and strode away into the forest with many
jerks of the head.
' I know as well 's his own conscience what's in his mind,'
murmured Mercy. 'Pa ain't a bit puzzling to understand,
though he thinks himself fine and intricate. If it ain't his
money, it's me. Wai, it ain't his money, and so it's me. Poor
pa — I see ! '
The girl determined to follow Mr. Tunks. She was as fleet
of foot as a fawn when she chose to be. Gathering her skirts
together, therefore, with a reckless display of her pretty ankles,
she frisked through the pine-apples, and was by her father's side
ere he had got a hundred yards into the forest.
* Oh, it's you, is it ? ' said Ezra, turning, and with no very
sweet expression on his countenance.
e You've hit it, pa.'
1 I'm going down to Dan Smith's, my chile,' said Ezra, with
an attempt to hide the vexation within him.
' What for, father ? '
' Oh — to borrow a Easper rake — I kinder think I may be late.
Don't do anything to trouble your old father that loves you so
well, Mercy.'
' There's them, pa, that womankind's made to love better than
A FLORIDA GIRL. 181
father and mother and all the world besides. We're born so, ain't
we ? I can't help it.'
* What does the chile mean ? ' exclaimed Ezra, feigning wonder.
' I guess you know, pa. I'm your daughter, and can tell
hickory from palmetto.'
* But you don't desire me to infer that you've given him your
young affections, chile — don't say that, and break your father's
heart in his old age.'
' I won't, then, if it'll break your heart.'
Ezra put his large loose hands to his face, and for a moment
or two his goatee beard shook convulsively between his two
sinewy wrists.
But Mercy remained unmoved by this pantomimic exhibition
of paternal grief. She knew her father, and she could see that
his dark eyes glittered tearlessly from the casements made by his
long, lean fingers.
* I wouldn't do that, father,' she said in the reproachful
manner one uses to a child.
* Then I shall take you right off to your cousin Sarah's this
very afternoon in the buggy,' exclaimed Ezra warmly, and
dropping all affectation. ' You'll please to put your things
together for a week or a fortnight. Your cousin'll be glad to
see you, and I've promised it this many a week. Be a dutiful
daughter, my chile, and go right off and see about it.'
' I won't go, pa ! '
If only Bob Duncombe could have seen her as she stood facing
her father at this moment ! Her left arm was outstretched
against a girdled pine, while the other hung gracefully towards
her hip. The spirit of independence and maiden self-assertion
had given a deportment to her head that was almost regal, and
threw into fine relief the admirable contour of her form. Her
attitude, however, though very striking, was as nothing to the
beauty of her face. The grey eyes were transfigured, and the
small mouth, with its parted lips, was divinely alluring.
And, as luck had it, Bob did see her, and his soul went out
towards her; and he was only withheld from joining issue with
her against her father by the rapturous surprise she aroused within
him. Was this the girl who had seemed to him laziness and
inertia sweetly personified ? She stood like a stage queen, and
the tall man opposite to her seemed positively small in com-
parison to her.
182 A FLORIDA GIRL,
Bob had soon tired of the patent Busby pump, and his steps
had led him obliquely by the house. He had heard the voices in
the wood, and, without meaning to play the spy, had come within
ten yards of father and daughter unperceived. There he stayed,
more than half hid by the trunk of one of the big rotting trees.
Now this part of Ezra Tunks's estate had not yet been pre-
pared for planting. The trees were formidable fellows, many of
the pines being eighteen inches to two feet in diameter. To the
novice this may not seem very much ; but in Florida it is quite
enough to tax the vigour of the woodman severely. Two dollars
a day and his food is by no means reckoned extravagant pay for
the darky who is supposed to be swinging his axe against these
stout scions of the forest for six or eight hours of the twenty-four.
Many of the pines had been girdled and left to die a sure but
slow natural death. Of late, however, Ezra had desired to turn
the land to more immediate account. If he could get it well
cleared, and set out even with the most phantasmal little slips of
orange-trees from his nursery, he proposed to advertise it as an
orange-grove worth a few thousand dollars. It is astonishing how
seductive even so untried a grove as this can be made to look —
on paper.
With this intention he had commissioned one of the hired
men to fell the pines, and during the last week the man had
made the forest echo with his hatcheting. But, like most niggers,
he was a thoughtless fellow, careful only how to get the most
enjoyment out of life. He sang while he worked, and took rests
every half-hour to enable him to smoke his pipe and sip nasty
medicated rum from a large bottle. And when the sun glimmered
a dusky orange-red through the dark colonnaded trunks of the
forest he stayed his hands, shouldered his axe, and trudged off
merrily to his hut thatched with boughs, and to the joys of black
domestic life. No matter if a tree was half or three-quarters
felled, he let it remain so. The morrow would give him his
opportunity to finish the work, and that sufficed him.
It happened then that when Ezra Tunks, being staggered
by his daughter's defiance of him, stepped back and noisily drew
a long breath, he bumped hard against a tree which had been cut
through almost wholly. A mere filament of bark and its own poise
seemed to have held it erect.
< You won't, my chile ? '
The tree swayed for a second towards the side away from Ezra,
A FLORIDA GIRL 183
but the rebound followed, and before Mercy's cry could warn her
father of his danger, it had fallen upon him, carried him heavily
to the ground, and pinned him there tightly across the back. He
lay face downwards.
* 0 father ! ' cried the girl, and she was on her knees in an
instant.
Bob Buncombe also had bounded to the spot. His and
Mercy's eyes met across the body of the unhappy Ezra.
* Be quick, my chile ! ' whispered poor Mr. Tunks. Blood
sobbed from his lips with the words themselves.
* 0 Bob, dear ! what can we do ? It'll be the death of him !
Can we shift it anyhow ? '
<\\re'll try,' said Bob Duncombe.
It was not one of the bigger pines, but its weight was still a
cruel, and in all likelihood a fatal, burden for Mercy's father.
Could he (Bob Duncombe) hope to lift it if he contrived to squeeze
himself under it near enough to get a purchase ?
* See now, Mercy,' he said ; * the moment you notice a chance
pull him away from it. My back's a good one ! '
* Are you sure you won't be killing yourself too ? '
Mercy's hands were folded together, and the brave terror in
her eyes as she looked up at him made her lover think for an
instant of a certain Madonna on the walls of a house near Dun-
combe Manor.
"Was it to be her lover's life for her father's, or perhaps a
sacrifice of both lives ?
* Oh, let me get under, too ! ' she cried, stooping in readiness.
* Be quiet. You must obey orders, Mercy, if we are to do
anything. You've got to release him; that's enough for you,
surely. There ! I'm nearly under, you see, and we shall do it
finely.'
Bent upon her knees, Mercy watched Bob's movements with
a wild beating at the heart. It was horrible to her to see the
swelling of the veins upon his temples as he tried his strength
now and again. And all the while her father lay still with a
groan at intervals, each feebler than the last, as the blood soaked
into the grass and among the needles of the pines in which his
face was almost buried.
« Poor father ! ' she sobbed, as she cleared a space by his mouth,
heedless of the blood which crimsoned her hands ; and the next
moment the words * Bob, dear ! ' broke from her lips.
184 A FLORIDA GIRL.
'Now be ready,' said Bob, when he had wormed himself
within a few inches of the old man. With a mighty straining
effort he managed to raise the tree a little. It was only an inch
or two, but it enabled the girl to pull her father free. Then down
it sank with greater force than before, and Bob in his turn was
pinned.
Not for long, however. By one effort after another, with
intervals for recuperation, he worked himself away from the base
of the stem until at length he could slip from under. He drew a
deep breath of satisfaction, and lay quite still for a few seconds
Then he stood upon his feet and braced himself with an expression
of pain, though smiling towards Mercy, whose anxiety was almost
more than she could bear.
* How — is he ? ' asked Bob.
Ezra's head was in his daughter's lap, and very pitiful it looked
in its ghastly pallor, and all the lower part of it, including the
little goatee beard, red with blood.
' We want brandy and a wet sponge,' said Bob. ' I'll stay ; I
can't run.'
When Mercy returned she found her lover listening intently
to the low mutterings of the old man.
The brandy was administered, and the red stains were washed
away, only to recur again and again.
' Courage, Mr. Tunks,' whispered Bob in the wounded man's
ear. ' We'll soon have you all right again, never fear.' But he
shook his head towards Mercy.
Even the brandy did not make the words come more audibly.
At least, so it seemed for many minutes. Then the eyes opened
dimly, and, after much twitching of the lips, the two watchers
heard —
' Take him, my chile — I'm sorry '
After that, a heave of the chest, a falling apart of the jaws,
silence, and an opacity of the eyes that told their own tale.
' My poor little Mercy ! ' whispered Bob, putting his arms
round her neck. * It is all over with him.'
The girl did not make a fuss, but resigned herself to her
lover's embrace, and cried quietly for a minute or two.
A FLORIDA GIRL,
185
CHAPTER VI.
THUS Bob Buncombe came by Ins wife.
They sent for the cousin Sarah to whom Ezra Tunks had pur-
posed banishing Mercy to be cured of her obstinacy, and that
good Florida dame was only too glad to be of use in the house.
And when a fortnight had elapsed since they had laid Mr.
Tunks to rest in the corner of the orange-grove whence there was
the fairest view of sunny lake, blue heavens, and the farther green
woods, out of which he had so manfully earned his livelihood and
his daughter Mercy's fortune, they went together to Clearwater,
and were duly married.
The Clearwater attorney who had charge of Mr. Tunks's affairs
estimated the property to be worth about a hundred thousand
dollars. He did not, however, advise realisation ; for the estate
was of a kind that would in all probability double its value in a
few years, and continue increasing in the same agreeable ratio.
They resolved, therefore, to regard Clearwater as their home.
But before settling down, and to charm away the sad moods of his
young bride, Bob decided upon an immediate return to England
for a while.
And once in the old country again, he had the greatest pleasure
in life in introducing Mercy to his father, and acquainting all
whom it concerned or interested that he, for one, had not gone to
Florida in vain, no matter if his prosperity was contingent upon
orange-blossom rather than oranges*
VOL. XXI.— XO. 122, N.S.
186
' HOME- COMING.'
Alexandria. April 5th. — People always tell you they don't
care for Alexandria. I really don't know what more they want.
Look at the variety of it. You see a bare-headed French girl
crossing the Place Mehemet Ali as though it were the Boulevard
de Clichy, and she were going to catch the omnibus, Place Pigalle ;
while against the railings round the statue crouches a shivering
Arab, wrapped in his black cloak. You see Kovpeiov over one shop,
Fotografia over another, Articles de mode next to Tourists' neces-
saries, and tumble-down Arab cafe's leaning shyly against ' London
Stores ' and ' The Army and Navy Bar.' One moment you think
you are in Paris, the next in Athens, the next on the Hard at
Portsmouth ; and so you are in all, with the dome and squalor of
the East thrown in. Sailors from the British ironclads in the
harbour sail their loose legs past fellaheen women with shrouded
faces, and Tommies of the Army of Occupation rattle their sticks
against the railings round the English church in their pleasing
' won't you come out to-night ' manner, or throw them at the
darting lizards up on the forts. You fancy yourself in New
Street, Birmingham, with its solid corporation buildings and
arcades, before you turn into the native bazaar of fruit and fish
sellers, heavy with the strange acrid odours of Egypt ; and where
on the right you have a dusty square of leafless lebbak trees,
hanging their shrunk pods over the cab-stand and a Nubian woman
trying to make her baby walk, you have a long, forlorn sea-beach
on the left that might be that of New Brighton, only that over it
gleams the white and graceful minaret. And the blue, blue sea
to-day is all flecked into purest white by the heavy north-east
wind. It even scurries into the courtyard of our hotel, and bends
the palms there till their leaves almost touch the ground. Canaries
hang twittering against the wall, and in the centre gold fish swii
dolorously round a cloudy bowl. A little English girl runs to the
swing. She is dressed in a broad white hat, with turned-down
brim, such as you see the mem-sahib wearing in the old drawings
of India before the mutiny. She belongs to the Army of Occupa-
tion, and she looks at us wistfully as we drive off down to the
harbour side to take boat for Athens. Her pretty governess in a
' HOME-COMING.' 187
mis' jacket regards the gold fish with her hand on her hip and
whistles softly.
At Sea. April 6th. — To-day, as afar we descried the Greek
islands, with their faint Watteau colours painted along the horizon
as though on a fan, I saw a poor tired quail trying to keep up
wit] i us. She flew in a fatigued zigzag fashion against the wind,
and seemed half of a mind to board. Then I lost sight of her
round the screw, and suppose her drowned. They say that
thousands are drowned in their long spring flights from Egypt to
Italy and Greece.
We were chiefly foreigners on board — Greeks, Italians, Ger-
mans. The steerage deck was covered with poor people and their
chattels, returning, I suppose, to their homes in the Peloponnese.
They slept on deck on their bedding, and ate all the food they
brought with them by the side of their rolled-up mattresses.
Under one large purple quilt a woman lay all day, her rough black
hair just showing on the pillow. Occasionally, as a restorative,
the husband came and tucked in beside her her little boy, whom
at other times he walked about with on deck, tossing him up and
kissing him with a loud clucking noise. In a large dog-cage
(such as the hyaena inhabits in a country menagerie) lay at the
far end of the vessel a lunatic, whose keeper sat in the cage door,
with one hand on him to keep him still. He was a poor, twitch-
ing, iron-grey-headed creature, who thrust his stocking-feet
through the bars, and had them snuffed at and licked by the large
mastiff chained outside, turned out of his own proper travelling-
box. The deck all round them was littered with goats and
1 packages of garlic, huge crates of tomatoes and beans.
On the upper deck we had a veritable Light of the Harem,
walking about with her podgy broad feet and large dogskin gloves.
She was a little powdered woman with blackened eyes, dressed in
a fashionable dark-blue cloak, and round her French hat and
i slightly covering the lower part of her face was a white pretence
1 at a yashmak. She strolled the deck unsteadily, clutching a
French novel, and is, I believe, the latest example of the emanci-
i pated female of the East ; Fatmeh, who has been at a boarding-
school in the Champs Elysees ; Fatmeh, in short, up to date. I
fancy she had been paying a visit in Cairo, and was on her way
home to Constantinople. I took possession, inadvertently, of her
• chaise tongue, out of which the attendant Mesrour, in a tarboosh
i land a dingy tweed suit, promptly turned me. Then- he affixed
9—2
188 « HOME-COMING,'
on ifc an ordinary visiting-card, bearing the magic inscription,
' Madame Beshmy Pacha.' We passed the island of Milos in the
dark, and the lighthouse on the end of it threw flashing rays, as
though from the fine eyes of the Venus of that ilk.
Friday. Athens. — At the Piraeus the national flags were all
half-mast high ; they were celebrating their Good Friday, which
in the Greek Church is a week later than ours.
We drove up the long, dusty road to Athens. The wheat was
springing, not quite so high as in Egypt ; the trees along the
roadside were leafy. Suddenly we saw the Acropolis. It was
distressing, but it looked at that distance so hideously like a cork
model of it I have seen in some provincial museum. And all the
bells in Athens were beating, throbbing solemnly ; they seem to
bring them out for the occasion, and hang them under wooden
sentry-boxes ; and there, every portentous half-minute, they clang
the clapper funereally against the side. Listening to them from
the Acropolis, they sounded like giant bells of cattle wandering
over the asphodel fields below. For the Lord was dead, and would
not rise again till Easter Eve at midnight. In the churches the -
respectful Athenians, as our guide called them, were thronging ;
they push and crowd to the table on which lies the sacred picture,
under grey crape. There they cross themselves rapidly three
times, and bend to kiss the face, the hands, the feet. A soldier j
stood by to keep order, and prevent the heavy candlesticks from
being pushed over. Sometimes a child would scramble under the
table, and come climbing out on the other side under the soldier's
legs. The mothers send them there ; they think it imbues the!
child with a keener sense of the religious.
So we strolled among the bright chilly-white Athenian streets
of Hermes, and -ZEolus, and Athena, and over the mournful marbl
Acropolis. There I found one of those unmistakable scoundre
(as you see them at the East-end, or lying dozing on the Par
ramparts), with cropped bullet head, and the trouser-lining sho\
ing at the knees, wandering bare-headed, sedulously, among tl
ruins. But he was not meditating on Pericles or Phidias ; he
simply gathering the snails, of which his hat was nearly full,
will not work, and hunger drives him thither, and so from tl
footprints of Alcibiades he gathers snails and boils them. Far
below we saw where the Long Walls once ran down to the Piraeus;
we saw the ancient l\arbour Phalerum, Salamis and its bay of
blue ; we saw faint yEgina, and the distant snow-powdered hills of
1 HOME-COMING.' 189
the Peloponnese, and, winding like a grey ribbon, the sacred road
to Eleusis.
Oh, labours and terrors of my boyhood ! How it all recalled
to me the fifth-form room at Harrow, the last school on a winter's
evening before tea. I saw the dark purple windows, running wet
with the close atmosphere, the bare gas jets ; I was drawing in
my note-book, expecting nothing, when suddenly I am put on.
Thucydides ! My neighbour whispers the place to me, and,
panic-struck, I go up to the Eev. R 's desk. He is marking
the last boy, and then he looks at me from under his glasses, and
says in that strange, fearful tone, ' Well ? Go on ! '
Or, standing below in the theatre of Dionysus, I wander back-
ward to a pension, seven marks a day, in Ehineland. It is my
first long vacation, and we are reading ' The Birds.' The
nightingale-flutist they paid such a sum for twitters again on
that fractured stage, as I heard her twitter through the pension
open windows. ' rib rib rib riori%.' I hear the murmur of the
Ehine, the click of the billiard balls, I see the hill of Rolandseck.
How we are all scattered, that jolly party ! One is a school-
master and one is mad ; one an aide-de-camp and one driving
conveyances, and our coach is dean of his college, and I am here.
And the bells that hum for the dead Christ hum for us, too,
and our dead youth. Only the nightingale, ftovcra Ao^/icua
' songstress of the coppice,' rrouciXri ' with varied note,' still sings
her unchangeable, melodious ' rib rtb rib riorif;.'
Saturday. — Athens is wet and cold to-day, and very busy and
market-like. Everywhere and by everybody you see the Paschal
lamb being carried home for to-morrow's feast. Sometimes they
ran a pole through it and carried it home, spit-wise, on the box-
seat of a carriage. The poor are carrying the half, and they
carry it so as to make it look like a whole ; they have their pride
and their feelings, the poor. Naphtha lamps flare over the but-
cher's stall, built along the ruins of Hadrian's Stoa. Kpe'as ftolov
is the advertisement over the doorway where the butcher stands,
a veritable Tripe-seller, with bloody apron. I crept among the
darkening ruins, rendered more ghastly for the seeming order of
the disorder ; for the fallen marble columns are ranged on the
wet grass like masts in a shipbuilder's yard. Under a broken
arch fumed a greasy lamp, alongside a sacred picture and a be-
spattered stand for votive candles. I heard the yelling from the
market stalls, and could see the oil-light lurching over the broken
190 ' HOME-COMING.'
wall. There was no shade of philosopher or school-man to bear
me company in my dreary ramble.
And to-day I saw a funeral, trotting briskly along. On the
first carriage was earned the coffin lid with a cross of white
flowers ; and then the hearse and the coffin on it, and the old
man's head propped up and tied under the chin with a napkin.
He was bald-headed, with a white moustache, trim and wax-like,
and was fully dressed in clothes of which, I am told, it is his
relatives' last sad and thrifty office to strip him at the grave
side. Poor old gentleman, he has seen his last Easter; truly,
he will eat his Paschal lamb in far better company than any
we can give him in this wet and bitter-cold Athens of the violet
crown.
Easter Sunday. April 9th. — Now they ring joy-bells and
fire off petards and maroons. Boys dart out of doorways and hurl
explosives against the opposite wall, and men go into their back
yards, or come out on their roofs and fire off their guns. Every-
body has a gun, for sport is the modern Athenian's delight ; as
a consequence there is neither bird nor beast left to shoot on
Hymettus or Pentelicon. We heard the firing below us as we
climbed Lycabettus, and could see the little soldiers running in
the barrack square to cheer their officers.
How new this old Athens looks, with its drab roofs ; very
like one of those cardboard German towns one used to cut out
and gum together in"' childhood. The tiny whitewashed church
on the top of Lycabettus is left ready for prayer in a frugal way,
but the priest is elsewhere merry-making. One lamp is lit, and
peeping behind the curtains you can see all his simple service
arrangements ; the dirty plates and the Apollinaris bottle and
the dingy tapers. Everywhere, out of doors, they are either roast-
ing the Paschal lamb on a great wooden spit over a charcoal fire,
or carrying it home from the baker's, wrapped in a white cloth.
In Hadrian's Stoa, among the ruins, we came upon a jovial party
roasting three on the grass ; one was finished, and an Albanian in
a dirty fustandla was cooling it by twirling the end of the pole
on a broken column, singing raucously the while. I looked on at
a respectful distance as one does at some one else's dinner party ;
but they begged us to approach, took off their hats and shook
hands with us warmly, cut us off succulent morsels from the
throat, gave us a coloured egg and a small circular roll, and even
sent for wine for us. It was very hard and sour, but we pledged
'HOME-COMING.' 191
them heartily and parted with renewed hand-shakes and good
wishes for a merry Easter.
And then we drove to Eleusis along the sacred road. Here is
the bay, out of whose lapping, gentle blue waters the laughing
Phryne stepped, shaking her long tresses. What were the
mysteries, unless they be those of this brooding landscape that is
still mysterious, they charged her with profaning ? Her answer
was a veritable woman's ; she showed her figure and her face and
was acquitted. Eleusis, shambles of ruins as it is, is, as I say,
still mysterious. Are there not certain landscapes, as there are
the faces of certain men and women, that impress you with a
sense of history ? Be transported on the bluest, brightest Greek
day down at Eleusis, knowing nothing of your whereabouts, and
you would say some great event had happened there. The bay
still looks heavy with battle, and all the hills and plain are dense
and sullen with something they can never express. And if they
could, who tyut the antiquarians would care to hear it ? What
can their poor little mysteries be, compared with ours ?
We found there happy men dancing in front of the inn like
graceful fauns, snapping their fingers and turning under the
arched arm ; and women in beautiful gay dresses, their bosoms
heavy with gold coins, circling in a stately, many-coloured priestess
round. It was a pretty sight, and prettiest, I thought, where the
village girl who had left them to marry well, sat, in her dove-
coloured dress and sweet straw hat, among her old companions in
their Easter bravery.
Tuesday. — Enormous numbers of Americans in Athens. Very
few men, but those few middle-aged, with an air of decayed poet
about them. Long and thin, with long and thick iron-grey locks,
they suggest the poet hammered out at Pittsburg and condemned
afterwards for being flawed. They seem mostly in weak health,
and sit them down coughing hoarsely in the smoking-room to
indite interminable letters in the handwriting of a chemist's
assistant. The morning being wet, wiry elderly ladies come to
them in a long string to inquire anxiously ' How is your cold ? '
and entreat them to be careful. Then they enter into a long .
complaint of the banks not being open, and their not being able
to get their letters of credit, or their mail. But as the decayed
poet does not receive them with any particular enthusiasm, and
shows a disposition to get on with his letter, the ladies sigh and
say they will go ' right away ' and get their photographs.
Very wet weather in Athens ; great times for the little Persian
192 'HOME-COMING.'
shoeblacks. These, the conquered of Salamis and Platoea, have
very smart boxes of brass with plate-glass sides, and do all the
boot-cleaning in the city. They live with extreme frugality in
companies of three in a room at ten or twelve francs a month,
and very soon save money enough to retire to Susa or Ecbatana,
or wherever it may be the modern Persian lives.
Corfu. April 13th. On board. — Oh, the horrible night in
this most horrible, comfortless, Italian ship ! — ' built in the eclipse
and rigged with curses dark.' We left Athens in the wet —
Heavens, how that fat Greek snores in this tawdry, red-plush
saloon of the Principe Amadeo ! — in the wet, past Corinth and
its innumerable currant bushes (I thought they were vines, till I
remembered ' currants ' from ' Corinth '), we trundled all day dis-
mally between the gulf and the sheer grey-green hills, wreathed
in clinging crape. It was too stormy at Patras for us to sail that
night, but at two the next afternoon we were off, and for nineteen
hours shouldered and lurched and plunged along our wet and
shifting path. How the Principe Amadeo groaned in her travail !
Every timber had a voice and creaked like an antique sea-ballad
singer ; the china crashed, the drawers below the berths fell out
and ran along the cabin-floors like mechanical mice, the women
next door moaned. A dozen times and more the careful captain
stopped the vessel to ease and rest the tortured screw. So at
Corfu, the sun shining and the hills of Illyria dusty with snow,
we were delighted to get ashore and stroll in a land-ecstasy among
the narrow, crowded streets. And the voluble French lady who
had been so sick ; who had cried piously, ' Merci, mon Dieu ! Oh,
mon Dieu, merci ! ' as we first got on board from the banging
little Patras boat in the rough harbour ; who had screamed how
deep the snow was at Damascus and Jerusalem, and how wet the
tent when they camped out in the rainy desert ; who had decried
the Parthenon and declared how much she preferred the Made-
leine : — what another woman she was when she appeared once
more in Corfu harbour and announced her intention of leaving
the ship and remaining on shore three or four days, pour se
• remettre. Voyez-vous, Monsieur I her pantalon was wet through,
her boots were not buttoned, she was wearing her chemise de nuit
— all these details she graciously gave me herself — but once at
lunch in the hotel she blossomed out into a gold wig and a cos-
tume of huge black-and-white check, and looked like an elderly
fashion-plate for Autumn.
No one can help liking Corfu ; the green space where the
'HOME-COMING.' 193
band plays and where just now the pink almond blows ; the deli-
cate fresh leaves of the oak and the hawthorn ; the Eoman-togaed
statue of someone who did something in 1720, now moss-grown
and illegible ; the Kafaveiov where the trim Greek officers and
townspeople meet under the arcade ; the piles of oranges and
lemons, olives and prunes ; the sun that falls on the white roads
and aslant the cool and busy shops ; the grey fortifications like
an old fort in the Isle of Wight ; the whole place, in short, that
in its cleanliness still shows traces of the English occupation.
And now ' the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are
stayed for.' The gulls circle in the harbour with its lapping,
pointed waves. We must leave the pleasant hotel of St. George,
and its library of Madame de StaeTs works and Lord Brougham's
novel ' Albert Lunel ' (how on earth did it get there ?), and go on
board for Brindisi. Twelve hours more of Greek companionship
and the stale odours of the Principe Amadeo, and we shall be
across the stormy Adriatic, on our way to Venice.
Bologna. Saturday. — We had a comparatively tranquil night,
and Brindisi, grey and yet already a little morning-sunny, was
before us at five. At six we caught the train. There was the
usual ascetic English parson complaining irritably all along the
platform of being cheated of a frong. ' I will not give you
another farthing, sir; you have done me out of a frong already.'
All day long in spring sunshine we droned along the Adriatic.
Delightful, the glimpses of the seaside villages, half Apennine
mountain, too, that dot the shore. Some of them seem to have
a pretence of fashion, as though to attract the respectable Italian
families for the summer ; with a sort of Scarborough funiculaire
crawling up the cliff, and bathing-sheds getting ready, and poor
little promenades of firs planted right down on the seashore, for
Church parade. And some are plainly for the fishing only, like
the old town at Hastings or Rye. There are rough boats drawn
up and others building, and among them you see children playing,
and the women kneeling in holes dug at the edge of the shore for
the sea-water, to save them going down to the waves, as women
do with their goolahs at all the villages on the Nile. I think it
may have been in some such village Little Em'ly sat by the
timbers on the shore, and, while the discreet Littimer strolled
above, told the kindly women she, too, was a fisherman's daughter.
Inland, all the fields are carpeted ankle-deep with fresh green
corn, and among them twist the olive-trees, those trees that seem
9—5
194 'HOME-COMING.1
to me in their startled grey to have seen a ghost ; perhaps of
Italy's greatness, or may-be they have never recovered from the
fright that Hannibal gave them. The almonds are pink, the
cherry-trees hung with white bouquets; and the station-master
waters his onions among a bower of lilac and purple flags, and a
budding shelter of the weeping elm.
I confess myself woefully disappointed with the Bologna pic-
tures : those huge, flabby altar-pieces, martyrdoms and adorations.
I don't believe Raphael painted the St. Cecilia, or, if he did, assu-
redly it is quite indifferent ; everybody paints indifferent pictures
at times, even Raphael, The only work I cared at all for was the
odd and touching portrait of a little boy lying tucked up in bed,
in a small square four-poster of inlaid wood. He was the heir, I
imagine, for the counterpane and pillow-case are edged with very
fine lace. His arms are tucked in tight by his side, and pulled
out from round his neck on to the sheet is a handsome pearl neck-
lace. The child's curly head is laid sideways on the pillow, looking
straight at you with wide frightened eyes. You feel his mother
was standing at the artist's shoulder and begging Pippo to be good
and quiet, and that the child is all the time wondering what on
earth he has been put to bed for in the middle of the day. The artist
is one Incerto, first cousin to that other eminent performer Ignoto.
It looks to me as if it might perhaps be a very early Velasquez.
Venice. Sunday. — And as if Venice were not lovely enough
in all her nuked marble, the gadding spring twines her with fresh
green and hurries over her thousand bridges with great baskets of
lilies of the valley, gilliflowers, geraniums, pansies, roses. This
morning outside the gates of the Giardino Reale I heard the birds
singing among the lilac bushes, as vocal as in an English coppice.
Strings and bunches of Germans and French crowd the Doge's
palace, like Hampton Court on a Bank Holiday ; to say nothing of
four hundred pilgrims on their way to the Pope, who have put in
here to see the sights. I vow to Heaven that in some places the
crowd is as dense as ever I saw it at Venice in the Addison Road.
There are the usual sedate, semi-thoughtful couples of English
girls doing everything, with Ruskin in one hand and Baedeker in
the other. There is always one of them who does the reading
aloud, while the other listens in an attitude of graceful attention.
And everywhere the high April sun shines, the immense flags in
front of that casket of St. Mark's flap heavily, and the innumerable
pigeons strut and swoop. They say they are the descendants of
the birds brought from Constantinople, but I believe them souls
'HOME-COMING.' 195
of old Venetians, painters, admirals, senators, who prefer the
Piazza to Paradise.
When it grew evening and St. Mark's faded and closed like
some lovely flower, I strolled along the quay towards the arsenal.
I turned on to a poor sort of asphalte boulevard, and found myself
in what seemed like an Italian Katcliffe Highway. Everywhere
that tattered picturesque squalor one sees in some of Canaletto's
sketches ; high, stained, soiled houses, and long strips of dingy
clothing drying, and fierce touzled heads looking down on the
Sunday crowds below. Girls in drab shawls, sailors and little
soldiers, crowded wine-shops and fried-fish and the steaming
saffron polenta. I sauntered into a church lighted with a few
candles, and found a ragged but devout East-end congregation.
There was a woman kneeling near me who never waited for the
responses, but kept up a long wailing complaint of all her miseries
and deprivations. I couldn't understand a word she said, in her
Venetian dialect, but from the tone it was clear she was recount-
ing in detail all her misfortunes and her wants. Behind her was
a shrill old man, praying very loud, as if afraid amid all those
many voices his would never reach that throne, which I doubt
not for him is of white and red marble and inlaid with gorgeous
mosaic, designed by Sansovino.
I paced the great square at night and found but few people
there. One, an evident Bravo, draped in a black cloak and slouch-
ing in a broad black hat, an unmistakable hireling of the dagger,
or perhaps a teacher of the mandoline. Poor Bravo ! nobody
writes about or employs thee now. I should like to have
exclusively retained his services for London, given him a list of
folk I particularly dislike, and told him to return when they had
all been disposed of. What a service to humanity, and what a
fortune for the papers !
April I8th. Milan. — This is our last look of Italy, from the
top of the Duomo, under the great copper-gilt statue of the
Virgin. The green plains of Lombardy, the roads that radiate
away, fringed with tall, feathery poplars, away until they join the
sky in a faint blue haze, lie on every side this miraculous marble
shrine. It is five months and a half since we were here. J have
seen spring and autumn in Egypt since then, for outside Cairo
they were beginning to cut the corn we saw growing there before
we went up the Nile. But, ' Oh ! to be in England now that
April's there,' — if it be only to buy a bunch of violets outside
St. Martin's Church.
196
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES.
THE Portuguese are not wholly offensive. In politics, or when they
hunger after African territory we fancy needed for our own people,
they may seem so. When a rebuff excites them against the
English, Lisbon may not be pleasant for Englishmen. But in such
cases would London commend itself to a triumphant foreigner ?
For my own part, I found a kind of gentle unobtrusive politeness
even among those Portuguese who knew I was English. Occasion-
ally, on being taken for an American, I did not correct the mistake,
for having no quarrel with Americans they sometimes confided to me
the bitterness of their hearts against the English. I stayed in Lis-
bon at the Hotel Universal in the Eua Nova da Almeda, a purely
Portuguese house where only stray Englishmen came. At the table
d'hote I one night had a conversation with a mild-mannered Por-
tuguese which showed the curious ignorance and almost childish
vanity of the race. I asked him in French if he spoke English.
Doing so badly we mingled the two languages and at last talked
vivaciously. He was an ardent politician, and hated the English
virulently, telling me so with curious circumlocutions. He was of
opinion, he said, that though the English were unfortunately
powerful on the sea, on land his nation was a match for us.
As for the English in Africa, he declared the Portuguese able to
sweep them into the sea. But though he hated the English, his
admiration for Queen Victoria was as unbounded as our own earth-
hunger. She was, he told me, entirely on the side of the
Portuguese in the sad troubles which English politicians were
then causing. He detailed, as particularly as if he had been pre-
sent, a strange scene reported to have taken place between Several,
their ambassador, and Lord Salisbury, in which discussion grew
heated. It seemed as if they would part in anger. At last
Several arose and exclaimed with much dignity : * You must now
excuse me, my Lord Salisbury, I have to dine with the Queen to-
night.' My Lord Salisbury started, looked incredulous, and said
coldly, * You are playing with me. This cannot be.' ' Indeed,'
he sim^as-jfidor, producing a telegram from Windsor, 'it is as
I say.' And then Salisbury turned pale, fell back in his chair, and
gasped for breath. * And after that,' said my informant, ' things
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES. 197
went well.' Several people at tlie table listened to this story and
seemed to believe it. With much difficulty I preserved a grave
countenance, and congratulated him on the possession of an am-
bassador who was more than a match for our Foreign Minister.
Before the end of dinner he informed me that the English were
as a general rule savages, while the Portuguese were civilised.
Having lived in London he knew this to be so. Finding that he
knew the East End of our gigantic city, I found it difficult to con-
tradict him.
Certainly Lisbon, as far as visible poverty is concerned, is far
better than London. I saw few very miserable people ; beggars were
not at all numerous ; in a week I was only asked twice for alms.
One constantly hears that Lisbon is dirty, and as full of foul odours
as Coleridge's Cologne. I did not find it so, and tne bright sun-
shine and the fine colour of the houses might well compensate for
some drawbacks. The houses of this regular town are white, and
pale yellow, and fine worn-out pink, with narrow green painted
verandahs which soon lose crudeness in the intense light. The
windows of the larger blocks are numerous and set in long regular
lines ; the streets if narrow run into open squares blazing with
white unsoiled monuments. All day long the ways are full of
people who are fairly but unostentatiously polite. They do not
stare one out of countenance however one may be dressed. In
Antwerp a man who objects to being wondered at may not wear
a light suit. Lisbon is more cosmopolitan. But the beauty of
the town of Lisbon is not added to by the beauty of its inhabitants.
The women are curiously the reverse of lovely. Only occasionally
I saw a face which was attractive by the odd conjuncture of an
olive skin and light grey eyes. They do not wear mantillas. The
lower classes use a shawl. Those who are of the bourgeois class
or above it differ little from Londoners. The working or loafing
men, for they laugh and loaf, and work and chaff and chatter at
every corner, are more distinct in costume, wearing the flat felt
sombrero with turned-up edges that one knows from pictures, while
the long coat which has displaced the cloak still retains a smack of
it in the way they disregard the sleeves and hang it from their
shoulders. These men are decidedly not so ugly as the women,
and vary wonderfully in size, colour, and complexion, though a
big Portuguese is a rarity. The strong point in both sexes is
their natural gift for wearing colour, for choosing and blending or
matching tints.
19S SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES.
These Portuguese men and women work hard when they do
not loaf and chatter. The porters, who stand in knots with
cords upon their shoulders, bear huge loads ; a characteristic
of the place is this load-bearing and the size of the burdens.
Women carry mighty parcels upon their heads ; men great baskets.
Fish is carried in spreading flat baskets by girls. They look afar
off like gigantic hats : further still, like quaint odd toadstools in
motion. All household furniture removing among the poor is
done by hand. Two or four men load up a kind of flat hand-
barrow without wheels till it is pyramidal and colossal with piled
gear. Then passing poles through the loop of ropes, with a slow
effort they raise it up and advance at a funereal and solemn pace.
The slowness with which they move is pathetic. It is suggestive
of a dead burden or of some street accident. But of these latter
there must be very few ; there is not much vehicular traffic in
Lisbon. It is comparatively rare to see anything like cruelty to
horses. The mules which draw the primitive ramshackle trams
have the worst time of it, and are obliged to pull their load every
now and again off one line on to another, being urged thereto with
some brutality. But these trams do not run up the very hilly
parts of the city ; the main lines run along the Tagus east and
west of the great Square of the Black Horse. And by the river
the city is flat.
Only a little way up, in my street for instance, it rapidly be-
comes hilly. On entering the hotel, to my surprise I went down-
stairs to my bedroom. On looking out of the window a street was
even then sixty feet below me. The floor underneath me did not
make part of the hotel, but was a portion of a great building
occupied by the poorer people and let out in flats. During the
day, as I sat by the window working, the noise was not intolerable,
but at night when the Lisbonensians took to amusing themselves
they roused me from a well-earned sleep. They shouted and sang
and made mingled and indistinguishable uproars which rose
wildly through the narrow deep space and burst into my open
window. After long endurance I rose and shut it, preferring heat
to insomnia. But in the day, after that discord, I always had
the harmonious compensations of true colour. Even when the
sun shone brilliantly I could not distinguish the grey blue of the
deep shadows, so much blue was in the painted or distempered
outer walls. It was in Lisbon that I first began to discern the
mental effect of colour, and to see that it comes truly and of
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES. 199
necessity from a people's temperament. Can a busy race be true
colourists ?
In some parts of the town, the eastern quarters — one cannot
help noticing the still remaining influence of the Moors. There
are even some true relics ; but certainly the influence survives in
flat-sided houses with small windows and Moorish ornament high
up just under the edge of the flat roof. One day being tired of
the more noisy western town, I went east and climbed up and up
and turned round by a barrack, where some soldiers eyed me as a
possible Englishman, being alternately in deep shadow and burning
sunlight. I hoped to see the Tagus at last, for here the houses are
not so lofty, and presently, being on very high ground, I caught a
view of it darkly dotted with steamers over some flat roofs. Towards
the sea it narrows, but above Lisbon it widens out like a lake. On
the far side was a white town, beyond that again hills blue with
lucid atmosphere. At my feet (I leant against a low wall) was a
terraced garden with a .big vine spread on a trellis, making — or
promising to make in the later spring — a long shady arbour, for
as yet the leaves were scanty and freshly green. Every house was
faint blue, or varied pink, or worn-out, washed-out, sundried green.
All the tones were beautiful and modest, fitting the sun yet not
competing with it. In London the colour would break the level
of dull tints and angrily protest, growing scarlet and vivid and
wrathful. And just as I looked away from the river and the
vine-clad terrace there was a scurrying rush of little school-
boys from a steep side street. They ran down the slope, and
passed me, going quickly like black blots on the road, yet their
laughter was sunlight on the ripple of waters. The Portuguese
are always children and are not sombre. Only in their graveyards
stand solemn cypresses which rise darkly on the hillside where
they bury their dead ; but in life they laugh and are merry even
after they have children of their own.
Though little apt to do what is supposed to be a traveller's
duty in visiting certain obvious places of interest, I one day, hunted
for the English cemetery in which Fielding lies buried, and found
it at last just at the back of a little open park or garden where
children were playing. On going in I found myself alone save for
a gardener who was cutting down some rank grass with a scythe.
Thi^« cemetery is the quietest and most beautiful I ever saw. One
might imagine the dead were all friends. They are at any rate
strangers in a far land, an English party with one great man
200 SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES.
•
among them. 1" found his tomb easily, for it is made of massive
blocks of stone. Having brought from home his little * Voyage to
Lisbon,' written just before he died, I took it out, sat down on the
stone, and read a page or two. He says farewell at the very end.
As I sat the strange and melancholy suggestion of the dead man
speaking out of that great kind heart of his, now dust, the strong
contrast between the brilliant sunlight and the heavy sombreness
of the cypresses of death, the song of spring birds and the sound
of children's voices, were strangely pathetic. I rose up and paced
that little deadman's ground which was still and quiet. And on
another grave I read but a name, the name of some woman,
* Eleanor.' After life, and work, and love, this is the end. Yet
we do remember Fielding.
On the following day I went to Cintra out of sheer ennui, for
my inability to talk Portuguese made me silent and solitary per-
force. And at Cintra I evaded my obvious duty, and only looked
at the lofty rock on which the Moorish castle stands. For one
thing the hill was swathed in mists, it rained at intervals, a kind
of bitter tramontana was blowing. And after running the gauntlet
of a crowd of vociferous donkey-boys I was anxious to get out of
the town. I made acquaintance with a friendly Cintran dog and
went for a walk. My companion did not object to my nationality
or iny inability to express myself in fluent Portuguese, and amused
himself by tearing the leaves of the Australian gum-trees, which
flourish very well in Portugal. But at last, in cold disgust at the
uncharitable puritanic weather which destroyed all beauty in the
landscape, I returned to the town. Here I passed the prison. On
spying me the prisoners crowded to the barred windows ; those on
the lower floor protruded their hands, those on the upper story
sent down a basket by a long string ; I emptied my pockets of
their coppers. It seemed not unlike giving nuts to our human
cousins at the Zoo. Surely Darwin is the prince of pedigree-
makers. Before him the daring of the bravest herald never went
beyond Adam. He has opened great possibilities to the College
dealing with inherited dignity of ancient fame.
This Cintra is a town on a hill and in a hole, a kind of half-
funnel opening on a long plain which is dotted by small villages
and farms. If the donkey-boys were extirpated it might be fine
on a fine day.
Eeturning to the station, I ensconced myself in a carriage out
of the way of the cutting wind, and talked fluent bad French with
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES. 201
a kindly old Portuguese who looked like a Quaker. Two others
came in and entered into a lively conversation in which Charing
Cross and London Bridge occurred at intervals. It took an hour
and a quarter to do the fifteen miles between Cintra and Lisbon.
I was told it was considered by no means a very slow train. Travel-
ling in Portugal may do something to reconcile one to the trains
in the south-east of England.
The last place I visited in Lisbon was the market. Outside
the glare of the hot sun was nearly blinding. Just in that neigh-
bourhood all the main buildings are purely white, even the shadows
make one's eyes ache. In the open spaces of the squares even
brilliantly clad women seemed black against white. Inside, in a
half-shade under glass, a dense crowd moved and chattered and
stirred to and fro. The women wore all the colours of flowers and
fruit, but chiefly orange. And on the stone floor great flat baskets
of oranges, each with a leaf of green attached to it, shone like pure
gold. Then there were red apples, and red handkerchiefs twisted
over dark hair. Milder looking in tint was the pale Japanese
apple with an artistic refinement of paler colour. The crowd, the
good humour, the noise, even the odour, which was not so offen-
sive as in our English Covent Garden, made a striking and
brilliant impression. Returning to the hotel, I was met by a
scarlet procession of priests and acolytes who bore the Host.
The passers-by mostly bared their heads. Perhaps but a little
while ago every one might have been worldly wise to follow their
example, for the Inquisition lasted till 1808 in Spain.
In the afternoon of that day I went on board the Dunottar
Castle, and in the evening sailed for Madeira.
A week's odd moments of study and enforced intercourse
with waiters and male chambermaids, whose French was even more
primitive than my own, had taught me a little Portuguese, that
corrupt, unbeautiful bastard Spanish, and I found it useful even
on board the steamer. At any rate I was able to interpret for a
Funchal lawyer who sat by me at table, and afterwards invited me
to see him. This smattering of Portuguese I found more useful
still at Madeira, or at Funchal — its capital — for I stayed in native
hotels. It is the only possible way of learning anything about the
people in a short visit. Moreover, the English hotels are full of
invalids. It is curious to note the present prevalence of consump-
tion among the natives of Funchal. It is a good enough proof on
the first face of it that consumption is catching. There is a large
202 SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES.
hospital here for Portuguese patients, though the disease was
unknown before the English made a health resort of it.
Funchal has been a thousand times described, and is well worthy
of it. Lying as it does in a long curve with the whole town visible
from the sea, as the houses grow fewer and fewer upon the slopes
of the lofty mountain background, it is curiously theatrical and
scenic in effect. It is artistically arranged, well-placed ; a brilliant
jewel in a dark-green setting, and the sea is amethyst and
turquoise.
I stayed in an hotel whose proprietor was an ardent Eepublican.
One evening he mentioned the fact in broken English, and I told
him that in theory I also was of that creed. He grew tremendously
excited, opened a bottle of Madeira, shared it with me and two
Portuguese, and insisted on singing the Marseillaise until a crowd
collected in front of the house, whose open windows looked on an
irregular square. Then he and his friends shouted ' Viva a partida
dos Eepublicanos ! ' The charges at this hotel were ridiculously
small — only three and fourpence a day for board and lodging.
And it was by no means bad ; at any rate it was always possible
to get fruit, including loquats, strawberries, custard apples, bananas,
oranges, and the passion-flower fruit, which is not enticing on a
first acquaintance, and resembles an anaemic pomegranate. Eggs,
too, were twenty-eight for tenpence ; fish was at nominal prices.
But there is nothing to do in Funchal save eat and swim or
ride. The climate is enervating, and when the east wind blows
from the African coast it is impossible to move save in the most
spiritless and languid way. It may make an invalid comparatively
strong, but I am sure it might reduce a strong man to a state of
confirmed laziness little removed from actual illness. I was glad
one day to get horses, in company with an acquaintance, and ride
over the mountains to Fayal, on the north side of the island.
And it was curious to see the obstinate incredulity of the natives
when we declared we meant going there and back in one day. The
double journey was only a little over twenty-six miles, yet it was
declared impossible. Our landlord drew ghastly pictures of the
state we should be in, declaring we did not know what we were
doing; he called in his wife, who lifted up her hands against our
rashness and crossed herself piously when we were unmoved ; he
summoned the owner of the horses, who said the thing could not
be done. But my friend was not to be persuaded, declaring that
Englishmen could do anything, and that he would show them.
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES. 203
He explained that we were both very much more than admirable
horsemen, and only minimised his own feats in the colonies by
kindly exaggerating mine in America, and finally it was settled
gravely that we were to be at liberty to kill ourselves and ruin
the horses for a lump sum of two pounds ten, provided we found
food and wine for the two men who were to be our guides. In
the morning, at six o'clock, we set out in a heavy shower of rain.
Before we had gone up the hill a thousand feet we were wet
through, but a thousand more brought us into bright sunlight.
Below lay Funchal, underneath a white sheet of rain-cloud ; the
sea beyond it was darkened here and there ; it was at first difficult
to distinguish the outlying Deserta Islands from sombre fogbanks.
But as we still went up and up the day brightened more and more,
and when Funchal was behind and under the first hills the sea
began to glow and glitter. Here and there it shone like watered
silk. The Desertas showed plainly as rocky masses ; a distant
steamer trailed a thin ribbon of smoke above the water. Close at
hand a few sheep and goats ran from us ; now and again a horse
or two stared solemnly at us ; and we all grew cheerful and
laughed. For the air was keen and bracing; we were on the
plateau, nearly four thousand feet above the sea, and in a climate
quite other than that which choked the distant low-lying town.
Then we began to go down.
All the main'roads of the Ilha da Madeira are paved with close-
set kidney pebbles, to save them from being washed out and
destroyed by the sudden violent semi-tropical rains. Even on
this mountain it was so, and our horses, with their rough-shod
feet, rattled down the pass without faltering. The road zigzagged
after the manner of mountain roads. When we reached the
bottom of a deep ravine it seemed impossible that we could have
got there, and getting out seemed equally impossible. The slopes
of the hills were about seventy degrees. Everywhere was a thick
growth of brush and trees. At times the road ran almost dan-
gerously close to a precipice. But at last, about eleven o'clock,
we began to get out of the thick entanglement of mountains, and
in the distance could see the ocean on the north side of the island.
* Fayal is there,' said our guide, pointing, as it seemed, but a little
way off. Yet it took two hours' hard riding to reach it. Our
path lay at first along the back of a great spur of the main
mountain ; it narrowed till there was a precipice on either side —
on the right hand some seven or eight hundred feet, on the left
204 SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES.
more tlian a thousand. I had not looked down the like since I
crossed the Jackass Mountain on the Fraser River in British
Columbia. Underneath us were villages — scattered huts, built
like bee-hives. The piece of level ground beneath was dotted
with them. The place looked like some gigantic apiary. The
dots of people were little larger than bees. And soon we came to
the same stack-like houses close to our path. It was Sunday,
and these village folks were dressed in their best clothes. They
were curiously respectful, for were we not * gente de gravate ' —
people who wore cravats — gentlemen, in a word ? So they rose up
and uncovered. We saluted them in passing. It was a primitive
sight. As we came where the huts were thicker, small crowds came
to see us. Now on the right hand we saw a ridge with pines on it,
suggesting, from the shape of the hill, a bristly boar's back ; on
the left the valley widened ; in front loomed up a gigantic mass
of rock, 'The Eagle's Cliff,' in shape like Gibraltar. It was 1,900
feet high, and even yet it was far below us. But now the path
pitched suddenly downwards ; there were no paving-pebbles here,
only the native hummocks of rock and the harder clay not yet
washed away. The road was like a torrent-bed, for indeed it was
a torrent when it rained ; but still our horses were absolute in
faith and stumbled not. And the Eagle's Cliff grew bigger and
bigger still as we plunged down the last of the spur to a river
then scanty of stream, and we were on the flat again not far from
the sea. But to reach Fayal it was necessary to climb again,
turning to the left.
Here we found a path which, with all my experience of Western
America mountain travel, seemed very hard to beat in point of
rockiness and steepness. We had to lead our horses and climb
most carefully. But when a quarter of a mile had been done in
this way it was possible to mount again, and we were close to
Fayal. I had thought all the time that it was a small town, but
it appeared to be no more than the scattered huts we had passed,
or those we had noted from the lofty spur. Our object was a
certain house belonging to a Portuguese landowner who occupied
the position of an English squire in the olden days. Both my
friend and I had met him several times in Funchal, and, by the aid
of an interpreter, had carried on a conversation. But my Portu-
guese was dinner-table talk of the purely necessary order, and my
companion's was more exiguous than my own. So we decided to
camp before reaching his house, and eat our lunch undisturbed
SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES. 205
by the trouble of being polite without words. We told our guide
this, and as he was supposed to understand English we took it
for granted that he did so when we ordered him to pick some spot-
to camp a good way from the landowner's house. But in spite -of
our laborious explanations he took us on to the very estate, and
plumped us down not fifty yards from the house. As we were
ignorant of the fact that this was the house, we sent the boy
there for hot water to make coffee, and then to our horror we saw
the very man whom we just then wanted to avoid. We all talked
together and gesticulated violently. I tried French vainly ; my
little Portuguese grew less and less, and disappeared from my
tongue ; and then in despair we hailed the cause of the whole
misfortune, and commanded him to explain. What he explained
I know not, but finally our friend seemed less hurt than he had
been, and he returned to his house on our promising to go there
as soon as our lunch was finished.
The whole feeling of this scene — of this incident, of the place,
the mountains, the primitive people — was so curious that it was
difficult to think we were only four days from England. Though
the people were gentle and kind and polite, they seemed no more
civilised, from our point of view, than many Indians I have seen.
Indeed, there are Indian communities in America which are far
ahead of them in culture. I seemed once more in a wild country.
But our host (for, being on his ground, we were his guests) was
most amiable and polite. It certainly was rather irksome to sit
solemnly in his best room and stare at each other without a word.
Below the open window stood our guide, so when it became abso-
lutely necessary for me to make our friend understand, or for me
to die of suppression of urgent speech, I called to Joao and bade
him interpret. Then calm ensued again until wine was brought.
Then his daughter, almost the only nice-looking Portuguese or
Madeirian girl I ever saw, came in. We were introduced, and,
in default of the correct thing in her native language, I informed
her, in a polite Spanish phrase I happened to recollect, that I was
at her feet. Then, as I knew her brother in Funchal, I called for
the interpreter and told her so as an interesting piece of informa-
tion. She gave me a rose, and, looking out of the window, she
taught me the correct Portuguese for Eagle's Cliff — 'Penha
d'aguila.' We were quite friends.
It was then time for us to return if we meant to keep to our
word and do the double journey in one day. But a vociferous
206 SOME PORTUGUESE SKETCHES.
expostulation came from our host. He talked fast, waved his
hands, shook his head, and was evidently bent on keeping us all
night. We again called in the interpreter, explaining that our
reputation as Englishmen, as horsemen, as men, rested on our
getting back to Funchal that night, and, seeing the point as a
man of honour, he most regretfully gave way, and, having his own
horse saddled, accompanied us some miles on the road. We rode
up another spur, and came to a kind of wayside hut where three
or four paths joined. Here was congregated a brightly-clad crowd
of nearly a hundred men, women, and children. They rose and
saluted us ; we turned and took off our hats. I noticed particu-
larly that this man who owned so much land and was such a
magnate there did the same. I fancied that these people had
gathered there as much to see us pass as for Sunday chatter.
For English travellers on the north side of the island are not very
common, and I dare say we were something in the nature of an
event. Turning at this point to the left, we plunged sharply
downwards towards a bridge over a torrent, and here parted from
our landowning friend. We began to climb an impossible-looking
hill, which my horse strongly objected to. On being urged he
tried to back off the road, and I had some difficulty in persuading
him that he could not kill me without killing himself. But a
slower pace reconciled him to the road, and as I was in no great
hurry I allowed him to choose his own. Certainly the animals
had had a hard day of it even so far, and we had much to do
before night. We were all of us glad to reach the Divide and
stay for a while at the Pouso, or Government House, which was
about half-way. One gets tolerable Madeira there.
It was eight or half-past when we came down in.to Funchal
under a moon which seemed to cast as strongly-marked shadows
as the very sun itself. The rain of the morning had long ago
passed away, and the air was warm — indeed, almost close — after
the last part of the ride on the plateau, which began at night-time
to grow dim with ragged wreaths of mist. Our horses were so
glad to accomplish the journey that they trotted down the steep
stony streets, which rang loudly to their iron hoofs. When we
stopped at the stable I think I was almost as glad as they ; for,
after all, even to an Englishman with his country's reputation to
support, twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle are somewhat
tiring. And though I was much pleased to have seen more of
the Ilha da Madeira than most visitors, I remembered that I had
not been on horseback for nearly five years.
207
A WIDOW'S TALE.
BY MES. OLIPHANT.
CHAPTER V.
MRS. BRUNTON was not, I think, at all comfortable in her mind as
she left her cousin's house. It had been in some sort a trial visit.
She had not gone anywhere, or seen anybody, except aunts and
other uninteresting relations, since she had returned home. She
had paid a long visit to her husband's family, with her children,
where everything of course was mourning and seclusion, and
where she was made more conscious of her widowhood than of any
other condition in her life.; then she had been in the country
with her own people, where everything was subdued in order to
be suitable for poor Nelly ; and then she had been involved in the
trouble of settling, finding a little house, which was nice and not
too dear, which would be good for the children, and quiet, and yet
sufficiently in the way to be accessible to those who were most
interested in her. This had cost a great deal of trouble and kept
her in full occupation, so that it was only when she had settled
down, furnished the house, and arranged everything, and got her
new address neatly printed upon her writing paper and her
visiting cards (if she ever had any need for the latter, which she
doubted) that she had consented to go for a fortnight to Bampton-
Leigh, leaving the children under charge of their excellent nurse,
who had assisted at their birth and was devoted to them — for her
uncle Bampton could not bear children in the house. She had
explained to her only friend at Haven Green, the clergyman's
wife, and still more gravely she had explained to herself, that this
was in every way a trial visit to see whether she could bear
society again. Society, she said to herself, without Jack ! without
the consideration which is accorded to a woman who has her
husband behind her. She did not know how it looked to a widow,
who would naturally be shut out from some things, who might
perhaps be pushed aside among the dowagers, who certainly
would see everything from a different point of view. Should she
be able to bear it ?
Alas, Nelly had felt that she was but too able to bear society !
208 A WIDOW'S TALE.
She had gone into it with the elasticity and ease with which one
elides into one's native element. The absence of Jack behind
o
her, the position of a widow among the dowagers, had never once
come into her mind. She had not even required time to bring
her to the surface, but had risen at once to be, as she had always
been, rather the ringleader than a follower — always in the front of
everything, singing, talking. Nelly felt herself flush and burn all
over, as she sat in the Bampton carriage on the way to the station
with the windows shut between her and the pslting rain ; and
then she burst into a guilty yet irrestrainable laugh. Yes, she
had proved to herself that she was quite able to bear society, and
that the temptation to fall into her old ways was not in any way
lessened by widowhood. She had done the same sort of thing
before now, out of sheer high spirits and love of enjoying herself,
when Jack was alive and looking on, and amused by his wife's
pranks. She had always known that she was too fond of admira-
tion, too fond of fun. It was not the first time, alas ! — and this she
had always known was wicked — that she had given some brother
officer's fiancee a moment of alarm, a thrill of misery, by taking
the man away, and boldly tying him to her own apron strings for
a week or so, for some occasion of festivity, ' for fun,' and to show
what she could do. Nelly laughed, and then she cried, at some of
the recollections thus evoked. Jack had even been brought to
the point of scolding her — not on his own account, but on account
of the lady on the other side. And then Nelly, as gaily as she
had taken him up, had thrown over her prey.
All these naughty and wicked ways — of which she had been
only able to say in self-defence that she meant no harm — were
still in her, it appeared, though she was a widow and had believed
that she never would be equal to society again. Oh, what a
frivolous, unfeeling little wretch she must be ! To think that she
had plunged into it as if nothing had happened ! The faces of
her two cousins — one at the door, seeing her off with such warn-
ings about her imprudence in settling so near town, and the other
in such gloomy gravity at the window behind, watching her going —
could not be remembered without compunction. And Nelly
could not say to herself, as she had done before, that no harm was
done, that the sinner would return and be forgiven. This man
Fitzroy was different. He was not May's fiance \ Perhaps,
Nelly said to herself, he never would have been. He was not a
marrying man ; he was a man who amused himself, and whom to
A WIDOW'S TALE. 209
expose and show in his true light was a good thing for the girl.
But this was mere casuistry, as Nelly knew ; for May had given
the man her heart, or, if not her real heart, at least her imagina-
tion, and she, Nelly, had wickedly taken him away.
It is difficult, however, to see the full enormity of one's own
guilt in such a conjuncture. There is always a certain amuse-
ment in it to the culprit. It is fun — though it is so little fun to
the other persons concerned. Nelly did not, however, feel herself
at all responsible so far as Mr. Fitzroy was concerned. She had
not inspired him with a hopeless passion ; she had probably only
afforded him the means of extricating himself from a situation in
which things were going too far. When Nelly was safely estab-
lished in the railway compartment, restored completely to her
own independence and individuality, with all her packages around
her, a modest tip administered to Johnson, and the Bampton
carriage out of sight, May . indeed floated out of her thoughts ;
but Percy Fitzroy did not so disappear. Should she ever meet
him again ? she wondered. Would he seek her out, as he had said,
at Haven Green ? She felt that it was quite likely he might do
so, being a man who was fond of his amusement ; and if so
Nelly promised herself that the situation should certainly not be
permitted to become strained, or the fun go too far. She had
been more or less irresponsible, a free lance, under Julia Bamp-
ton's eyes ; but in her own little house she would always re-
member that she was Jack's widow, a householder, the head of a
family, a personage in her own right, very different from a girl
protected by home — very different from a young wife thinking of
nothing but a little fun, and with Jack, who understood all her
ways, behind — oh, very different ! She had her dignity to keep
up, her position, her place in life. If this man insisted on
coming, he should be made at once to see that a flirtation was
entirely out of place in these circumstances. He might make a
call — there was nothing to prevent any man making a call— he
might even sing a song, or she might join him in a single duet :
but no more — upon no pretence any more.
No later than the first Sunday after Mrs. Brunton's return
these fine sentiments were put to the test: for Mr. Fitzroy
appeared in the afternoon, early, with the full intention, as was
evident, of staying as long as he should be permitted to stay.
Nelly had not forgotten him at all in that little interval. He
had intruded into her mind a numrjer of times, to her annoyance
VOL. XXI. — NO. 122, N.S. 10
210 A WIDOW'S TALE.
and discomfiture. Why should she keep wondering whether he
would come ? Better that he had come and gone, and Nelly had
never thrown a thought after them. Why should she think about
this man, or whether she should ever see him again ? But she
did, in spite of herself, perhaps because he was the only figure
visible on her way, where there had been once so many. Her
house was a nice little house, made in a sort of imitation of that
country house which is the English ideal. In France and other
countries the better houses of the village are built like town
houses — high, with rows of shuttered windows and a big stair-
case. But in England it is always the country house that is
copied — windows opening upon a little lawn, mimic trees, shrub-
beries, conservatories, the walls covered with climbing plants and
roses.
Nelly's villa had a little verandah on one side, a little hall,
with a tiger skin — one of poor Jack's trophies — spread out in it ; a
drawing-room full of Indian curiosities. She went and came by
the drawing-room window oftener than by the door, and so did her
intimates the clergyman's wife and daughters, who would run
round through the garden and tap at the pane. Of course Mr.
Fitzroy did not do this. He came decorously through the hall,
ushered in by the maid, and was received with a little state by
Mrs. Brunton, who had her two children with her — little Jack,
aged five, and Maysey, aged three. These little people remained
playing in the room during the greater part of the interview, in
which scarcely a word was said about music. Mr. Fitzroy took
the little girl on his knee, and patted the boy on the head, and
asked them Jieir names. ' Ah, Maysey,' he said, ' the same as
your cousin, Miss May Bampton.' ' Yes, the same : for they are
called after the same person, a great authority in the family,'
answered Mrs. Brunton. This was the unexceptionable character
of their talk.
But that was only the first of a series of continual visits,
during which, as was inevitable, the intimacy grew. The piano
was opened on the third or fourth occasion, and after that the
children no longer formed part of Mrs. Brunton's mise en scene.
She did not any longer feel it necessary to keep them in the front,
to keep herself and her visitor in continual remembrance of her
widowhood and her responsibilities. When a friend comes two or
three times in a week, you cannot be always in a state of prepa-
ration for him. You must occasionally fall off your guard, forget
A WIDOW'S TALE. 211
that there is anything in his presence that needs to be guarded
against. The children came in whenever they pleased, but it was
the hour for their walk, or they preferred to play in the garden,
which was much better for them. And Nelly forgot : sometimes
it seemed to her that she forgot everything, their very existence,
and poor Jack who was dead, and India and all her experiences, and
was for a moment now and then as she had been when Jack was a
young lover, and she was nineteen — at home in the old days. It is
curious how a woman, who has had a home of her own for many
years, goes back to the time when her father's house was the only
place that bore that name. ' We used to do that at home,' the
matron will say, with a smile or a tear, realising in a moment the
girl she used to be — with how much stronger reason when she is
only parted from it by some half-dozen years. Nelly felt as if she
were again a girl at home during many of those golden afternoons,
as if nothing had ever happened, as if her life were as yet all to
come. She forgot herself, and that position which had been so much
impressed upon her by all her friends. Poor Nelly ! It was very
wrong for a woman who was a widow, and had been a widow not
eighteen months; but she was young, and her heart was very light
and elastic, rebounding from the deep gloom which was so unnatural
to her character and to her age. For her character, I need not say,
was not a solid and steady one, as that of the mother of these two
little children ought to have been. And it was so sweet to be young
again, to receive the homage which seemed so genuine, to have
the companionship which was so entrancing, to sing with that
other voice which was so suited to hers, to talk and smile, and be
amused, and find the time fly. She did not know many people — no-
body, indeed, but good Mrs. Grlynn and the girls, who were absorbed
in parish work and mothers' meetings, in which they had hoped
and expected Mrs. Brunton would take her part. They had wanted
her to take a district ; they had set apart many things in which
she ought to take an interest. But Nelly's interest had never
been awakened in such things. She would have been dull, very
•dull, in her new home if it had not been for that very different
kind of interest which was so much more in her way. It is im-
possible when you have an excellent nurse who really knows much
better what is right than you do, to occupy your whole time with
a little boy of five and a little girl of three. Nelly gave Jack his
little lesson every morning very punctually, and devoted to the
children as much of the earlier part of the day as remained when
10-2
212 A WIDOW'S TALE.
they had taken their walk, and fulfilled the little routine of their
existence. And then in the afternoon
Well, in the afternoon Mrs. Brunton found it dull. She
went across to the rectory and often found that the girls were all
out about their parish work, or else playing tennis at the house of
some neighbour whom she scarcely knew, or who did not venture
to ask the young widow to appear at a garden party — so soon.
And then Nelly would take a rather mournful, lonely walk. Is it
wonderful that when she saw Mr. Percy Fitzroy coming her heart
gave a jump of pleasure, and her face grew bright with smiles ?
Not at first because he was Percy Fitzroy — but because he was life
and movement and pleasure and fellowship, and because this was
the kind of occupation and entertainment which she had been
most used to in her former career.
CHAPTER VI.
THERE is nothing in the world, as all the world knows, that can
go on for any time at a given point, without developments, and
those probably of an unforeseen sort, especially not a kind of inter-
course like this — the ' friendship,' as Nelly to herself stoutly and
steadily called it. It was much remarked upon, as may be sup-
posed, but not in any unkindly way. Though her neighbours
scarcely knew her as yet, they knew, or thought they knew, that
the young widow about whom they were all prepared to be so much
interested would not, as was said, be a widow much longer. And
her husband not yet a twelvemonth dead, some said, who were of
the class who always hear the wrong version of a story. Others,
who had called upon her and liked her, explained to each other
apologetically that young Mrs. Brunton was a sweet young woman,
and of course could not be expected to make a recluse of herself
at her age. Thus it was with charity, though clear-sightedness, that
the village saw Mrs. Brunton and her ' friend ' from town, followed
by the children and the nurse, walking across the fields towards the
river one September afternoon, the gentleman in boating costume.
Mr. Fitzroy himself was not perhaps so much touched by that
procession as were Nelly's neighbours. He had come early, and
proposed that, as the river was not far off, Mrs. Brunton should go
for a row, to which Nelly had replied with delight — half naturally,
half to cover her own pleasure ; for are not all things mingled in
A WIDOW'S TALE. 213
this world ? — that little Jack had been crying to go on the river,
and that it would be such a treat for the children. Young mothers
have a way of doing this, on much less moving occasions, when the
delight of the children is the last thing in the world of which
their entertainers are thinking. Fitzroy had to make a great gulp
and swallow the children, though he did not like it. The nurse sat
behind him in the boat, and Nelly kept the two little ones beside
her in the stern, and they were very well behaved. But Fitzroy felt
that, had any of his friends seen him on the river in this patriarchal
guise, the joke would have rung through all the clubs -q£iere his
name was known. Happily, however, in September there are few
people about of the club kind. When he came down another time
in his flannels Mrs. Brunton said nothing about the children. She
hesitated a little, and the colour fluttered in her face. Oh, if she
only knew what was the right thing ! There was no harm in
it, certainly. It was like walking along a public street with
him, which was a thing no one could object to. And if she
refused to go, what would he think? or, rather, what would he
think that she was thinking ? He would probably imagine that
she was afraid of him, that she was giving a character to his
friendly attentions which did not belong to them, thinking that
he was in love with her. How silly and vain that would seem ;
how he would laugh in his sleeve to see that this was what she
thought, like any silly girl — she, a woman whom he only considered
as a friend !
This was the argument which made Nelly finally decide to
go. And she enjoyed that row beyond anything she could re-
member. It was as if she had made an escapade as a girl, with
someone who perhaps one day But she never would have
been allowed to make that escapade as a girl. Now, at her present
age and in her position of dignity as a married person, what could
there be wrong in it ? And yet it was rather wrong. She was a
little ashamed, a little self-conscious, hoping that nobody would
see her. And the sunset was so glorious, and the river so golden,
and the sense of a secret, intense companionship so sweet ! There
was very little said between them — nothing, Nelly protested to
herself afterwards, that all the world might not have heard — but
they came home across the fields in the misty lingering autumn
twilight, with a bewildering sense of happiness and perfect com-
munion. ' I do not know,' Fitzroy said, ' when I have spent so
happy an evening.' ' The river was so lovely,' said Nelly, faltering
214 A WIDOW'S TALE.
a little. ' Everything was lovely,' he said. He was so delicate
and considerate that he would not come in, but said good-night to
her at the gate, in the presence, so to speak, of all the world.
And this occurred a good many times, as long as the fine
weather lasted. It would be such a pity, Fitzroy said, not to take
advantage of it, and, indeed, Mrs. Brunton thought so too. And
once or twice he did come in, and there was a little supper, and
he went off in good time for the half-past nine train. Nobody
could say that was late : and then, to be sure, if anyone did say so,
Nelly was not responsible to anybody for her actions. She was
herself the best judge of what was befitting. Perhaps she was not
quite so sure now that nothing was ever said that all the world
might not hear. Things were said — about philosophical subjects,
about the union of souls, about affinities, about the character of
love metaphysically considered, whether a man or a woman could
love twice, whether sometimes in early youth it was not more
imagination than love that moved the heart, whether it did not
require a little experience of life to make you really acquainted
with the force of that sentiment. ' There is no passion in the love
of girls and boys,' Fitzroy said, and he almost convinced Nelly
that passion was the salt of life, the only thing really worth living
for. These discussions perhaps were a little dangerous. But they
were not personal — oh, no ! abstractions merely, the kind of sub-
jects which promote conversation and which draw out the imagina-
tive faculties. The thing that proved this was that there was not
a suggestion of marriage ever made, nothing which approached
that subject. Lovemaking from the point of view of an English-
woman means marriage as a matter of course. And Fitzroy had
never in the most distant way said to Nelly, ' Will you marry me ? '
' Is it possible that you should one day become my wife ? ' He
had talked, oh ! a great deal about love in the abstract. He had
said hurried things, phrases that seemed to escape him, about a
man's ' passion.' And Nelly had felt many times, with a trembling
of all her faculties, that he and she were on the eve of a crisis,
that the moment must soon come in which these decisive words
must be said.
But that crisis never did come, though certainly the excite-
ment of the intercourse grew daily, and the suspense bewildered
and overwhelmed her so that she was entirely absorbed in it, and
no longer her own mistress. She had let the stream carry her
away. From the time when she went out first alone, with some*
A WIDOW'S TALE;. 215
thing of the secret delight of a girl making an escapade, upon the
river with her kind visitor in the early September, till now,
scarcely a month later, what a change had occurred ! Then she
obeyed a pleasurable impulse, partly that he might not think she
thought of anything beyond the pleasant intercourse of an hour or
two ; now she felt her whole existence, her life, her happiness, her
credit with the world, hanging as it were on the breath of his lips.
Would he say, or would he not say, the words which would make
all clear ? For a time after every meeting she felt as if she had
barely escaped from that supreme scene, holding it off, according
to a woman's instinct ; and then a chill began to creep over Nelly
when he went away without a word : and life and everything
concerning her seemed to hang in that suspense. Poor Nelly !
poor, foolish, unsuspicious creature ! If she had ever been a cruel
little flirt in her heedlessness, never meaning any harm, she was
punished now.
One night — it was early in October — Fitzroy stayed late and
shared Nelly's supper, and lingered after it, going back to the
drawing-room with her, not taking leave of her in the little hall as
he was in the habit of doing ; and thus he missed the half-past
nine train. But what did that matter ? for there were two later,
and an hour's delay could not after all make much difference. They
were both full of emotion and suppressed excitement, and Nelly
felt that the crisis could not be much longer delayed. She made,
however, that invariable effort to keep it at arm's length, to talk
of other things, which is one evidence that things have come to an
alarming pass. She chattered, she laughed, flushed with feeling,
with suspense and excitement, thinking every moment that the
passion (certainly there was what he called ' passion ') in his eyes
must burst forth. But still the suspense went on. Nelly's nerves
and spirit were almost on the point of breaking down when she
was suddenly roused by the chiming of the clock. ' Oh,' she cried,
' eleven ! you must run, you must fly ! You have not a moment
to lose for your train — the last train ! '
He looked at her for a moment with unutterable things in his
eyes. ' Is it so very indispensable that I should catch the last
train ? Nelly ! how can I leave you ? How can you send me away,
when you know how I love, how I adore '
There came at this moment a sharp knock at the door.
' If you please, ma'am,' said Nelly's excellent nurse, ' there's
just time for Mr. Fitzroy to catch the last train.'
216 4 WIDOW'S TALE.
And he had to go, seizing his hat, hurrying out with an
apology for staying till the last moment, while Nelly, trembling,
terrified, shrank back into the room where a little fire was still
burning, though the night was warm. She went back to it with
the chill of exhausted nerves, and held out her hands to the
smouldering glow, while nurse locked and bolted the hall door with
unnecessary noise and commotion. Then that excellent woman
once more put her head into the room with a look which Nelly
could not meet. ' Is there anything I can get for you, ma'am,
before I go to bed ? ' she said.
Nelly thanked her, hurriedly recalling her faculties. ' How
glad I am you came to warn Mr. Fitzroy, nurse ! I had told him,
but he paid no attention. Grentlemen always think they can catch
a train by a rush at the last moment.' She felt that she was
apologising to nurse, and was ashamed of doing so, though it was
shame and uneasiness which had forced the words to her lips.
Nurse did not commit herself to any approval or condonation of
her mistress's behaviour. She said only ' Yes, ma'am,' and marched
upstairs with measured steps to bed.
Nelly sat down on a low chair in front of the smouldering fire.
She was trembling all over, scarcely able to command herself, her
cheeks burning with the heat of excitement, yet her teeth chatter-
ing with a nervous chill, her strength almost completely broken
down. Now that she was alone the tension of her nerves gave
way : the light went out of her eyes, her heart seemed to suffocate
her, struggling in her breast. The agitation of her whole being
prostrated her physically as well as mentally. She lay back upon
her chair, as if its support were necessary to hold her together,
and then she bent forward, holding her trembling hands to the fire.
Had the crisis come, not as she had expected, but in a form that
she did not understand ? or was this strange interrupted climax a
mere break in the stream, no end at ah1, a broken thread to be
taken up again to-inorrow and to-morrow indefinitely ? Nelly was
not capable of forming these questions in her mind, but they
swept through the whirlwind within her, with a horror and alarm
which she did not understand and knew not how to explain.
"What had he said ? Why had he said that and not something
else ? What had she done that he had looked at her so ? No,
she did not ask herself all this ; these questions only went whirling
about in the wild commotion of her soul. She did not know how
long she sat thus, incapable of movement. The fire sank lower,
A WIDOW'S TALB. 217
and she felt, without knowing whence it came, a chill draught
from her right hand where the window was, but took no notice,
perceiving it only, not in a condition of mind to account for it.
But Mrs. Brunton suddenly sat up erect, and all that tempest
stopped in a moment, at the sound of a footstep outside and a
tap on the window. What was it ? Oh, heaven ! what was it ?
She suddenly remembered in a moment that the window had
been unfastened because the room was too warm. The shutters
had been almost closed upon it, leaving only the smallest opening
to give a little air, and Nelly had forgotten all about it, in her
agitation and trouble. She sat for a moment motionless in her
panic, thinking of burglars and robbery, not daring to stir. Then
there came another tapping, and a low voice. ' Mrs. Brunton, I
have lost my train; I remembered that the window was open;
may I come in ? '
The next moment, without waiting for any reply — which,
indeed, Nelly in her consternation was unable to give — he pushed
open the window quickly and came into the room. She stood
petrified, staring at him, feeling as if she must have gone suddenly
road, and that all this was a hallucination, as he entered with a
glow of triumph in his face.
' Nelly,' he said, coming forward to her, dropping down on his
knee by the side of her chair. ' Darling, you left it open for me !
You knew I would come back.'
It all happened in a moment, and in a moment Nelly had to
make her decision : her life, her fate, her good name, everything
in the world worth thinking of, was in the turn of the scale. If he
had not made that suggestion, heaven knows, in this prostration
of her whole being, what poor Nelly might have done. But it gave
her a sting of offence too sharp to bear.
' I left it open for you ! ' she cried, starting up. ' You must
be mad, Mr. Fitzroy ! What do you want ? What do you want ?
Why have you come back here ? '
He was startled by the terror, yet almost fury, in her eyes.
' Forgive me,' he said, starting up also, facing her, ' I have lost my
train. You know it is the last. What could I do but come back
to the only house where I am known ? and I thought you would
not refuse me shelter for the night.'
' Oh,' she said almost wildly, ' shelter — for the night ! '
' May I close the window ? It's rather cold, and you are
shivering. If I have frightened you, forgive me, forgive me !
218 A WIDOW'S TALE.
Eat her than that, I would have walked to London or sat down on
a doorstep.'
' I am not frightened,' said Mrs. Brunton with a gasp. Her
senses came back to her ; she felt that she must keep very cool,
and make no scene. ' It was a little alarming to see a man come
in,' she said. ' It is very unfortunate that you should have lost
your train. I am afraid you will not be very comfortable, but we
will do the best we can for you.'
He caught her sleeve as she was turning to the door. ' Where
are you going ? ' he cried.
' Only to call one of the maids to make a room ready for you.'
' I want no room,' he said. ' An hour or two on the sofa will
be luxury ; and I shall be off in the morning by dawn of day, and
disturb no one. Nobody need know : and you are not the sort of
girl to think of Mrs. Grrundy. Nelly, my darling ! stay, stay
with me a bit ! what is the use of taking me in if you leave me
like this ? Half an hour, just half an hour, to finish our talk ! '
' When I have given my orders perhaps,' said Nelly. She
would not stop even to forbid the familiarity of his address. She
walked out of the room with composed steps, but as soon as she
was outside flew up the dark staircase to the nursery, where nurse,
an anxious and troubled woman, was not yet asleep. Mrs. Brun-
ton went in like a ghost to the room in which the night light was
burning, where the children were breathing softly in their cribs.
' Nurse,' she said, with all the composure she could command,
' Mr. Fitzroy has come back ; he has lost his train. I want you to
get up and prepare the spare room for him. I am sorry: but
what else can we do ? '
Nurse looked fixedly at her mistress in the light of the candle
which Nelly had just lighted, and which came to life in a sudden
glare upon her agitated face. 'Yes, ma'am,' she said quietly,
beginning to dress.
What a strange agitated scene in the middle of the silent
night ! The man below could not have been more dismayed by
the appearance of a band of soldiers than he was by the quiet,
respectable, respectful maidservant who came in with a candle to
show him to his room, and whose polite determination to get rid
of him, to put out the lamp and see that everything was safe for
the night, was full of the most perfect calm. ' I'll go upstairs
presently ; but you need not wait,' he said. ' Oh sir, I don't mind
waiting; but my mistress likes me to see the lights out. I'll
A WIDOW'S TALE. 219
be in the next room when you are ready, sir, to show you the
way.'
He was moved at last to ask impatiently ' Is not Mrs. Brunton
coming downstairs again ? '
' Oh dear no, sir : my mistress is passing the night in the
nursery, for master Jack is a little feverish, and he never will part
with his mamma when once he sees her. If she offered to go away
he'd scream so, he'd raise the whole house.'
Fitzroy glared at this guardian of the little helpless household
— a very respectful, very obliging maidservant — making light of
the trouble a nocturnal visitor gave. He could no more have
resisted or insulted this woman than if she had been a queen.
He followed her quite humbly to his room, not daring to say a
word. He might as well have been in a hotel, hje said bitterly to
himself.
When nurse went back- she found poor Nelly sitting on the
floor between the two little beds, her head leaning on one of them,
holding fast the rail of the other, and weeping as if her heart
would break.
Next morning Mr. Fitzroy left the cottage early without ask-
ing to see Mrs. Brunton. It was, indeed, too early to disturb the
lady of the house.
CHAPTEE VII.
MRS. BRUNTON woke next morning with an aching head and a
confused mind, not knowing for a moment what had happened to
her. Was it a nightmare ? a dreadful dream ? She had not slept
till morning, and then had fallen into an ilnrestful torpor, full
of the broken reminiscences of the night. A nightmare ! that
was most like what it was — until she came to herself all at once,
and remembered everything.
Everything ! and yet did not in the least understand. What
had been the meaning of it all ? It was more like a nightmare
than ever as all the different incidents come back upon her mind.
The lingering, the wild talk — the question, ' Must I go away ? '
The cry 'J. love you, I adore ' and nurse coming in to save
her mistress perhaps from wilder utterances still. ' Was it indis-
pensable that he should go by thejast train ? ' What a question !
Was it not indispensable — more ! exacted by every feeling, by
every necessity ? ' I love you, I adore .' Oh yes, these words
220 A WIDOW'S TALE.
made poor Nelly's heart beat; but they were not words a man
should have said in the silence of the night to a woman without
any protection, with a wild heart leaping and struggling in her
bosom, and to whose code of possible existence something else,
something very different was needful. Was it indispensable ? —
oh ! it was not, it was not that, a man should have asked. He
might love her, but what kind of love was it to humble a woman
in her own esteem, to make her ask herself ' What have I done, oh
what have I done, that I should be spoken to so ? ' Nelly did not
think of her reputation, of honour, or, as he dared to suggest, of
what people might say. Mrs. Grundy ! That was all very well
for the light follies that mean nothing, the laughing transgression
of a formal rule. But the shock of his look, the horror of his return
struck at her very being. It seemed to her that she could die
of shame only to remember it. And what could he think of her ?
Was it indispensable ? Had not she left the window open for him ?
Had she not known he would come back ?
0 God, 0 God ! These words, that come to us by instinct at
the most dreadful moments, were not profane exclamations in
poor Nelly's case. She sat up in her bed, and wrung her hands,
and uttered that wild appeal — not a prayer, for her brain was too
distracted for prayer — but only an appeal, a cry. The words he
had said kept whirling through her mind, till they came to have
no meaning except the one meaning of horror and pain : ' indis-
pensable,' and ' Mrs. Grundy,' and ' you knew I would come
back.' Oh, what kind of woman must he have thought her to
think that she knew he would come back, to leave the window
open for him ? The last train, was it indispensable ? and the
window left open — and Nelly had to seize herself, as it were, with
both hands, to keep her reason, to stop the distracted rush of
those words over and over and over again through her brain.
There was a lull when nurse came in — nurse, who had been her
saviour from she did not know what, who had cut the dreadful
knot, but who must not, not even she, know the tempest which was
going on in Nelly's being. She stopped that nervous wringing of
her hands, pulled herself together, tried to smile. ' How dread-
fully late I am ! How did I come to be so late ? ' she cried.
' It was the fright, ma'am, last night.'
' I — I — was just trying to recall that, nurse. Mr. Fitzroy ' —
she could not say his name without flushing scarlet all over to the
tips of her fingers — ' lost his train, and came back ? '
' He did, ma'am,' said nurse, with severe self-restraint.
A WIDOW'S TALE. 221
' He ought not to have done it, nurse.'
' Indeed, ma'am, he ought not to have done it.' Nurse shut
up her lips firmly, that other words might not burst forth.
' He — gave me — a terrible fright, nurse. I had forgotten that
the window was open.'
' Yes, Mrs. Brunton.' Poor Nelly looked so wistfully in the
woman's face, not explaining further, not asking her support in
words, but so clearly desiring it, that nurse's heart was deeply
touched. ' I think, ma'am,' she said, ' if you'll not be angry '
Nelly's face was heartrending to behold. She expected nothing
but condemnation, and how could she accept it, how defend her-
self against it, from her servant, her dependent, a woman who at
least might have been expected to be on her side ? If nurse had
indeed condemned her, Nelly's pride might have been aroused,
but now she sat with her eyes piteously fixed upon her, appealing
to her as if against a sentence of death.
' If you won't be angry with me, ma'am,' repeated nurse, ' and
if I may make so bold as to say it, I think you behaved just as a
lady ought — not stopping to argue with him, but coming right
away, and leaving the gentleman to me.'
' 0 nurse ! ' cried Nelly, bursting into tears with a relief un-
speakable. ' 0 nurse ! thank God that you think I did right.'
' It was an awful trial for a lady, a young lady like you — oh,
an awful trial, enough to drive you out of your senses ! ' Nelly
had flung herself on the woman's shoulder and lay sobbing there,
while nurse patted her tenderly, as if she had been one of the
children. ' Don't take on now, don't, there's a dear lady ! Get up,
ma'am, and dress quick, and don't spoil your eyes with crying. I
saw Mrs. Grlynn at the Kectory door, looking as if she were coming
here.'
' 0 nurse ! I cannot see her ! You must say I have a head-
ache.'
' Not this morning, Mrs. Brunton, oh, not this morning,' cried
nurse, ' if I may make so bold as to say it. Come down and look
your own self ; and I would own to the fright, if I was you.'
.To say that Nelly was not half-angry at nurse's interference,
which she had evoked, would scarcely have been true. She began
to resent it the moment that she had most benefitted by it, as
was natural. But she also recognised its -truth. And she dressed
with as much care as possible, and did all she could to efface the
'signs of agitation and trouble from her face. Nelly was like most
people in a dreadful social emergency ; she forgot that Mrs. Grlynn
222 A WIDOW'S TALE.
was the kindest of women. She began to ask herself, with ficti-
tious wrath, if this was indeed Mrs. Grundy, the impertinent
inquisitor, come to inquire into her private affairs, with which she
had nothing to do — nothing ! She immediately perceived, arrayed
against her, an evil-speaking, evil-thinking world, making the
worst of everything, accepting no explanation, incapable of under-
standing ! When she walked down to the drawing-room it was not
Nelly, the kind and confident girl-widow, nor was it Mrs. Brunton,
the young matron secure in her own right and the protection of
her home and her children, feeble shields as these were against
the world ; it was rather an army with banners, spears flashing, and
flags flying, which marched against the enemy, defying fate.
It was Mrs. Glynn who looked pale and unhappy when Nelly
went into the room. She was old enough to be Mrs. Brunton's
mother, and in the tenderness of her heart the Rector's wife felt
something like it as the younger woman appeared. Her ex-
perienced glance showed her in a moment that Nelly was self-
conscious and defiant, which meant, of course, that her information
was correct, and that something dreadful had occurred. They
bade each other good morning and kissed — as ladies do in the
habit of intimacy, which generally means so little — Nelly meeting
the salute with a little impatience, Mrs. Glynn giving it with a
marked and lingering tenderness, which also was to Mrs. Brunton
an offence ; and then they talked for a moment or two about the
beauty of the autumn morning, the health of the children, and
various other small subjects of no immediate interest. Then Mrs.
Grlynn was silent for a moment, and said softly, ' Mrs. Brunton ! '
and paused, hesitating, looking wistfully in Nelly's face.
' Yes.'
' I am afraid you will be angry. I have come to say something
— to ask you Dear Mrs. Brunton, you are very young — and
I — knew your mother.'
' Yes,' said Nelly again, with an attempt at cheerfulness.
' Please tell me at once what it is. Have I done anything
wrong ? ' She gave a little, nervous laugh. An altogether inno-
cent person would have been frightened, but Nelly knew every
word that was going to be said, and steeled herself for the ordeal.
' The Rector,' said Mrs. Glynn, ' came home by the last train
last night : and he saw someone — a gentleman — go in at your
gate. He was frightened — for you, my dear ; and he stood still
and watched, meaning to call a policeman if anything was wrong ;
and then he saw who it was, recognising him in the moonlight.
A WIDOW'S TALE. 223
Dear Mrs. Brunton ! Mr. Glynn came home to me in great dis-
tress. We have done nothing all night but think, and think, what
we ought to do. Oh, my dear girl, hear me out ! You are so
young, and you have been used to such different ways in India,
such hospitality, and all that. We know it, and we know that
people there keep a sort of open house, that friends are constantly
visiting each other. But it's not so here, and you don't know how
people talk, and I thought you would, perhaps, let me speak to
you, warn you
' Of what ? ' said Nelly, with white lips. All sorts of plans and
thoughts had rushed through her mind while this address was
made to her — quick impulses, bad and good, to overwhelm her
visitor with scorn, to refuse to answer, to turn the meddling
woman out of her house. But oh, on the other hand, she wanted
help so much ! to throw herself upon this kind woman's breast, at
her feet. For a moment this battle raged fiercely in her breast,
and she herself knew not which side would win. ' Mrs. Grundy,'
she said, at length, with a smile upon her parched mouth, not able
to articulate any more.
' Mrs. Grundy ! ' said the Hector's wife. ' Oh, my dear, I am
not Mrs. Grrundy; I am a very anxious friend, anxious to help
you, to do anything. Oh, let me help you ! We are sure there
must be an explanation.'
' No,' cried Nelly, ' you are not Mrs. Grundy, I know ; I was a
fool to say that.'
' Thank you, my dear. You are so young, and a stranger — a
stranger to our village ways, Mrs. Brunton ! ' The good woman took
Nelly's hand in both of hers, and looked at her with appealing eyes.
' I will tell you precisely how it was,' said Nelly, hastily, as
quickly turned to the good as to the bad impulse. ' Nobody was
to blame. Mr. Fitzroy ' She grew red at the name, and then
felt herself chill all over — chill to her very heart, turning as pale
as she had been red, as if some ice wind had blown over her. The
sensation made her pause for a moment. ' Mr. Fitzroy stayed a
little too late last night ; he left himself scarcely time to catch
the train — men are so apt to do that. They think they can rush
in a moment.'
' I know,' said Mrs. Glynn, pressing her hand.
' And he lost it,' said Nelly, faltering. ' He came back : and he
remembered that the drawing-room window had been left a little
open, and he thought it better to come round by the garden
instead of — instead of rousing the house.'
224 A WIDOW'S TALE.
' Tell me,' said Mrs. Gflynn, ' one moment ; are you engaged
to him, my dear ? '
Nelly drooped her head. ' Not yet,' she said. ' You shall
know everything. He was — saying that — when nurse came to
tell him he must fly for his train.'
' Ah ! ' cried Mrs. Gflynn, pressing Nelly's hand in both hers,
' now I begin to see ! And he came back to have it out ! Oh.
how glad I am I came ! Now I can see all the excuses for him.
It was an error of judgment, but it was very natural. My dear,
my dear : and then ? '
' There was no more,' Nelly said, raising her head. With what
relief she heard that — excuses for him ! even for him. ' I was
very much frightened,' she added, with new confidence, ' for I had
forgotten the window was open, and I thought — I don't know what
I thought. I ran upstairs at once to bid nurse prepare a room for
him — and I did not see him again.'
' (rod bless you, my dear,' cried the Rector's wife, taking Nelly
into her arms and giving her a kiss. ' That was the very best
thing you could have done ; unless you had sent him over to us to
the Rectory, but of course you did not think of that. Oh, how
glad I am I came ! Oh, how pleased my husband will be ! It was
what I would have wished you to have done if you had been my
own child. But what a situation for you ! what a moment, my poor
dear ! It was wrong — it was very wrong of him ; he ought to have
known better : but yet, a young man ! and interrupted at the very
moment when — He was wrong, but there were excuses for him,
my dear.'
Mrs. Grlynn stayed for some time, full of sympathy and con-
solation. ' He has behaved very foolishly, my love. He ought
not to have come, and, being here, he ought not to have gone
away so soon. He ought to have left openly, like any other
visitor, and settled everything before he went. But a young man
in the height of passion — ' It was a comfort to Nelly that good
Mrs. Gflynn said ' passion,' too. ' Of course, he will come back in
the afternoon, and you will have your explanation,' she added.
' And then you will come to the Rectory, and bring him to see us ;
you will — you will, promise me you will ? And, oh, God bless you,
and make it a happy change for you, my dear ! '
(To J)e continued.)
THE
COENHILL MAGAZINE.
SEPTEMBER 1893.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER IX.
TO PASS THE TIME.
Quand on n'a pas ce que Ton aime, il faut aimer ce que Ton a.
' YOUR energy, my dear lady, is not the least of many attributes.'
Lady Cantourne looked up from her writing-desk with her
brightest smile. Sir John Meredith was standing by the open
window, leaning against the jamb thereof with a grace that had
lost its youthful repose. He was looking out, across a sloping lawn,
over the Solent, and for that purpose he had caused himself to be
clad in a suit of blue serge. He looked the veteran yachtsman to
perfection — he could look anything in its season — but he did his
yachting from the shore — by preference from the drawing-room
window.
' One must keep up with the times, John,' replied the lady,
daintily dipping her quill.
' And " the times " fills its house from roof to cellar with people
who behave as if they were in a hotel. Some of them — say num-
ber five on the first floor, number eleven on the second, or some of
the atticated relatives — announce at breakfast that they will not
be home to lunch. Another says he cannot possibly be home to
dinner at half-past seven, and so on. " The times " expects a great
deal for its money, and does not even allow one to keep the small
change of civility.'
Lady Cantourne^fas blotting vigorously.
' I admit,' she answered, ' that the reaction is rather strong ;
reactions are always stronger than they intend to be. In our
VOL. XXI. — NO. 123, N.S. 11
226 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
early days the formalities were made too much of: now they
are '
' Made into a social hash,' he suggested, when she paused for a
word, ' where the prevailing flavour is the common onion of com-
merce ! Now, I'll wager any sum that that is an invitation to
someone you do not care a screw about.'
' It is. But, Sir John, the hash must be kept moving ; cold
hash is not palatable. I will tell you at once, I am inviting young
Semoor to fill the vacancy caused by Mr. Oscard's departure.'
' Ah ! Mr. Oscard proposes depriving us of his — society.'
' He leaves to-morrow. He only came to say good-bye.'
' He moves on — to some other hostelry ? '
' No ! He is going to '
She paused, so that Sir John was forced to turn in courteous
inquiry and look her in the face.
'Africa!' she added sharply, never taking her bright eyes
from his face.
She saw the twitching of the aged lips before his hand got
there to hide them. She saw his eyes fall before her steady gaze,
and she pitied him while she admired his uncompromising pride.
' Indeed ! ' he said. ' I have reason to believe,' he added, turn-
ing to the window again, ' that there is a great future before that
country ; all the intellect of Great Britain seems to be converg-
ing in its direction.'
Since his departure Jack's name had never been mentioned,
even between these two whose friendship dated back a generation.
Once or twice Sir John had made a subtle passing reference to him,
such as perhaps no other woman but Lady Cantourne could have
understood ; but Africa was, so to speak, blotted out of Sir John
Meredith's map of the world. It was there that he kept his
skeleton — the son who had been his greatest pride and his deepest
humiliation — his highest hope in life — almost the only failure of
his career.
He stood there by the window, looking out with that well-bred
interest in details of sport and pastime which was part of his creed.
He braved it out even before the woman who had been a better
friend to him than his dead wife. Not even to her would he con-
fess that any event of existence could reach him through the im-
penetrable mask he wore before the world. Not even she must
know that aught in his life could breathe of failure or disappoint-
ment. As it is given to the best of women to want to take their
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 227
sorrows to another, so the strongest men instinctively deny their
desire for sympathy.
Lady Cantourne, pretending to select another sheet of note-
paper, glanced at him with a pathetic little smile. Although they
had never been anything to each other, these two people had passed
through many of the trials to which humanity is heir almost side
by side. But neither had ever broken down. Each acted as a
sort of mental tonic on the other. They had tacitly agreed, years
before, to laugh at most things. She saw, more distinctly than
any, the singular emptiness of his clothes, as if the man was
shrinking, and she knew that the emptiness was of the heart.
Sir John Meredith had taught his son that Self and Self alone
reigns in the world. He had taught him that the thing called
Love, with a capital L, is nearly all self, and that it finally dies in
the arms of Self. He had told him that a father's love, or a son's,
or a mother's, is merely a matter of convenience, and vanishes
when Self asserts itself.
Upon this principle they were both acting now, with a strik-
ingly suggestive similarity of method. Neither was willing to admit
to the world in general, and to the other in particular, that a cynical
theory could possibly be erroneous.
1 1 am sorry that our young friend is going to leave us,' said
Sir John, taking up and unfolding the morning paper. ' He is
honest and candid, if he is nothing else.'
This meant that Guy Oscard's admiration for Millicent Chyne
had never been concealed for a moment, and Lady Cantourne
knew it.
'He interests me,' went on the old aristocrat, studying the
newspaper ; and his hearer knew the inner significance of the
remark.
At times she was secretly ashamed of her niece, but that esprit
de corps which binds women together prompted her always to de-
fend Millicent. The only defence at the moment was silence, and
tin assumed density which did not deceive Sir John — even she
could not do that,
In the meantime Miss Millicent Chyne was walking on the sea-
wall at the end of the garden with Guy Oscard. One of the ne-
cessary acquirements of a modern educational outfit is the power
of looking perfectly at home in a score of different costumes during
the year, and, needless to say, Miss Chyne was perfectly finished in
this art. The manner in which she wore her sailor-hat, her blue
11—2
228 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
serge, and her neat brown shoes conveyed to the onlooker, and
especially the male of that species (we cannot in conscience call
them observers), the impression that she was a yachtswoman born
and bred. Her delicate complexion was enhanced by the faintest
suspicion of sunburn and a few exceedingly becoming freckles.
There was a freedom in her movements which had not been observ-
able in London drawing-rooms. This was Diana-like and in perfect
keeping with the dainty sailor outfit ; moreover, nine men out of
ten would fail to attribute the difference to sundry cunning strings
within the (London) skirt.
' It is sad,' Millicent was saying, ' to think that we shall have
no more chances of sailing. The wind has quite dropped, that
horrid tide is running, and — this is your last day.'
She ended with a little laugh, knowing full well that there was
little sentiment in the big man by her side.
' Keally,' she went on, ' I think I should be able to manage a
boat in time, don't you think so ? Please encourage me. I am
sure I have tried to learn.'
But he remained persistently grave. She did not like that
gravity ; she had met it before in the course of her experiments.
One of the grievances harboured by Miss Millicent Chyne against
the opposite sex was that they could not settle down into a harm-
less, honest flirtation. Of course, this could be nothing but a flirta-
tion of the lightest and most evanescent description. She was
engaged to Jack Meredith — poor Jack, who was working for her,
ever so hard, somewhere near the Equator — and if G/uy Oscard did
not know this he had only himself to blame. There were plenty
of people ready to tell him. He had only to ask.
Millicent Chyne, like Gruy, was hampered at the outset of
life by theories upon it. Experience, the fashionable novel, and
modern cynicism had taught her to expect little from human
nature — a dangerous lesson, for it eases responsibility, and re-
sponsibility is the ten commandments rolled into a compact whole,
suitable for the pocket.
She expected of no man — not even of Jack — that perfect faith-
fulness in every word and thought which is read of in books. And
it is one of the theories of the day that what one does not expect
one is not called upon to give. Jack, she reflected, was too much
a man of the world to expect her to sit and mope alone. She was
apparently incapable of seeing the difference between that pastime
and sitting on the sea-wall behind a large flowering currant-tree
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 229
with a man who did not pretend to hide the fact that he was in
love with her. Some women are thus.
' I do not know if you have learnt much,' he answered. ' But
I have.'
' What have you learnt ? ' she asked in a low voice, half-
fascinated by the danger into which she knew that she was running.
1 That I love you,' he answered, standing squarely in front of
her, and announcing the fact with a deliberate honesty which was
rather startling. ' I was not sure of it before, so I stayed away
from you for three weeks ; but now I know for certain.'
' Oh, you mustn't say that ! '
She rose hastily and turned away from him. There was in her
heart a sudden feeling of regret. It was the feeling that the
keenest sportsman sometimes has when some majestic monarch of
the forest falls before his merciless rifle — a sudden passing desire
that it might be undone. .
' Why not ? ' he asked. He was desperately in earnest, and
that which made him a good sportsman — an unmatched big game
hunter, calm and self-possessed in any strait — gave him a strange
deliberation now, which Millicent Chyne could not understand.
'Why not?'
' I do not know — because you mustn't.'
And in her heart she wanted him to say it again.
' I am not ashamed of it,' he said, ' and I do not see why I
should not say it to you — or to anyone else, so far as that goes.'
' No, never ! ' she cried, really frightened. ' To me it does not
matter so much. But to no one else — no, never ! Aunt Marian
must not know it — nor Sir John.'
' I cannot see that it is any business of Sir John's. Of course,
Lady Cantourne would have liked you to marry a title ; but if you
cared for me she would be ready to listen to reason.'
In which judgment of the good lady he was no doubt right-
especially if reason spoke with the voice of three thousand pounds
per annum.
' Do you care for me ? ' he asked, coming a little closer.
There was a whole world of gratified vanity and ungratified
curiosity for her in the presence of this strong man at her elbow.
It was one of the supreme triumphs of her life, because he was
different from the rest. He was for her, what his first tiger had
been for him. The danger that he might come still nearer had
for her a sense of keen pleasure. She was thoroughly enjoying
230 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
herself, and the nearest approach that men can experience to the
joy that was hers is the joy of battle.
' I cannot answer that — not now.'
And the little half-shrinking glance over her shoulder was a
low-minded, unmaidenly invitation. But he was in earnest, and
he was, above all, a gentleman. He stood his ground a yard
away from her.
' Then when,' he asked, — £ when will you answer me ? '
She stood with her back turned towards him, looking out over
the smooth waters of the Solent, where one or two yachts and a
heavy black schooner were creeping up on the tide before the
morning breeze. She drummed reflectively with her fingers on
the low stone wall. Beneath them a few gulls whirled and
screamed over a shoal of little fish. One of the birds had a sin-
gular cry, as if it were laughing to itself.
' You said just now,' Millicent answered at length, ' that you
were not sure yourself — not at first — and, therefore, you cannot
expect me to know all at once.'
' You would know at once,' he argued gravely, ' if it was going
to be no. If you do not say no now, I can only think that it may
be yes some day. And — ' he came closer — he took the hand that
hung at her side — conveniently near — ' and I don't want you to
say no now. Don't say no ! I will wait as long as you like for
yes. Millicent, I would rather go on waiting and thinking that
it is going to be yes, even if it is no after all.'
She said nothing, but she left her hand in his.
' May I go on thinking that it will be yes until I come back ? '
' I cannot prevent your thinking, can I ? ' she whispered with
a tender look in her eyes.
' And may I write to you ? f
She shook her head.
' Well — 1 — 1 Now and then,' he pleaded. ' Not often.
Just to remind you of my existence.'
She gave a little laugh, which he liked exceedingly and remem-
bered afterwards.
' If you like,' she answered.
At this moment Lady Cantourne's voice was heard in the dis-
tance, calling them.
' There ! ' exclaimed Millicent. ' We must go at once. And
no one — no one, mind — must know of this.'
' No one shall know of it,' he answered.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 231
CHAPTER X.
LOANGO.
Faithful and hopeful, wise in charity,
Strong in grave peace, in pity circumspect.
I
THOSE who for their sins have been to Loango will scarcely care
to have its beauties recalled to memory. And to such as have
not yet visited the spot one can only earnestly recommend a care-
ful avoidance.
Suffice it to say, therefore, that there is such a place, and the
curious may find it marked in larger type than it deserves on the
map of Africa, on the West Coast of that country, and within an
inch or so of the Equator.
Loango has a bar, and outside of that mysterious and some-
what suggestive nautical hindrance the coasting steamers anchor,
while the smaller local fry find harbour nearer to the land. The
passenger is not recommended to go ashore — indeed, many diffi-
culties are placed in his way, and he usually stays on board while
the steamer receives or discharges a scanty cargo, rolling cease-
lessly in the Atlantic swell. The roar of the surf may be heard,
and at times some weird cry or song. There is nothing to tempt
even the most adventurous through that surf. A moderately
large white building attracts the eye, and usually brings upon
itself a contemptuous stare, for it seems to be the town of Loango,
marked so bravely on the map. As a matter of fact the town is
five miles inland, and the white building is only a factory or
trading establishment.
Loango is the reverse of cheerful. To begin with, it is usually
raining there. The roar of the surf — than which there are few
sadder sounds on earth — fills the atmosphere with a never-ceasing
melancholy. The country is over-wooded ; the tropical vegetation,
the huge tangled African trees stand almost in the surf; and
inland the red serrated hills mount guard in gloomy array. For
Europeans this country is accursed. From the mysterious forest-
land there creeps down a subtle, tainted air that poisons the white
man's blood, and either strikes him down in a fever or terrifies
him by strange unknown symptoms and sudden disfiguring dis-
ease. The Almighty speaks very plainly sometimes and in some
232 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
places — nowhere more plainly than on the West Coast of Africa,
which land He evidently wants for the black man. We, of the
fairer skin, have Australia now ; we are taking America, we are
dominant in Asia ; but somehow we don't get on in Africa. The
Umpire is there, and He insists on fair play.
' This is not cheery,' Jack Meredith observed to his servant as
they found themselves deposited on the beach within a stone's
throw of the French factory.
' No, sir, not cheery, sir,' replied Joseph. He was very busy
attending to the landing of their personal effects, and had only
time to be respectful. It was Joseph's way to do only one thing
at a, time, on the principle, no doubt, that enough for the moment
is the evil thereof. His manner implied that, when those coloured
gentlemen had got the baggage safely conveyed out of the boats
on to the beach, it would be time enough to think about Loango.
Moreover, Joseph was in his way rather a dauntless person.
He held that there were few difficulties which he and his master,
each in his respective capacity, were unable to meet. This African
mode of life was certainly not one for which he had bargained
when taking service ; but he rather enjoyed it than otherwise, and
he was consoled by the reflection that what was good enough for
his master was good enough for him. Beneath the impenetrable
mask of a dignified servitude he knew that this was ' all along of
that Chyne girl,' and rightly conjectured that it would not last for
ever. He had an immense respect for Sir John, whom he tersely
described as a ' game one,' but his knowledge of the world went
towards the supposition that headstrong age would finally bow before
headstrong youth. He did not, however, devote much considera-
tion to these matters, being a young man, although an old soldier,
and taking a lively interest in the present.
It had been arranged by letter that Jack Meredith should put
up, as his host expressed it, at the small bungalow occupied by
Maurice Gordon and his sister. Gordon was the local head of a
large trading association somewhat after the style of the old East
India Company, and his duties partook more of the glory of a
governor than of the routine of a trader.
Of Maurice Gordon's past Meredith knew nothing beyond the
fact that they were schoolfellows strangely brought together again
on the deck of a coasting steamer. Maurice Gordon was not a
reserved person, and it was rather from a lack of opportunity than
from an excess of caution that he allowed his new-found friend to
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 233
go up the Ogowe river, knowing so little of himself, Maurice
Gordon of Loango.
There were plenty of willing guides and porters on the beach ;
for in this part of Africa there is no such thing as continued and
methodical labour. The entire population considers the lilies of
the fields to obvious purpose.
Joseph presently organised a considerable portion of this
population into a procession, headed triumphantly by an old white-
woolled negro whose son cleaned Maurice Gordon's boots. This
man Joseph selected — not without one or two jokes of a some-
what personal nature — as a fitting guide to the Gordons' house.
As they neared the little settlement on the outskirts of the black-
town where the mission and other European residences are
situated, the veteran guide sent on couriers to announce the
arrival of the great gentleman, who had for body-servant the father
of laughter.
On finally reaching the bungalow Meredith was pleasantly
surprised. It was pretty and homelike — surrounded by a garden
wherein grew a strange profusion of homely English vegetables
and tropical flowers.
Joseph happened to be in front, and, as he neared the verandah,
he suddenly stopped at the salute ; moreover, he began to wonder
in which trunk he had packed his master's dress-clothes.
An English lady was coming out of the drawing-room window
to meet the travellers — a lady whose presence diffused that sense
of refinement and peace into the atmosphere which has done as
much towards the expansion of our piecemeal empire as ever did
the strong right arm of Thomas Atkins. It is because — sooner
or later — these ladies come with us that we have learnt to mingle
peace with war — to make friends of whilom enemies.
She nodded in answer to the servant's salutation, and passed
on to greet the master.
' My brother has been called away suddenly,' she said. ' One
of his sub-agents has been getting into trouble with the natives.
Of course you are Mr. Meredith ? '
' I am,' replied Jack, taking the hand she held out — it was a
small white hand — small without being frail or diaphanous.
' And you are Miss Gordon, I suppose ? I am sorry Gordon is
away, but no doubt we shall be able to find somewhere to put
up.'
' You need not do that,' she said quietly. ' This is Africa,
11—5
234 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
you know. You can quite well stay with us, although Maurice is
away until to-morrow.'
' Sure ? ' he asked.
' Quite ! ' she answered.
She was tall and fair, with a certain stateliness of carriage
which harmonised wonderfully with a thoughtful and pale face.
She was not exactly pretty, but gracious and womanly, with honest
blue eyes that looked on men and women alike. She was probably
twenty-eight years of age ; her manner was that of a woman
rather than of a girl — of one who was in life and not on the
outskirts.
* We rather pride ourselves,' she said, leading the way into the
drawing-room, 'upon having the best house in Loango. You
will, I think, be more comfortable here than anywhere.'
She turned and looked at him with a slow, grave smile. She
was noticing that, of the men who had been in this drawing-room,
none had seemed so entirely at his ease as this one.
' I must ask you to believe that I was thinking of your com-
fort and not of my own.'
' Yes, I know you were,' she answered. ' Our circle is rather
limited, as you will find, and very few of the neighbours have time
to think of their houses. Most of them are missionaries, and
they are so busy ; they have a large field, you see.'
' Very — and a weedy one, I should think.'
He was looking round, noting with well-trained glance the
thousand little indescribable touches that make a charming room.
He knew his ground. He knew the date and the meaning of
every little ornament — the title and the writer of each book — the
very material with which the chairs were covered ; and he knew
that all was good — all arranged with that art which is the differ-
ence between ignorance and knowledge.
' I see you have all the new books.'
' Yes, we have books and magazines ; but, of course, we live
quite out of the world.'
She paused, leaving the conversation with him as in the hands
of one who knew his business.
' I,' he said, filling up the pause, ' have hitherto lived in the
world — right in it. There is a lot of dust and commotion ; the
dust gets into people's eyes and blinds them ; the commotion
wears them out ; and perhaps, after all, Loango is better ! '
He spoke with the easy independence of the man of the world,
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 235
accustomed to feel his way in strange places — not heeding what
opinion he might raise — what criticism he might brave. He was
glancing round him all the while, noting things, and wondering for
whose benefit this pretty room had been evolved in the heart of a
savage country. Perhaps he had assimilated erroneous notions of
womankind in the world of which he spoke ; perhaps he had never
met any of those women whose natural refinement urges them to
surround themselves, even in solitude, with pretty things, and
prompts them to dress as neatly and becomingly as their circum-
stances allow for the edification of no man.
' I never abuse Loango,' she answered ; ' such abuse is apt to
recoil. To call a place dull is often a confession of dulness.'
He laughed — still in that somewhat unnatural manner, as if
desirous of filling up time. He had spent the latter years of his
life in doing nothing else. The man's method was so different to
what Jocelyn Grordon had met with in Loango, where men were
all in deadly earnest, pursuing souls or wealth, that it struck her
forcibly, and she remembered it long after Meredith had forgotten
its use.
' I have no idea,' she continued, ' how the place strikes the
passing traveller ; he usually passes by on the other side ; but I
am afraid there is nothing to arouse the smallest interest.'
' But, Miss Gordon, I am not the passing traveller.'
She looked up with a sudden interest.
' Indeed ! I understood from Maurice that you were travelling
down the coast without any particular object.'
' I have an object — estimable, if not quite original.'
' Yes ? '
' I want to make some money. I have never made any yet, so
there is a certain novelty in the thought which is pleasant.'
She smiled with the faintest suspicion of incredulity.
' I know what you are thinking,' he said ; ' that I am too
neat and tidy — too namby-pamby to do anything in this country.
That my boots are too narrow in the toe, my hair too short and
my face too clean. I cannot help it. It is the fault of the indi-
vidual you saw outside — Joseph. He insists on a strict observance
of the social duties.'
' We are rougher here,' she answered.
' I left England,' he explained, ' in rather a hurry. I had
no time to buy uncomfortable boots, or anything like that. I
know it was wrong. The ordinary young man of society who goes
236 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
morally to the dogs and physically to the colonies always has an
outfit. His friends buy him an outfit, and certain enterprising
haberdashers make a study of such things. I came as I am.'
While, he was speaking she had been watching him — studying
him more closely than she had hitherto been able to do.
' I once met a Sir John Meredith,' she said suddenly.
< My father.'
He paused, drawing in his legs, and apparently studying the
neat brown boots of which there had been question.
' Should you meet him again,' he went on, ' it would not be
advisable to mention my name. He might not care to hear it.
We have had a slight difference of opinion. With me it is diffe-
rent. I am always glad to hear about him. I have an immense
respect for him.'
She listened gravely, with a sympathy that did not attempt to
express itself in words. On such a short acquaintance she had
not learnt to expect a certain { lightness of conversational touch
which he always assumed when speaking of himself, as if his own
thoughts and feelings were matters for ridicule.
' Of course,' he went on, ' I was in the wrong. I know that.
But it sometimes happens that a man is not in a position to admit
that he is in the wrong — when, for instance, another person would
suffer by such an admission.'
' Yes,' answered Jocelyn ; ' I understand.'
At this moment a servant came in with lamps and proceeded
to close the windows. She was quite an old woman — an English-
woman— and as she placed the lamps upon the table she scrutinised
the guest after the manner of a privileged servitor. When she
had departed Jack Meredith continued his narrative with a sort of
deliberation which was explained later on.
1 And,' he said, ' that is why I came to Africa — that is why I
want to make money. I do not mind confessing to a low greed
of gain, because I think I have the best motive that a man can
have for wanting to make money.'
He said this meaningly, and watched her face all the while.
' A motive which any lady ought to approve of.'
She smiled sympathetically.
' I approve and I admire your spirit.'
She rose as she spoke, and moved towards a side table, where
two lighted candles had been placed.
' My motive for talking so barefacedly about myself,' he said,
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 237
as they moved towards the door together, ' was to let you know
exactly who I am and why I am here. It was only due to you on
accepting your hospitality. I might have been a criminal, or an
escaped embezzler. There were two on board the steamer coming
out, and several other shady characters.'
' Yes,' said the girl, ' I saw your motive.'
They were now in the hall, and the aged servant was waiting
to show him his room.
CHAPTEE XI.
A COMPACT.
Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream.
'No one knows,' Victor Durnovo was in the habit of saying,
' what is going on in the middle of Africa.'
And on this principle he acted.
' Ten miles above the camping-ground where we first met,' he
had told Meredith, ' you will find a village where I have my head-
quarters. There is quite a respectable house there, with — a — a
woman to look after your wants. When you have fixed things up
at Loango, and have arranged for the dhows to meet my steamer,
take up all your men to this village — Msala is the name — and
send the boats back. Wait there till we come.'
In due time the telegram came, via St. Paul de Loanda,
announcing the fact that Oscard had agreed to join the expedition,
and that Durnovo and he might be expected at Msala in one
month from that time. It was not without a vague feeling of
regret that Jack Meredith read this telegram. To be at Msala in
a month with forty men and a vast load of provisions meant
leaving Loango almost at once. And, strange though it may
seem, he had become somewhat attached to the dreary East
African town. The singular cosmopolitan society was entirely new
to him ; the life, taken as a life, almost unique. He knew that
he had not outstayed his welcome. Maurice Gordon had taken
care to assure him of that in his boisterous, hearty manner, savour-
ing more of Harrow than of Eton, every morning at breakfast.
' Confound Durnovo ! ' he cried, when the telegram had been
read aloud. ' Confound him, with his energy and his business-like
habits ! That means that you will have to leave us before long ;
and somehow it has got to be quite natural to see you come
238 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
lounging in ten minutes late for most things, with an apology for
Jocelyn, but none for me. We shall miss you, old chap.'
' Yes,' added Jocelyn, ' we shall.'
She was busy with the cups and spoke rather indifferently.
' So you've got Oscard ? ' continued Maurice. ' I imagine he is
a good man — tip-top shot and all that. I've never met him, but
I have heard of him.'
' He is a gentleman at all events,' said Meredith quietly ; ' I
know that.'
Jocelyn was looking at him between the hibiscus flowers deco-
rating the table.
' Is Mr. Durnovo going to be leader of the expedition ? ' she
inquired casually, after a few moments' silence ; and Jack, looking
up with a queer smile, met her glance for a moment.
' No,' he answered.
Maurice Gordon's hearty laugh interrupted.
' Ha, ha ! ' he cried. ' I wonder where the dickens you men
are going to ? '
' Up the Ogowe river,' replied Jack.
' No doubt. But what for ? There is something mysterious
about that river. Durnovo keeps his poor relations there, or
something of that kind.'
' We are not going to look for them.'
' I suppose,' said Maurice, helping himself to marmalade,
' that he has dropped upon some large deposit of ivory ; that will
turn out to be the solution of the mystery. It is the solution of
most mysteries in this country. I wish I could solve the mysteries
of ways and means and drop upon a large deposit of ivory, or
spice or precious stones. We should soon be out of this country,
should we not, old girl ? '
' I do not think we have much to complain of,' answered
Jocelyn.
' No ; you never do. Moreover, I do not suppose you would do
so if you had the excuse.'
' Oh yes, I should, if I thought it would do any good.'
' Ah ! ' put in Meredith. ' There speaks Philosophy — jam,
please.'
' Or resignation — that is strawberry and this is black currant.'
' Thanks, black currant. No — Philosophy. Kesignation is the
most loathsome of the virtues.'
' I can't say I care for any of them very much,' put in Maurice.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 239
' No ; I thought you seemed to shun them,' said Jack like a
flash.
' Sharp ! very sharp ! Jocelyn, do you know what we called
him at school ? — the French nail ; he was so very long and thin
and sharp ! I might add polished and strong, but we were not so
polite in those days. Poor old Jack ! he gave as good as he got.
But I must be off — the commerce of Eastern Africa awaits me.
You'll be round at the office presently, I suppose, Jack ? '
' Yes ; I have an appointment there with a coloured person
who is a liar by nature and a cook by trade.'
Maurice Gordon usually went off like this — at a moment's
notice. He was one of those loud-speaking, quick-actioned men,
who often get a reputation for energy and capacity without fully
deserving it.
Jack, of a more meditative habit, rarely followed his host with
the same obvious haste. He finished his breakfast calmly, and
then asked Jocelyn whether she was coming out on to the
verandah. It was a habit they had unconsciously dropped into.
The verandah was a very important feature of the house, thickly
overhung as it was with palms, bananas, and other tropical
verdure. Africa is the land of creepers, and all around this
verandah, over the trellis-work, around the supports, hanging in
festoons from the roof, were a thousand different creeping flowers.
The legend of the house — for, as in India, almost every bungalow
on the West Coast has its tale — was that one of the early mis-
sionaries had built it, and, to beguile the long months of the rainy
season had carefully collected these creepers to beautify the place
against the arrival of his young wife. She never came. A tele-
gram stopped her. A snake interrupted his labour of love.
Jack took a seat at once, and began to search for his cigar-case
in the pocket of his jacket. In this land of flies and moths, men
need not ask permission before they smoke. Jocelyn did not sit
down at once. She went to the front of the verandah and watched
her brother mount his horse. She was a year older than Maurice
G-ordon, and exercised a larger influence over his life than either
of them suspected.
Presently he rode past the verandah, waving his hand cheerily.
He was one of those large hearty Englishmen who seem to be all
appetite and laughter — men who may be said to be manly, and
beyond that nothing. Their manliness is so overpowering that it
swallows up many other qualities which are not out of place in
240 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
men, such as tact and thoughtfulness, and perhaps intellectuality
and the power to take some interest in those gentler things that
interest women.
When Jocelyn came to the back of the verandah she was
thinking about her brother Maurice, and it never suggested itself
to her that she should not speak her thoughts to Meredith, whom
she had not seen until three weeks ago. She had never spoken
of Maurice behind his back to any man before.
' Does it ever strike you,' she said, ' that Maurice is the sort of
man to be led astray by evil influence ? '
' Yes ; or to be led straight by a good influence, such as
yours.'
He did not meet her thoughtful gaze. He was apparently
watching the retreating form of the horse through the tangle of
flower and leaf and tendril.
' I am afraid,' said the girl, ' that my influence is not of much
account.'
' Do you really believe that ? ' asked Meredith, turning upon
her with a half-cynical smile.
' Yes,' she answered simply.
Before speaking again he took a pull at his cigar.
' Your ^nfluence,' he said, ' appears to me to be the making of
Maurice Grordon. I frequently see serious flaws in the policy of
Providence ; but I suppose there is wisdom in making the strongest
influence that which is unconscious of its power.'
' I am glad you think I have some power over him,' said
Jocelyn ; ' but, at the same time, it makes me uneasy, because
it only confirms my conviction that he is very easily led. And
suppose my influence — such as it is — was withdrawn ? Suppose
that I were to die, or, what appears to be more likely, suppose that
he should marry ? '
' Then let us hope that he will marry the right person. People
sometimes do, you know.'
She smiled with a strange little flicker of the eyelids. They
had grown wonderfully accustomed to each other during the last
three weeks. Here, it would appear, was one of those friendships
between man and woman that occasionally set the world agog
with curiosity and scepticism. But there seemed to be no doubt
about it. He was over thirty, she verging on that prosaic age.
Both had lived and moved in the world ; to both life was an open
book, and they had probably discovered, as most of us do, that the
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 241
larger number of the leaves are blank. He had almost told her
that he was engaged to be married, and she had quite understood.
There could not possibly be any misapprehension ; there was no
room for one of those little mistakes about which people write
novels and fondly hope that some youthful reader may be carried
away by a very faint resemblance to that which they hold to be
life. Moreover, at thirty, one leaves the first romance of youth
behind.
There was something in her smile that suggested that she did
not quite believe in his cynicism.
' Also,' she said gravely, ' some stronger influence might
appear — an influence which I could not counteract.'
Jack Meredith turned in his long chair and looked at her
searchingly.
' I have a vague idea,' he said, ' that you are thinking of
Durnovo.'
' I am,' she admitted with some surprise. ' I wonder how you
knew ? I am afraid of him.'
' I can reassure you on that score,' said Meredith. ' For the
next two years or so Durnovo will be in daily intercourse with me.
He will be under my immediate eye. I did not anticipate much
pleasure from his society, but now I do.'
' Why ? ' she asked, rather mystified.
' Because I shall have the daily satisfaction of knowing that
I am relieving you of an anxiety.'
' It is very kind of you to put it in that way,' said Jocelyn.
' But I should not like you to sacrifice yourself to what may be a
foolish prejudice on my part.'
' It is not a foolish prejudice. Durnovo is not a gentleman
either by birth or inclination. He is not fit to associate with
you.'
To this Jocelyn answered nothing. Victor Durnovo was one of
her brother's closest friends — a friend of his own choosing.
'Miss Gordon,' said Jack Meredith suddenly, with a gravity
that was rare, ' will you do me a favour ? '
' I think I should like to.'
' You admit that you are afraid of Durnovo now : if at any
time you have reason to be more afraid, will you make use of me ?
Will you write or come to me and ask my help ? '
' Thank you,' she said, hesitatingly.
' You see,' he went on in a lighter tone, ' / am not afraid of
242 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
Durnovo. I have met Durnovos before. You may have observed
that my locks no longer resemble the raven's wing. There is a
little grey — just here — above the temple. I am getting on in
life, and I know how to deal with Durnovos.'
' Thank you,' said the girl, with a little sigh of relief. ' The
feeling that I have someone to turn to will be a great relief. You
see how I am placed here. The missionaries are very kind and
well-meaning, but there are some things which they do not quite
understand. They may be gentlemen — some of them are ; but
they are not men of the world. I have no definite thought or
fear, and very good persons, one finds, are occasionally a little dense.
Unless things are very definite, they do not understand.'
' On the other hand,' pursued Jack in the same reflective
tone, as if taking up her thought, 'persons who are not good
have a perception of the indefinite. I did not think of it in that
light before.'
Jocelyn Gordon laughed softly, without attempting to meet
his lighter vein.
'Do you know,' she said, after a little silence, 'that I was
actually thinking of warning you against Mr. Durnovo ? Now I
stand aghast at my own presumption.'
' It was kind of you to give the matter any thought whatever.
He rose and threw away the end of his cigar. Joseph was
already before the door, leading the horse which Maurice Gordon
had placed at his visitor's disposal.
' I will lay the warning to heart,' he said, standing in front
of Jocelyn, and looking down at her as she lay back in the deep
basket-chair. She was simply dressed in white — as was her wont,
for it must be remembered that they were beneath the Equator —
a fair English maiden, whose thoughts were hidden behind a
certain gracious, impenetrable reserve. ' I will lay it to heart,
although you have not uttered it. But I have always known with
what sort of man I was dealing. We serve each other's purpose,
that is all ; and he knows that as well as I do.'
' I am glad Mr. Oscard is going with you/ she answered
guardedly.
He waited a moment. It seemed as if she had not done
speaking — as if there was another thought near the surface. But
she did not give voice to it and he turned away. The sound of
the horse's feet on the gravel did not arouse her from a reverie
into which she had fallen ; and long after it had died away, leaving
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 243
only the hum of insect life and the distant ceaseless song of the
surf, Jocelyn Gordon sat apparently watching the dancing shadows
on the floor as the creepers waved in the breeze.
CHAPTEE XII.
A MEETING.
No one can be more wise than destiny.
THE short equatorial twilight was drawing to an end, and all
Nature stood in silence, while Night crept up to claim the land
where her reign is more autocratic than elsewhere on earth.
There is a black night above the trees, and a blacker beneath. In
an hour it would be dark, and, in the meantime, the lowering-
clouds were tinged with a pink glow that filtered through from
above. There was rain coming, and probably thunder. Moreover,
the trees seemed to know it, for there was a limpness in their
attitude, as if they were tucking their heads into their shoulders
in anticipation of the worst. The insects were certainly possessed
of a premonition. They had crept away!
It was distinctly an unlikely evening for the sportsman. The
stillness was so complete that the faintest rustle could be heard at
a great distance. Moreover, it was the sort of evening when
Nature herself seems to be glancing over her shoulder with
timorous restlessness.
Nevertheless, a sportsman was abroad. He was creeping up
the right-hand bank of a stream, his only chance lying in the
noise of the waters which might serve to deaden the sound of
broken twig or rustling leaf.
This sportsman was Jack Meredith, and it was evident that he
was bringing to bear upon the matter in hand that intelligence
and keenness of perception which had made him a person of some
prominence in other scenes where Nature has a less assured place.
It would appear that he was not so much at home in the
tangle of an African forest as in the crooked paths of London
society ; for his clothes were torn in more than one place ; a
mosquito, done to sudden death, adhered sanguinarily to the side
of his aristocratic nose, while heat and mental distress had drawn
damp stripes down his countenance. His hands were scratched
and inclined to bleed, and one leg had apparently been in a
244 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
morass. Added to these physical drawbacks there was no visible
sign of success, which was probably the worst part of Jack
Meredith's plight.
Since sunset he had been crawling, scrambling, stumbling up
the bank of this stream in relentless pursuit of some large animal
which persistently kept hidden in the tangle across the bed of the
river. The strange part of it was that when he stopped to peep
through the branches the animal stopped too, and he found no
way of discovering its whereabouts. More than once they stopped
thus for nearly five minutes, peering at each other through the
heavy leafage. It was distinctly unpleasant, for Meredith felt
that the animal was not afraid of him, and did not fully under-
stand the situation. The respective positions of hunter and
hunted were imperfectly defined. He had hitherto confined his
attentions to such game as showed a sporting readiness to run
away, and there was a striking novelty in this unseen beast of the
forest, fresh, as it were, from the hands of its Creator, that entered
into the fun of the thing from a totally mistaken standpoint.
Once Meredith was able to decide approximately the where-
abouts of his prey by the momentary shaking of a twig. He
raised his rifle and covered that twig steadily ; his forefinger
played tentatively on the trigger, but on second thoughts he
refrained. He was keenly conscious of the fact that the beast
was doing its work with skill superior to his own. In comparison
to his, its movements were almost noiseless. Jack Meredith was
too clever a man to be conceited in the wrong place, which is the
habit of fools. He recognised very plainly that he was not dis-
tinguishing himself in this new field of glory ; he was not yet an
accomplished big-game hunter.
Twice he raised his rifle with the intention of firing at random
into the underwood on the remote chance of bringing his enemy
into the open. But the fascination of this duel of cunning was
too strong, and he crept onwards with bated breath.
It was terrifically hot, and all the while Night was stalking
westward on the summits of the trees with stealthy tread.
While absorbed in the intricacies of pursuit — while anathema-
tising tendrils and condemning thorns to summary judgment — Jack
Meredith was not losing sight of his chance of getting back to the
little village of Msala. He knew that he had only to follow the
course of the stream downwards, retracing his steps until a
junction with the Ogowe river was effected. In the meantime
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 245
his lips were parted breathlessly, and there, was a light in the
quiet eyes which might have startled some of his well-bred friends
could they have seen it.
At last he came to an open space made by a slip of the land
into the bed of the river. When Jack Meredith came to this he
stepped out of the thicket and stood in the open, awaiting the
approach of his stealthy prey. The sound of its footfall was just
perceptible, slowly diminishing the distance that divided them.
Then the trees were parted, and a tall, fair man stepped forward
on to the opposite bank.
Jack Meredith bowed gravely, and the other sportsman, seeing
the absurdity of the situation, burst into hearty laughter. In a
moment or two he had leapt from rock to rock and come to
Meredith.
' It seems,' he said, ' that we have been wasting a considerable
amount of time.'
' I very nearly wasted powder and shot,' replied Jack, signifi-
cantly indicating his rifle.
' I saw you twice, and raised my rifle ; your breeches are just
the colour of a young doe. Are you Meredith ? My name is
Oscard.' .
' Ah ! Yes, I am Meredith. I am glad to see you.'
They shook hands. There was a twinkle in Jack Meredith's
eyes, but Oscard was quite grave. His sense of humour was not
very keen, and he was before all things a sportsman.
' I left the canoes a mile below Msala and landed to shoot a
deer we saw drinking, but I never saw him. Then I heard you,
and I have been stalking you ever since.'
' But I never expected you so soon ; you were not due till —
look ! ' Jack whispered suddenly.
Oscard turned on his heel, and the next instant their two rifles
rang out through the forest stillness in one sharp crack. Across
the stream, ten yards behind the spot where Oscard had emerged
from the brush, a leopard sprang into the air, five feet from the
ground, with head thrown back and paws clawing at the thinness
of space with grand free sweeps. The beast fell with a thud and
lay still — dead.
The two men clambered across the rocks again, side by side.
While they stood over the prostrate form of the leopard — beautiful,
incomparably graceful and sleek even in death — Gruy Oscard stole
a sidelong glance at his companion. He was a modest man, and
246 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
yet he knew that he was reckoned among the big-game hunters
of the age. This man had fired as quickly as himself, and there
were two small trickling holes in the animal's head.
While he was being quietly scrutinised Jack Meredith stooped
down, and, taking the leopard beneath the shoulders, lifted it
bodily back from the pool of blood.
' Pity to spoil the skin,' he explained, as he put a fresh car-
tridge into his rifle.
Oscar nodded in an approving way. He knew the weight of a
full-grown male leopard, all muscle and bone, and he was one of
those old-fashioned persons mentioned in the Scriptures as taking
a delight in a man's legs — or his arms, so long as they were strong.
' I suppose,' he said quietly, ' we had better skin him here.'
As he spoke he drew a long hunting-knife, and, slashing down
a bunch of the maidenhair fern that grew like nettles around
them, he wiped the blood gently, almost affectionately, from the
leopard's cat-like face.
There was about these two men a strict attention to the
matter in hand, a mutual and common respect for all things
pertaining to sport, a quiet sense of settling down without delay
to the regulation of necessary detail that promised well for any
future interest they might have in common.
So these highly-educated young gentlemen turned up their
sleeves and steeped themselves to the elbow in gore. Moreover,
they did it with a certain technical skill and a distinct sense of
enjoyment. Truly, the modern English gentleman is a strange
being. There is nothing his soul takes so much delight in as
the process of getting hot and very dirty, and, if convenient,
somewhat sanguinary. You cannot educate the manliness out of
him, try as you will ; and for such blessings let us in all humble-
ness give thanks to Heaven.
This was the bringing together of Jack Meredith and Guy
Oscard — two men who loved the same woman. They knelt side
by side, and Jack Meredith — the older man, the accomplished,
gifted gentleman of the world, who stood second to none in that
varied knowledge required nowadays of the successful societarian—
Jack Meredith, be it noted, humbly dragged the skin away from
the body while Guy Oscard cut the clinging integuments with a
delicate touch and finished skill.
They laid the skin out on the trampled maidenhair and
contemplated it with silent satisfaction. In the course of their
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 247
inspection they both arrived at the head at the same moment.
The two holes in the hide, just above the eyes, came under their
notice at the same moment, and they turned and smiled gravely
at each other, thinking the same thought — the sort of thought
that Englishmen rarely put into intelligible English.
' I'm glad we did that,' said Cfuy Oscard at length ; suddenly,
' Whatever comes of this expedition of ours — if we fight like hell,
as we probably shall, before it is finished — if we hate each other
ever afterwards, that skin ought to remind us that we are much
of a muchness.'
It might have been put into better English ; it might almost
have sounded like poetry had Guy Oscard been possessed of the
poetic soul. But this, fortunately, was not his ; and all that
might have been said was left to the imagination of Meredith.
What he really felt was that there need be no rivalry, and that he
for one had no thought of Such ; that in the quest which they
were about to undertake there need be no question of first and
last ; that they were merely two men, good or bad, competent or
incompetent, but through all equal.
Neither of them suspected that the friendship thus strangely
inaugurated at the rifle's mouth was to run through a longer
period than the few months required to reach the plateau — that
it was, in fact, to extend through that long expedition over a
strange country that we call Life, and that it was to stand the
greatest test that friendship has to meet with here on earth.
It was almost dark when at last they turned to go, Jack
Meredith carrying the skin over his shoulder and leading the way.
There was no opportunity for conversation, as their progress was
necessarily very difficult. Only by the prattle of the stream were
they able to make sure of keeping in the right direction. Each
had a thousand questions to ask the other. They were total
strangers ; but it is not, one finds, by conversation that men get
to know each other. A common danger, a common pleasure, a
common pursuit — these are the touches of nature by which men
are drawn together into the kinship of mutual esteem.
Once they gained the banks of the Ogowe their progress was
quicker, and by nine o'clock they reached the camp at Msala.
Victor Durnovo was still at work superintending the discharge
of the baggage and stores from the large trading-canoes. They
heard the shouting and chattering before coming in sight of the
camp, and one voice raised angrily above the others.
248 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Is that Durnovo's voice ? ' asked Meredith.
' Yes,' answered his companion curtly.
It was a new voice, which Meredith had not heard before.
When they shouted to announce their arrival it was suddenly
hushed, and presently Durnovo came forward to greet them.
Meredith hardly knew him, he was so much stronger and
healthier in appearance. Durnovo shook hands heartily.
' No need to introduce you two,' he said, looking from one to
the other.
' No ; after one mistake we discovered each other's identity in
the forest,' answered Meredith.
Durnovo smiled ; but there was something behind the smile.
He did not seem to approve of their meeting without his inter-
vention.
(To be continued.')
249
A NEW RIVER.
THE Thames, between Oxford and London, acts as a kind of safety-
valve to the cramped life of the poor cockney, — to say nothing of
' all sorts and conditions of men ' besides. Here dukes have their
country seats, millionaires their luxurious steam-launches and
house-boats, boating men their outriggers, steady-going citizens
their ' tubs,' and 'Any his canoe and his banjo. But London is
so enormous that her avenues of pleasure are becoming blocked.
Surbiton, Kingston, Richmond, already nearly joined to the
metropolis, present, on bank-holidays, a seething mass of humanity ;
while at Maidenhead, Cookham, or Pangbourne the crowd is
hardly less. We sigh for the desert in vain ; we cannot get away
from our fellow-creatures. ' Oh for " a new river ! " ' is the uni-
versal cry. "Well, if we only knew it, we have a new river as
silent, as secluded, to all intents and purposes, as a South American
forest stream, or a Californian creek. People do not always know
or appreciate what lies nearest to them ; and this ' new river ' is
at an easy distance, for the jaded Londoner can reach it in only
one hour and a half from Paddington. An hour and a quarter's
train, and then ten minutes' drive, will land you in Port Meadow,
Oxford, on the shores of the ' Upper River,' as the under-
graduates call it. At Godstow, supposing it to be a bank-holiday,
you may find several contingents of young men and maidens
quaffing cider-cup through straws, or demolishing strawberries
and cream in the pretty inn garden, down the backwater; at
\Vytham "Woods you may come up with a few picnic parties
browsing on the banks ; but an hour or two's further rowing will
land you in undreamed-of solitudes, such as would have satisfied
St. Jerome and St. Francis themselves, and, certainly, such as in
your wildest aspirations you never dared to hope for. The hum
of the city fades from your memory ; in an incredibly short time
you seem entirely to belong to your new surroundings, to live the
life of nature. Mild-eyed oxen gaze at you fearlessly from the
river-brink as your boat glides by ; moles scurry into their holes
as you approach ; the shrill note of the corncrake greets your
ear ; water-rats swim gracefully across the stream, and fishes jump
at the unwonted plash of your oar-blade. It is surely marvellous
VOL. XXI. — NO. 123, N.S. 12
250 A NEW RIVER.
that even on a bank-holiday in the short space of a few hours we
can attain to this seclusion ; so marvellous is it, that luckily the
world in general does not believe it, else would the marvel soon
be at an end ; and tourist bands of singing and shouting ' 'Arries '
would desecrate these solitudes, as they have already desecrated
Medmenham and Mapledurham.
Here, then, you may lie at ease in your boat and dream, con-
gratulating yourself, meanwhile, that you are not as other men
are. In this Pharisaical spirit, it may amuse you to think of
' your own green door on Campden Hill,' where bands and organs
are doubtless braying. With a small boat, a picnic basket, a
minimum of luggage, a copy of Matthew Arnold — perhaps a
kodak, and, supposing you to be of a sociable disposition — at most
one companion — the gods themselves cannot envy you. Holi-
days are charming all through the summer ; but let us suppose,
in this case, that the holiday be taken at Whitsuntide, and that
the weather be fine (after recent experience, no one will doubt
this latter possibility). The river at Whitsuntide is fullest of
water — no slight gain in the case of a voyage between Oxford and
Cricklade ; the flowers are at their best, the trees in all their early
' pavilions of tender green,' and the meadows in all the splendour
and fragrance of May. Cowslips carpet the river-banks sloping from
Wytham Woods ; primroses and hyacinths nestle under the trees ;
slender fritillaries, buttercups, and ox-eyed daisies dot the ' happy
fields,' and kingcups alternate with the yellow iris among the
scented rushes of the shore. Water-lilies and fragrant river-weeds,
extending half across the stream, may indeed obstruct your boat ;
but this, if it occasions a little trouble, adds to the charm of
solitude, and makes you feel more than ever as if exploring an
undiscovered country.
Grodstow, King's Weir, Wytham, are soon passed, and with
them the last signs of bank-holiday revellers. After Eynsham
Bridge — a solid, not a beautiful structure — the real charm begins.
It is curious to notice in this connection how the only signs of life,
the only human beings you come across in your wanderings, are
invariably to be found looking over a bridge. It reminds one of
the child's early drawings. Tell him to draw a bridge, it is never
a bridge to him until he has placed a man on it — ergo, to the
rustic, a bridge is not so much a bridge as a place for a man to stand
on and from which to survey the world at large. The average rustic
seems to spend all his holiday-time in this enthralling occupation.
A NEW RIVER. 251
To him a bridge seems to be a scene of wild dissipation. Bridges,
however, are comparatively scarce on the Upper Thames, which
may perhaps account for their popularity.
But the Oxfordshire rustic, on the rare occasions when you do
come across him (apart from bridges), in no wise interferes with
your solitude. He distracts you no more than the ruminating
oxen who gaze on you so plaintively as you glide past them. He
has become incorporated with his surroundings — ' rolled round,'
so to speak, ' in earth's diurnal force,' and it has crushed all power
of expression out of him. All the 'joy of life' he knows is
either boozing at the Pig and Whistle, or enjoying a short clay
pipe on a bridge. On one occasion above Eynsham, one of these
rustics was, as usual, on the bridge, when an upset occurred in a
boat passing underneath it. The youthful scullers had been
changing places in mid-stream — always a rash thing to do, and
especially so when the boat is outrigged. The stream happened
to be deep at this particular place, and enclosed between high
mud banks, sparsely covered by dry reeds. These reeds snapped
when grasped, like tinder, and it accordingly took the submerged
ones some time to extricate themselves from their difficulties.
But the man on the bridge did not budge an inch. When at last
one of the sufferers , impelled thereto by an imperative desire for
dry clothes, went up to him and accosted him, he slowly removed
his pipe :
' There wus a young man,' he said, ' drowned in this very place
six weeks ago to-day, and they ain't found 'is body yet.'
Above Eynsham is Pinkhill Lock, with many windings just
below it, culminating in a shallow rapid, not always very easy
to pass when the stream is low. But of late years much has been
done by the Thames Conservancy towards clearing the stream and
the tow-path in difficult places. The ferry rope which crosses
the stripling Thames at Bablock Hythe
must be ducked for, unless you would first stop and refresh your-
self at the little red-brick inn, the Chequers, close by. From here,
if you wish, you can walk to Stanton Harcourt, a curious and
interesting old manor-house of the twelfth century, where the civil
gardener is always ready to show you round. Of the few present
remains of the old house, the most curious is the ancient and
solitary tower surmounting the chapel, with a tiny winding stair-
case leading up to the so-called ' library,' where, it is said, the
12—2
252 A NEW RIVER.
poet Pope translated Homer's ' Iliad.' If the poet Pope ever
really did climb those breakneck stairs, all we can say is that
report must have lied about his infirmities, for in these degenerate
days it is difficult for a hale person to get up them. Near by are
the old kitchens, most picturesque buildings, to which the present
farmhouse has been added. These kitchens are as instructive as a
chapter in mediaeval history. One realises, in looking at the tall,
blackened, chimneyless walls, what huge joints of meat must have
been devoured by our robust ancestors and their retainers, and
how supremely unconscious they were of dirt !
It is a pretty walk across the meadows back to Bablock Hythe,
where you might do worse than pass the night. If you feel
energetic next morning you can continue your walk, on the other
side of the stream, to the picturesque village of Cumnor, a mile
and a half distant. But you will have to imagine the scenes in
' Kenilworth,' for Cumnor Place has now disappeared, and the
tomb of Sir Anthony Forster alone remains to recall the tragedy
of Amy Kobsart.
About an hour above Bablock is Newbridge, one of the oldest
bridges on the upper Thames. Its projecting buttresses show pic-
turesquely from afar, with its humble little inn, the Maybush,
flanking it to the right. There is often a considerable stream running
through the middle arch, which, however, you must take in prefer-
ence to the others, where lurk hidden stakes. Here the ' green-
muffled Cumnor Hills ' begin to fade away into blueness on the left,
and the river-banks gain in beauty and in luxuriance. Then the
scene changes — (a river journey is like a succession of transforma-
tion scenes) — to meadow land, cropped willows, and high flood-
banks, till, in an hour and a half or so, you reach Duxford Ferry,
one of the most picturesque spots on the river. The old thatched
farm and outhouses would amply repay the painter's study. There
does not seem to be a wild run on Duxford Ferry ; indeed, now we
think of it, we have never seen anyone use it ; but then the only
inhabitants we ever noticed at the farm were tribes of downy,
yellow ducklings, and an amiable-looking old white horse. Now
the hills recede yet more, as the country merges into the plains
of Oxfordshire. If either wind or weeds should make towing the
boat more advisable here you will hardly regret it, as the tow-path
. is a lovely vantage ground for a view, and each bend of the river
discloses new beauties. The sun is getting low in the heavens,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
A NEW RIVER. 253
and the cows, waxing even more friendly with the approach of
evening, rush in herds to the marge, and gaze at you with big,
affectionate eyes. After many winds and curves through this
pleasant meadow-land, you arrive at Tadpole Bridge and its good
inn, the Trout, which has appeared tantalisingly in sight for
half an hour at least. You cannot do better than sleep here, for
the Trout is a most comfortable resting-place, and its landlady
is kind and capable. Tadpole Bridge is no very remarkable
structure, but it is even more occupied by sightseers than any
other, which is saying a good deal. The entire population —
numbering four men and two women — seems to live there, and
generally a tribe of geese, too, are to be seen waddling about on
it. Two miles from Tadpole is the sleepy little market town of
Bampton, where there is a pretty church and vicarage, quite worth
the walk thither. This recommendation is not given on the
guide-book principle, and .may therefore be received without
suspicion. Gruide-books are unanimous and indiscriminate in their
wish that you by no means leave any tomb or monument within
a circuit of many miles unvisited, whatever else you may have to
leave out. Even ' Murray ' may be said to suffer from this
slightly gloomy tendency. Now, tombs, when you are on a
holiday, are distinctly not the things you most yearn for. The
average guide-book treats you very much as the child was treated,
who, when it asked to go to a pantomime, was told ' No ! but you
may visit your grandmother's grave.' We do not purpose to
recommend all the tombs in the neighbourhood.
To the healthy-minded river tourist quite as much gloom as he
can stand will be supplied by the pocket edition of Matthew
Arnold's poems, already spoken of. No poet, it need hardly be said,
is more beautiful, more enthralling, than Matthew Arnold ; but
you distinctly need a cloudless day to read him on — a day when
' nothing is so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.' On one occa-
sion, when spending a wet day at this very Trout inn at
Tadpole, we well remember being reduced to a frightful state of
depression by a long afternoon of him. By five o'clock we were
melted almost to tears, and had to hurry up dinner and bed as the
only cure for our melancholy. No ! Matthew Arnold's view of
life is beautiful, but, like that of Ibsen's hero of ' Kosmersholm,'
hardly exhilarating. He writes ever in a minor key. Was this
the price that the author of the ' Scholar-Gipsy ' had to pay for
254 A NEW RIVER.
immortality ? The gods loved him, and had fashioned him to an
exquisite mouthpiece of song ; but alas for
The reed which grows never more again
As a reed with the reeds in the river !
Still, you may do worse than walk to the little town of
Bampton, or to the summit of the low range of hills lying south of
Tadpole Bridge, from whence you can see the little river winding
among the meadows in a streak of silver. At Tadpole the river is
really seen to be distinctly smaller, and one wonders how it can
possibly be navigable for twenty miles further. . Starting from the
Trout early in the morning (and it is better to start early, for
the summer mornings are generally the finest, and always the
most delightful, part of the whole day on the river), you come, in
a few minutes, to Eushy Lock, a picturesque little spot, with weir
and weir-pool embosomed in trees and their flickering lights and
shadows. Now the little river becomes yet narrower and reedier,
the pretty white floating weed standing up thickly in places ; and
you wind slowly through luxuriant meadows, with plentiful bird
and insect life. Bright blue dragon-flies skim the surface of the
water, looking intensely blue whenever they congregate together
on a water-lily leaf ; the strange notes of the landrail and sand-
piper are heard, while the cuckoo chirps incessantly in the
meadows. There is also a curious little grey bird that invariably
sits on the pointed apex of a reed or a post. Suddenly it darts
forth in pursuit of fly or gnat, and having secured the prey
returns to its place. Surely it must be the ' spotted fly-catcher.'
Passing ' Old Man's Bridge ' — a modest wooden structure — you
at length come in sight of the two picturesque stone bridges
of Radcot. Radcot is a very pretty village, in the midst of
pastures and large trees ; here the stream divides in two, passing
under two bridges, to rejoin further on. Both streams are now
made navigable. Radcot, with its pretty inn, its cottages, em-
bowered in trees, its ancient buttressed bridges, its cattle stand-
ing by the river-brink, recalls the lines :
. . . dewy pastures, dewy trees,
Softer than sleep — all things in order stored,
A haunt of ancient Peace.
People do not seem to stay much at Radcot, for even on a
bank-holiday its inn has a deserted look, except, perhaps, for a
solitary bicyclist. A bicyclist ! when one meets him, dusty and
hot, scouring over a bridge on the Upper Thames, one is tempted
A NEW RIVER. 255
to re-echo Mr. Ruskin's thunders. Yet bicyclists there are, while,
strange to say, boating parties are certainly not numerous at
Eadcot ; yet it would be a very good starting-point for Cricklade,
or for a few days' headquarters, and — a point which it is well to
remember — there are two or three small boats to be let out on hire.
After passing Radcot you approach the deserted remains of a weir,
and then the river, still winding among fragrant meadow-lands,
takes some wide curves, and passes the picturesque village of
Eaton Hastings, with its small, grey stone, ivied church. This is
the most beautiful spot of any. The little river winds in a bosky
dell, shaded by tall trees on one side, while on the other the tiny
village looks smilingly across sunny pastures. Here is the place
for you to set up your easel ; but, paint as you will, you will
never paint those flickering lights, those wonderful reflections,
those deep green pools. You come higher up — if you can ever
tear yourself away, that is — to some shallows, where the minnows
disport themselves happily, and where you must do your best not
to let your boat run aground under the banks, while the little
river chatters pleasantly
In little sharps and trebles.
Here, across the meadow-land to the right, is the manor-
house of Kelmscott, an old Elizabethan structure, but chiefly
notable to us as being, for some years, the joint home of William
Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. An ideal home, indeed, for a
poet ; its weather-beaten grey gables rise between tall trees from
behind an orchard and overgrown moat, or backwater, crossed
by a plank bridge. The little boat-shed is humble, yet we look
on it with reverence. What bliss it must have been to embark on
a long, lovely June evening, when the nightingales sang in the
copses by Eaton Hastings ! No muse would surely be required to
'mould the secret gold' with all this bounty of Nature. The
house itself is so lovingly described by William Morris in his
' News from Nowhere,' that we cannot forbear quoting a few lines :
' On the right hand we could see a cluster of small houses and
bams, new and old, and before us a grey stone barn and a wall
partly overgrown with ivy, over which a few grey gables showed.
. . . The garden between the wall and the house was redolent
of the June flowers, and the roses were rolling over one another
with that delicious superabundance of small, well-tended gardens,
which at first sight takes away all thought from the beholder save
256 A NEW RIVER.
that of beauty. The blackbirds were singing their loudest, the
doves were cooing on the roof-ridge, the rooks in the high elm-
trees beyond were garrulous among the young leaves, and the
swifts wheeled whining about the gables. And the house itself
was a fit guardian for all the beauty of this heart of summer.'
A few more picturesque bends above Kelmscott and you hear
the roaring of 'Hart's Weir.' Here there is no lock, and an
elderly man waits, like Charon, to assist the traveller. He pulls
out the weir paddles, fastens a stout rope securely to your prow,
and tugs with a will, you yourself meanwhile steering your best,
till the boat-head slowly emerges on the other side of the weir,
and the three or four feet of fall are safely surmounted. Hart's
Weir is a pretty spot, set in flat meadow-land ; from here you
already catch a glimpse of the graceful spire of Lechlade church,
surmounting the trees in the blue distance.
The view of Lechlade from the river is very picturesque. It
looks, as you approach it, quite an important place, and indeed,
with your mind reverting to such little places as Eadcot, Tadpole,
and the like, which boast only of three ducks and a man on a
bridge, your sense of proportion may lead you to form undue
expectations of what you may do or obtain there. But do not
deceive yourself. The 'capacities of Lechlade are small. It is the
very sleepiest of sleepy towns. Its weekly market ought, one
thinks, to wake it, if this were not such an utter impossibility.
The seven sleepers would have done well to come here after
Ephesus and have their nap out. The fact is, that Lechlade —
though it has a station of its own and is only two hours and three-
quarters from Paddington — is as much ' out of the world ' as a
camp in the Eockies. It is altogether off ' the main track ; ' and
people are very like sheep in the way in which they all follow one
another to the same place. Lechlade does not attract many
people, therefore it does not attract any. And yet it has a lovely
situation. The tall spire of the church (apostrophised by Shelley,
who by the way was one of the first discoverers of our New
River, as an ' aerial Pile ') reflects itself in the stream like that of
Abingdon below Oxford. Even on bank-holidays Lechlade does
not completely wake up. On one memorable Whit>Monday we
found it impossible to obtain so much as a quarter of a pound
of butter there, though we sought for it carefully and (almost)
with tears. Therefore we ungratefully cursed Lechlade in our
hearts, and shook the dust of our feet off against it. But some
A NEW RIVER. 257
traces of the outer world there were in the shape of bicyclists,
who, indeed, may have appropriated all the available butter of the
community. Bicyclists are so ubiquitous. The bicycle fiend will
surely be the ' Frankenstein ' of the future, rushing round sharp
corners and murdering helpless infants. ' Ixion ! the Man on the
Wheel ! ' Poor Lechlade, to be so old-world and forgotten, and
yet so desecrated by the relentless bicyclist !
Gruide-books advise you not to ascend the river beyond Lech-
lade, as the ten miles above it are often hardly navigable, and
always more or less weedy, and also because the towing-path offers
such counter-attractions as a walk. But a row up to Inglesham
Round House, in the cool of the evening, will amply repay you,
whether you walk on to Cricklade or not. The average guide-
book, however, as we said, must not be too implicitly trusted. It
is so apt to disregard the more secluded beauties — the places that
are not three-starred in Baedeker — being mainly written for the
whole flock of sheep, rather than for the few strayed lambs.
One of these guide-books mentions the Upper Thames in the fol-
lowing not very eulogistic fashion :
' Although scarcely any of the scenery of the Thames above
Oxford is to be mentioned in the same breath with the beauties
of Nuneham, of Henley, of Marlow, or of Cliveden, there is still,
&c., &c.'
This haughty comparison is an insult to our beloved stream.
We will allow that the contrast between the Upper and the
Lower river is somewhat that between a breezy upland meadow
and a park, between nature and art. But what the guide-book
omits to say is that there are no crowded locks, no yelling
cockneys, no pert barmaids, no bad and expensive ' hotels,'
and no picnic parties on every bank. Our lodging may be
humble, our fare modest, but it is the best the people have at
their command, and at any rate it is neither pretentious nor dear.
G-reed and swindling follow the cockney haunts, and ours is dis-
tinctly a ' new river.' But we will love it all the better for its
neglect. It certainly is more delightful for that reason. Was
it not after his journey up the river to Lechlade that Shelley
wrote ' Alastor ' ? And the Spirit of Solitude still haunts the
stream. Besides, to quote Morris's book again, there is a great
' charm in a very small river like this. The smallness of the scale
of everything, the short reaches, and the speedy change of the
banks, give one a feeling of going somewhere, of coming to
12—5
258 A NEW RIVER.
something strange, a feeling of adventure which one has not felt
in bigger waters.5
But alas ! our holiday is ending, and we must, however reluc-
tantly, turn our faces homewards. Again we must see the stream
widen, and
flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river,
as our boat slips quickly down towards Oxford. But not too
quickly ; we must not unduly hurry, for here, no less than on the
Lower Elver, ' where'er you tread is haunted, holy ground.' The
ruined walls of Grodstow Nunnery, within which Fair Eosamond
once dreamed away long enchanted days, the manor-house at
Stanton Harcourt, where Pope wrote and suffered and writhed
under cruel criticism, mens curva in corpore curvo ; what tales
they could tell you out of the far-distant past ! Here, in the
fragrant meadows of Kelmscott, Eossetti made himself sweet
imageries through the livelong day ; here William Morris thought
out the ' Earthly Paradise,' and here he clothed his idea of a social
Utopia in beautiful description. You drift down towards Oxford
thoughtfully and almost sadly ; the heat of the day is past, the
sun sinks in bands of orange and purple behind the Cumnor hills,
and the mysterious twilight comes on. But you are no longer
alone. The ' shades of poets dead and gone ' — all the dim memo-
ries and associations of the past — draw from out the vast solitude,
and accompany you on your way. Here in the gloaming you see
no shepherd boy, but a rural Pan, dipping his lazy feet among the
water-reeds ; and there, waiting listlessly by an osier-clump, his
drooping figure melting into the evening mists, can you not see
the Scholar-Gipsy himself,
trailing in his hand a withered spray
And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall '
259
THE FIRST ENGINEER.
HE was not an officer in Her Majesty's navy. ' The little gentle-
man in the fur coat/ whom loyal Jacobites used once to toast
with such wicked effusion, is a confirmed enemy of the agricultural
interest only. For earthworms, we all know, are ' the chief of his
diet ; ' and without earthworms, as Darwin long ago showed the
world, there would be no earth to speak of. The rich coating of
vegetable mould upon which we rely for soil to grow our corn and
our cabbages is a gift of the worms ; it depends upon the ceaseless
and silent industry with which those noiseless friends of man drag
down into their burrows whole bushels of fallen leaves, and return
them in due time to the surface of the land as finely-comminuted
castings. They alone make the desert into pasture and arable.
They are the great natural fertilisers. Therefore, whoever devours
the worm is no friend of the farmer ; and the farmer does well to
catch, kill, and exterminate him. Yet I confess to a sneaking-
liking for the poor persecuted mole, who has made such a hard
and gallant fight for life under such difficult conditions.
For the mole is to the .soil what the fish is to the water.
Having to earn his livelihood by ceaseless industry in an extra-
ordinarily dense and resisting medium, he has acquired by slow
degrees a relative perfection of structure which entitles him to
our respectful admiration and consideration. Just reflect how
hard it must be to burrow continually through the ground as a
fish swims through the water — to use your paws for fins, with
solid soil for medium — and you will form some idea of the diffi-
culties the intelligent mole is called upon to contend against in
his daily existence. No wonder his temper becomes a trifle short ;
and no wonder he is so hungry at the end of a hard day's work
that a few hours without food are quite sufficient to kill him of
starvation.
Moles are, in fact, the last word of the burrowing habit. A
great many generations ago some ancestral shrew-mouse or un-
developed hedgehog took to hunting underground with its pointed
snout for slugs and earthworms. 'Twas but a poor situation in
the hierarchy of nature ; yet he found it suited him ; or at least
he was enabled in that way to earn an honest livelihood which he
260 THE FIRST ENGINEER.
failed to procure in any more honourable or dignified position.
So he accepted it pretty much as human workmen accept the
post of miner or sewer-cleaner. It was better than nothing. His
descendants stuck to the task their ancestor had chosen for them,
and developed in time, by competition among themselves, an
extraordinary series of adaptations to their peculiar functions.
Generation after generation introduced successive alterations and
improvements. At the present time there is not a stranger or
more highly specialised mammal on earth than the mole, with
every organ modified for the particular kind of work his life
entails upon him.
In shape he is long but round and compact, with a body fitted
to the size of his own tunnels, as a rabbit to its burrow or an
earthworm to its tube. His legs are short and placed close to his
sides, so as not to occupy any unnecessary space as he scuttles
through his earthworks after his retreating prey. His snout is
long and pointed, so as to fulfil the functions of a screw or auger
in his excavations ; for if you catch a mole above ground, and
watch him as he buries himself, you will see that he uses his nose
to make the beginnings of his tunnel, and employs it throughout
in his work almost as much as he does his powerful fore-feet. But
eyes would be in the way with a subterranean creature ; they
would always be getting full of dust and dirt, and setting up
irritation, or even inflammation ; so in the course of ages they
have become practically obsolete. Not that the mole is quite
blind, indeed, as careless observers will tell you ; he still retains
some faint memory of his eyes, but they are small and deeply
hidden in the close thick fur. And he doesn't see much with
them. He is independent of seeing. His eyes, such as they are,
survive merely by virtue of hereditary use and wont, like the
rudimentary tail and the pre-natal gill-slits in the human baby.
The fact is, it takes a long time for any complete organ to
atrophy altogether ; and moles will very likely be extinguished by
the march of intellect before the last trace of an eye has dis-
appeared for ever under their closely-covered eyelids.
The hands of the mole — for hands they are rather than paws —
serve as his spade and mattock. With them he clears away the
mould from his path, and removes the obstructions in the way of
his tunnel. They are enormously large and broad for the size of
the animal, perfect paddles or shovels, developed in response to
the needs of the situation. Those moles got on best and left
THE FIRST ENGINEER. 261
most offspring that dug their tunnels fastest, and so overtook
the largest number of earthworms ; while those perished in the
attempt which were slowest in their excavations, and consequently
failed to catch up the retreating quarry. 'Twas a perpetual game
of devil-take-the-hindmost, and the modern mole exists as the
survivor in the process.
What makes the fore-paws distinctively into hands, however,
and gives them their curious, almost human aspect, is the fact
that they are naked. This renders them more efficient instru-
ments of excavation. The nails are long and strong and slightly
flattened, and the whole hand turns out somewhat at an oblique
angle. The fingers are moved by powerful muscles of extra-
ordinary calibre for so small an animal ; for by their aid the mole
has to scurry through the solid earth almost as fast as a fish could
swim through the much less resisting water. It is a wonderful
sight to see him paddling away the soil on either hand with these
natural oars, and to watch the rapidity, certainty, and vigour with
which, like faith, he removes mountains — or, at any rate, mole-hills.
But if his hands are gloveless, the remainder of his body is
remarkably well covered. Living underground, as the mole
habitually does, it is clear at once to a thoughtful mind like the
reader's that the pores of his skin would get terribly clogged with
dust and dirt had not his ancestors unconsciously devised some
good means of preventing it. This they did by the usual simple
but somewhat cruel method of survival of the fittest. The closest
furred moles kept their coats clean and fresh ; those with looser
fur got the dust into their bodies, clogged their skins with dirt,
and died in time of the diseases induced by want of Turkish baths
and inattention to the most recent sanitary precautions. In this
way the moles of the nineteenth century have become hereditarily
seised of peculiarly fine soft velvety fur, which is warranted to
keep out every grain of dust, and serves a posthumous function,
undreamt of by its originators, in the manufacture of warm rain-
proof caps for the London costermonger.
It would be a mistake to suppose, however, that because the
mole is practically blind and leads the life of a miner he is there-
fore either a stupid or an unemotional animal. On the contrary,
he is an expert engineer, a most intelligent craftsman, an ardent
lover, and a very game warrior. His fights with his rivals are
severe and fiery. His passions are warm, and his revenge is bitter.
No laggart in love, and no coward in war, the mole would have
262 THE FIRST ENGINEER.
merited the most unstinted praise of the exacting Border
minstrel.
. In order to understand these higher emotional and intellectual
traits in the mole's character we have to recollect the nature of
the arduous labour in which he is perpetually engaged in his
pursuit of a livelihood. A mole's life is by no means a gentle-
manly sinecure. He has to work harder, in all probability, for his
pittance of earthworms than any other animal works for his daily
bread. He is the prototypal navvy. His whole existence is spent
in perpetually raising and removing large piles of earth by sheer
force of muscle. In order to sustain such constant toil, and to
replace and repair the used-up tissue, the mole requires to be
always eating. His appetite is voracious. He works like a horse,
and eats like an elephant. Throughout his waking hours he is
engaged in pushing aside earth and scurrying after worms in all
his galleries and tunnels. The labourer, of course, is worthy of
his hire. Such ceaseless activity can only be kept up by equally
ceaseless feeding ; and so the mole's existence is one long savage
alternation of labour and banqueting. His heart and lungs and
muscles are working at such a rate that if he goes without food
for half a day he starves and dies of actual inanition. He is a
high-pressure engine.
The consequence is that the mole is intense all through ; more
intense than South Kensington. A ' desperate energy ' is the
marked trait in his character. Whether he eats or drinks, whether
he makes love or offers battle, he does it all with thoroughgoing
Italian fierceness. The very cycles of his life are quicker and
shorter than those of less eager races. Being a blind haunter of
subterranean caverns, day and night are nothing to him ; so he
sleeps for three hours only at a stretch, and then wakes for three
hours again ; and after takes another sleep in rotation. He ' works
by shifts,' those who know him best will tell you ; and he sleeps
like a dormouse when he rests from his labours.
His drinking is like his eating : immoderate in all things, he
must have his liquor much and often. So he digs many pits in
his tunnelled ground and catches water in them, to supply his
needs at frequent intervals. He doesn't believe, however, in the
early closing movement. Day and night alike, he drinks every
few hours ; for day and night are all alike to him ; he works and
rests by turn, after the fashion of the navvies employed in digging
tunnels ; or measures his time by watches, as is the way of sailors.
THE FIRST ENGINEER. 263
Only, while the watches at sea are of eight hours each, the mole's
watches — so mole-catchers say — run to only half that period.
Yet it would be a mistake, I imagine, to suppose that our
hero's life is entirely made up of eating, drinking, and sleeping.
The poetical passions of love and war, on the other hand, play no
inconsiderable part in his chequered history. He is an ardent
suitor. When he is crossed in his affections, his vengeance is
sanguinary. Even rivalry in love he bears with impatience. If
two male moles meet in attendance on the same lady of their
choice, they soon pick a quarrel, with the quip gallant or the re-
tort courteous, and proceed to fight it out with desperate resolu-
tion. Their duel is a entrance. Just at first, to be sure, they
carry on the war underground ; but as soon as they have begun
to taste blood, they lose all control of themselves, and adjourn for
further hostilities to the open meadow. Indeed, it is seldom that
you can see them emerge from their subterranean ' run,' except
when seriously ill, or engaged in settling these little affairs of
honour. Once arrived upon the battlefield, they go at it literally
tooth and nail, and never cease till one or the other has disabled
his adversary. Then comes the most painful scene of all, which
only regard for historical accuracy induces me to chronicle. As a
faithful historian, however, I cannot conceal the fact that the
victor mole falls bodily in his triumph upon his fallen antagonist,
tears him open on the spot, and drinks his warm blood as some
consolation to his wounded feelings. The sense of chivalry and of
the decencies of war has been denied to these brave and otherwise
respectable insectivores.
Let me hasten to add, in extenuation of these cannibalistic
tastes, that the victor mole is probably by that time dying of
hunger. Being already tired out with his active exertions, he is
suddenly called upon at a moment's notice to defend his life or to
attack his rival. He fights, as he eats and loves, with fiery energy.
As soon as all is over he is no doubt in a condition of nervous
collapse, and unable to realise nice moral distinctions. Even
human sailors eat one another at sea to prevent starving. At any
rate, 'tis the way of moles to drink their enemies' blood, and much
as I believe in the power of the press, I must sorrowfully admit
that no amount of missionary effort in the shape of magazine
articles seems likely to cure them of this sanguinary proclivity.
A time-honoured proverb has long informed us that ' half the
world doesn't know how the other half lives ; ' and though the
264 THE FIRST ENGINEER.
statement is now less true than formerly, owing to the spread of
useful knowledge and society journalism, it remains tolerably ac-
curate so far as regards the habits and manners of subterranean
animals. The life of the mole, for example, is much more varied
and interesting than most people imagine. Underground beasts
build nests and forts and other extensive earthworks which mere
surface philosophers have very little idea of. Now the raison d'etre
of the mole is to be a devourer and exterminator of the common
earthworm. In this great life-task which he sets before himself,
he has to pit his intelligence and cunning against the intelligence
and cunning of the worms he feeds upon. And worms are much
more advanced and thoughtful creatures than a heedless world wots
of. They live in neat little burrows or chambers of their own, well
paved with pebble-stones, and served by a series of diverging
tunnels. During the daytime they lie by, for the most part, in
their own apartments, for fear of birds, only venturing out upon
the open in search of the fallen leaves which form the staple of
their frugal diet, after the shades of evening have sent the larks
and thrushes to their nightly resting-places. Then the wary worm
peeps forth, eager to escape the early bird who is ever on the look-
out for him ; and then the mole in turn hies him forth to waylay
and devour him.
As a consequence of this internecine duel between the moles
and their provender, the blind insectivore has been compelled to
adopt the tactics and plans of a trained strategist. He does not
live in any spot that comes handy, or fight hap-hazard. His me-
thod is systematic. He builds himself a regular fortress, in accord-
ance with the principles of ancestral castrametation, and lays it
out on a regular and highly scientific plan. The fortress lies
within a mound or tumulus, specially built for its reception, and
in shape not unlike that on which a Norman keep is usually
planted. Indeed, the likeness of the general arrangements of the
mole's citadel to a mediaeval chateau fort is far more than acci-
dental ; it proceeds from a real similarity of purpose and method.
The mound is pierced by several subterranean tunnels, circular in
shape, and run at different levels, but connected by short oblique
galleries or passages. In the centre is the globular chamber which
forms the family living-room. Here the mole may retire to rest, if
he likes, every three or four hours, in the bosom of his family. But
if any enemy approaches, or if the sacrilegious spade of the mole-
catcher invades his privacy, he can dart away at once down one or
THE FIRST ENGINEER. 265
other of the passages, and, if need be, retire strategically by one of
the numerous runs or tunnels which lead in every direction through
his recognised hunting-grounds. For, though title-deeds and con-
veyances are probably unknown among moles, the worm-producing
soil is nevertheless practically divided up among the various pro-
prietors with strict accuracy of tenure ; and any propertied mole
will fight to the death with the lawless intruder who ventures to
disregard his implied notice to the effect that ' Trespassers will be
prosecuted.' He holds his lands, like Earl Warren, by the tenure
of the strongest.
The central chamber or fort is floored and carpeted with dry
leaves, but is comparatively seldom used in summer, being mainly
reserved as a winter residence ; for, active and voracious as he is,
the mole is compelled perforce to hibernate underground while the
frost binds the soil and the earthworms are snugly coiled up in
their neat little bedchambers. To prevent waste of tissue and
consequent starvation during this enforced fast, the frozen-out
miner retires for a while to his fortress and sleeps away the winter
in a torpid condition. While the cold weather lasts he becomes
almost comatose ; his heart scarcely beats, his lungs scarcely act,
and only so much loss of material goes on as enables the organs
to keep just working at extremely low pressure. But as soon as
thaw sets in, and the worms are once more on the move, you will
see almost instantly numerous fresh hillocks thrown up in the
meadows, which announce that the busy mole is fairly on his rounds
again. He comes out apace with the earliest celandine.
The conspicuous little mole-hills, however, which often run in
lines across a fiel,d in very close succession are not for the most part
the work of the father of the family himself, but of his faithful
helpmate. Even she only throws them up, as a rule, just before
the birth of her expected young, when her strength doesn't permit
her to undertake anything more than the most superficial excava-
tion. At other times, she digs deeper and less obtrusively ; while
the male seldom shows his handicraft at all on the surface. The
mother always digs a nest for her young apart. from the fortress,
and lines it with moss or grass as a bed for her little ones. In
their earliest stage, I believe, the young moles are vegetable
feeders ; at least, in nests which I have opened, I have found roots
and tubers laid up, apparently, for the use of the babies. If this
is so, it would seem to show that moles were originally vegetarian ;
for the young always revert to the primitive food of the race, and
266 THE FIRST ENGINEER.
only acquire the later tastes of their kind as they approach
maturity.
Still, it would be vain for the most ardent apologist to deny
that the main object of mole life is the pursuit of earthworms.
For this cardinal purpose of his existence the mole makes and
lays out a large number of runs, intersecting as many burrows as
possible of his hereditary food animals. Along these runs he
makes continual excursions, devouring every hapless worm he
meets on his way, and satisfying as best he may his unquenchable
hunger. In time, of course, he clears the old runs almost entirely
of game, and to meet this contingency he is continually laying
out fresh ones. The worms know well that rapid heaving of the
soil which betokens the approach of a mole to their innocent
burrows, and the moment they feel it, rush wildly to the surface,
prepared rather to face the worst that lark or blackbird may bring
upon them than to await the onslaught of their most ruthless and
bloodthirsty enemy. If you dig a pointed stick into the ground
and shake the earth a little by moving it from side to side, you will
find dozens of worms hurry up to the surface at once, under the
mistaken impression that the petty earthquake is some mole's doing.
For the senses of earthworms are extremely keen, and their per-
ception of danger most acute and vivid.
A person unaccustomed to the ways of worms might wonder
that enough of them could be found in the comparatively small
tract of land which each mole taboos or occupies as his own to
satisfy the needs of so voracious a creature. But, as a matter of
fact, the worm population of England is something incredibly
high, to be numbered, no doubt, by millions of millions. Every
field on our downs is far more thickly populated underground than
London is on the surface ; every meadow is as dense with teeming
thousands of worms as Lancashire is with men, or an ant-hill with
emmets. The soil swarms with life. Vinegar kills worms ; and
where a barrel of vinegar has been accidentally spilt upon the
ground the surface is sometimes positively covered before long by
a thick layer of wriggling creatures which have come up to die,
as is the wont of their species. The abundance and ubiquity of
the game explains the numbers and frequency of the hunters.
Every mole eats daily many pounds of worms, and yet every field
supports a whole villageful of them.
It is the entire drama of nature on a small scale underground
— remorseless, self-centred, unfeeling as ever. Worms exist, and
THE FIRST ENGINEER. 267
exist in thousands, because there are myriads and myriads of
dead leaves for them to live upon. Almost every dead leaf that
falls from tree or shrub, or weed or herb, except in autumn (when
the supply all at once immensely outruns the demand), they carry
underground and bury or devour with ceaseless industry. In doing
so they create and keep up the layer of vegetable mould on the
surface of the earth which alone makes plant-life, and especially
cultivation, possible. Cultivated areas are, therefore, those where
worms are most abundant. So far as they themselves are con-
cerned, however, the worms eat only for their own appetite's sake,
and never suspect they are the friends of lordly man, whose fields
and crofts they thus unconsciously fertilise.
The existence of worms, again, gives rise to the existence of a
vast group of birds, of whom the thrush is a familiar English
representative, largely developed to prey upon and devour these
defenceless creatures. To see the poetical throstle, beloved of
idyllic bards, at work upon a worm is to take the poetry out of
him once for all with a vengeance. He catches the wriggling
and reluctant animal by its head, and begins to munch him
slowly alive, changing the bit on which he is engaged from
one side of his mouth to the other every now and again, but
eating through him steadily from head to tail with entire dis-
regard of the victim's individuality. After he has chewed one
piece well, and is ready for another, he gives a hearty tug at the
still reluctant worm, and loosens another ring or two from the
burrow ; then he goes on upon that till he has chewed and eaten
it. The worm meanwhile struggles and writhes in vain ; and the
thrush gives him occasionally a vicious peck when he wriggles,
just to keep him quiet. Absurd that a mere worm should venture
to disturb a gentleman's dinner by unseemly writhing while he is
engaged in munching it.
To avoid the birds, therefore, the worms took early to an
underground existence. Straightway, the mole saw an opening
in life for himself, and followed them down to their subterranean
refuge. An underground herbivore is sure to be succeeded by
underground carnivores, just as the rabbit very soon implies the
stoat and the ferret, or as the prairie-dog implies the burrowing
owl and the subterranean rattlesnake. Once let an opening in
life occur for a carnivore anywhere, and some enterprising animal
is sure before long to step in and fill it. Worms are very early
inhabitants of our planet, and therefore the mole has had plenty
268 THE FIRST ENGINEER.
of time to develop a most perfect series of adaptations to their
tastes and habits.
Then man supervenes. He is generally unaware, it is true, that
the worm is his best friend ; but he objects to the unsightliness
and mess of mole-hills. They interfere directly with his lawn or his
plan of cultivation. So he dooms the mole, just as ruthlessly and
recklessly as the mole or the thrush doom the luscious earthworm.
Mole-catching is a regular trade by now in our villages ; and the
mole-catchers are the great authorities upon the life and manners
of the creatures they exterminate. So the epic of slaughter goes
on from stage to stage. Altogether there are some dozen or so
of animals specially developed to prey on earthworms alone ; and
the owl and the mole-catcher prey upon the fiercest and most
powerful among them. For the mole himself has almost as many
enemies as his defenceless quarry, and the mother mole passes her
life in fear and trembling for the attacks of birds of prey and of
weasels or polecats. The more closely one studies the life of the
fields, indeed, the more truly is the real moral of nature thrust
upon us : ' Every man for himself, and the devil take the
hindmost.'
269
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
I.
I am afraid that the motives which induced me to go every year
and stay a fortnight with my uncle and aunt Huggleton were
mixed. My mother had nothing in common with her sister, and
as she early discerned that the visits were not congenial she never
pressed them upon me. It must have been my father, who had
vague ideas of some remote testamentary advantage, who reminded
me that it would be well to keep in touch with Uncle Simeon ; and
perhaps it was the hope of meeting my cousin Ehoda which
rendered me more compliant in this case than I often was to such
prudent suggestions. Our part of the family had lived abroad for
years, and the home-keeping branch looked askance on us. My
father in his early years had been a pupil of Gibson, but after pro-
ducing one or two striking models (one of an Orestes I shall never
forget), he grew tired of the steady labour required by his profes-
sion, and only worked when he liked. He never liked to work
long together, and at last ceased to work at all. Then he took up
painting. Then he wrote art criticisms for an Italian newspaper.
In fact, he and all of us were Bohemians. We had hard times
often, for we never had much money. Suddenly, however, one of
the many friends to whom my father had shown kindness died, and
left us a few thousand pounds on condition we took his name,
which was Winstanley.
Then we came to England, and we had been living in a delight-
ful old house in South Devon for about five years when my story
begins. On arriving at home we were all invited to Mudworth
Hall, but we suited our English relatives so ill that the experiment
of a visit in force was not made again. My father, however, who
since his unexpected windfall had learned the pleasantness of being
easy about money matters, considered it his duty, as I say, to follow
the Quaker precept and ' go where money was,' vicariously, in
my person, for a fortnight every July. The reason of our dislike
of the Huggletons was obvious. They were all of the strictest
sect of the Pharisees. They were Sabbatarians, Millenarians, Pre-
destinarians, and everything they could be which was eccentric
and repellent to people who had led the free, art-loving life to
270 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
which we had been accustomed. They attended and supported
a little chapel of ease compared with which, I am sure, the Little
Ease in the Tower was ' a feastful presence full of light.' Here
the incumbent, the Kev. Gedaliah Textor, preached twice every
Sunday and once every Wednesday on vials and trumpets, and
the little horn, and Gog and Magog, and Armageddon, and the
number of the Beast. At least, when I attended his ministry this
course on prophecy was in full blast, and Uncle Simeon dished up
the most hopelessly illogical and impossible of his pastor's exposi-
tions at family prayer morning and evening. The whole household
lived in mortal antagonism to the vicar of the parish — a scholarly
and charming old man, to whose church I once succeeded in
inveigling my cousin Rhoda, for which trespass I was duly prayed
for by my uncle and preached at by his Levite.
For four years I had succeeded in ending my visit the week
before the great local missionary function took place, but on this
fifth visit, either I was later than usual, or the meeting was earlier
than usual. At all events, before I had been in the house twelve
hours I learned that the dreaded gathering was appointed for the
following Monday, and that something was to distinguish this par-
ticular occasion from all former meetings at the Hall. Placards,
leaflets, tracts met you everywhere, and on all of them was the
visible presentment or name of the speaker who would accompany
the deputation from the parent Society, and who would relate his
experience and describe his persecutions, first at a drawing-room
meeting, and then, secondly, in the evening at the schoolhouse of
the chapel of ease. I have the portraits of the man in my mind's
eye as I write, and I have the face of the original still more vividly
impressed on my recollection. His name, which was variously
pronounced and accented by my uncle, the incumbent, and the
Deputation aforesaid, was the Sheikh Assad-el-Deen ; but under this
name, between inverted commas, was written ' The Man in the
Green Turban,' that being regarded, no doubt, as a striking and
sensational designation, and being believed by many of his admirers
to be the translation of his name, which it was not. ' It is no
doubt providential,' said my uncle at breakfast, ' that you should
be in time for our local meeting this year, as we expect an arrival
of no ordinary — nay, I may say of extraordinary — interest. We
shall have the privilege of hearing from his own lips the narrative
of the sufferings and hardships to which that zealous confessor of
the faith, known as " The Man in the Green Turban," has been
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 271
subjected by his benighted and fanatical countrymen. I deem
it a matter —
Uncle Simeon was giving us what I profanely called a dress
rehearsal of his introductory speech, and was only recalled to the
fact that we were in camera by the butler offering him a choice
of ham and veal cutlets. He helped himself, and proceeded in a
more colloquial strain :
' I mean, we should be thankful to get him down, as last year
there was a thin attendance, and the subscriptions have been grow-
ing less lately in spite of our dear Mr. Textor's efforts. Ehoda, you
do not, I fear, make it known at Sunday School that admission to
the annual treat depends on punctuality in sending in the money-
boxes. Represent it as a privilege to contribute to spreading the
Gospel. The pennies wasted at Mrs. Hardbake's sweet-shop would
clothe and educate four black children a quarter ; I have made
the calculation myself.'
' By what train will the Sheikh be here ? ' asked my aunt.
' He will be in time for luncheon. He proposes to make the
Hall his basis of operations, and from hence to attack the neigh-
bouring parishes, returning to supper each evening.'
' Dear me ! ' said my aunt, in a tone which betrayed less
exultant anticipation at the prospect than her husband displayed.
'Dear me! Will he want anything particular to eat? Black
people are peculiar in their habits, and I would tell Mrs. Joynt if
he is likely to prefer anything.'
' No, my dear. The Sheikh has thrown away all restrictions
of that nature. (I will take some kippered salmon, Jacobs.) The
irksome regulations of Indian caste, and the dietary prohibitions of
Mohammedanism — resembling, alas ! too closely the Lenten obser-
vances of the apostate Church of Rome — all are to the enlightened
Christian beggarly elements, and have been doubtless discarded by
our coloured brother '
' Is he black, uncle ? ' said Rhoda innocently.
' No, my dear, no ; certainly not black — rather dark, swarthy,
bronzed by the sun of Araby, I should say — but we shall see in
good time. We must check impatience. It is not, as worldly
people say, a mere foible. It is a fault — a fault having the nature
of a sin, and capable of developing into it.'
My uncle said grace and retired to his study. I vanished to
smoke a furtive pipe in the shrubbery, and then was fortunate
enough to find Rhoda equipped for a trip into the village. She
272 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
ought, I believe, to have hunted up the parents whose children
refused to subscribe to missions ; but she submitted to farce
niajeure and her love of nature, and wandered with me in the
pleasant beech-woods.
That ramble gave me an insight into her character which
was a new experience. Living, as I had lived, mostly with artists
and journalists, I had never had an opportunity of conversing
with a perfectly simple and deeply enthusiastic woman. I had
seen on former visits that Uncle Simeon's artificial tone grated
on her, and she often winced at the odd contrast between his
unctuous spiritual professions and vulgar, self-indulgent habits,
but I did not realise until our talk amidst the beeches that her
religious beliefs were precisely the same as his. Infinitely more
delicate in fibre and refined in expression, of course ; but still,
doctrinally and practically, she believed what he believed. By
temper and training she was a Puritan maiden. It evidently
pained her intensely to notice a trace of sarcasm in my remarks
about the missionary meeting. The incongruities and inconsisten-
cies which forced themselves upon her notice in the speeches of
my uncle were slight flaws in crystal, for no Christian character
is complete ; but a missionary was the holiest and noblest of men.
No one could dedicate himself to evangelistic work without a
Divine calling, and all other professions and occupations were
sordid and selfish in comparison with this one. It must be re-
membered that Ehoda never read a novel, that she had no contact
with any society save that at the Hall, and that her sole literature
consisted of stories in which self-devoted preachers and easily-!
persuaded negroes filled the canvas. Besides, the discipline of
thought, speech, and act in the little circle she moved in was
strict and vigilant. Her companions were all pietists, and any
phrase that did not come out of the vocabulary was noticed and
reprimanded at once. To me, strange as it may seem, all this had
a charm, for I felt that with her it was thoroughly real. I did
not even apprehend it all. Her words implied motives I did not
understand, and influences to which I had never been subject.
Still, as we walked through the woods, ankle-deep in fern, and
watched the sunshine flash and flicker through the leaves and
the squirrel sputter up the beech stems, and listened to the mur-
murous note of the wood-pigeon and the tinkle of the rivulet
that hid itself coyly amongst the grass and only peeped up now
and again to deepen the emerald tint of the sod, I felt a sense
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 2?3
of rest and security that was new to me. I was not looking at
all the beauty as a sketcher with words or pencil. I was feeling
the healthful breath that went out of it all coming into my own
being and cleansing it and uplifting it. That hour in the green
world was one of the days most to be remembered in my queer
rambling life. I have often wondered what would have happened
if I had told her then what I was feeling ; but I am not sure that
I could have done so. Indeed, after-events revealed much to which
I was a stranger at the time. That day I was not conscious of
any feeling towards Khoda definite enough to bear putting into
words, or else I had no apt words to express the feeling — it was so
absolutely vague. I do not know which sentence expresses the
case most accurately. All I know is, that the ramble in the sweet
woods was all too short, and that we went back to the Hall only
just in time to enter the dining-room as the luncheon-bell stopped
clanging, and my uncle, between the Deputation and Sheikh Assad-
el-Deen, was closing his eyes piously for his Levite's unctuous grace.
He introduced me to his guests in a curt sentence, and then,
after reminding us somewhat emphatically of our unpunctuality,
launched out into the great subject of the day — the assignment of
appropriate parts to himself and his two visitors, first at the
drawing-room meeting and then at the great field-night in the
schoolroom. The Eev. Gredaliah was not expected to be very
prominent on these occasions. He had at first resented being put
into the background, but soon learned that it was wiser to submit,
BO he revenged himself for his temporary suppression by being
longer, more irrelevant, and more denunciatory than usual on the
ensuing Sabbath.
' Our dear brother Textor,' Uncle Simeon would say, ' will be
glad of a rest, and so perhaps I, though unworthy, will open the
proceedings, introduce the speakers, sum up the results of the
addresses, and engage in the final prayer.'
Having thus secured the lion's share of public talk to himself,
he proceeded to improve the deeply interesting occasion by
inquiries as to the state of the work in foreign countries ; to
which the replies were, it struck me, singularly evasive and flabby.
I may not, however, have done the Deputation justice, for my
attention was bent on examining the Sheikh. He was a tall,
narrow-shouldered man, with a dark complexion and good features.
His eyes were piercing, his lips thick, perhaps sensual, his nose was
delicately cut. He had a mark in the middle of his forehead, and
VOL. XXI. — NO. 123, N.S. 13
274 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
a silver earring in one of his ears. He wore an ill-made suit of
clerical black clothes, but it was understood that he would appear
after luncheon in native costume. Prejudiced as I am against
him, I acknowledge that he had a beautiful voice and spoke Eng-
lish fluently ; indeed, I was soon sufficiently interested in him to
be anxious to ascertain his real history and to get at his actual
antecedents. The memoir of him given in the various tracts and
leaflets was occupied with a record of his spiritual progress and
experiences, concerning which I could form no opinion.
II.
I LEARNED further particulars later, but more by "putting casually
dropped statements together than by the speeches of the Deputa-
tion and the Sheikh himself at the drawing-room meeting. This
last was a great success. Some forty or fifty men, women, and
clergymen were present. My aunt and Ehoda did the honours
without fussiness, and Uncle Simeon was in his glory. In the
glossiest broadcloth and the largest white necktie I had ever
beheld he dominated the entire scene, until (I must be accurate)
the rising of the Man with the Green Turban.
He had kept behind and in shadow during the speeches of my
uncle and the Deputation, but when he stepped forward in an
Eastern costume which was a gem of harmonious colouring we felt
the hero of the day would not disappoint us.
He began by a compliment to his host, then to England — the
only land that ' conquered without cruelty and converted without
coercion ' — and after a few florid sentences told us what prof
to be the story of his life in a style wonderfully adapted to his
audience. The story — when one thought it over afterwards — had
odd gaps in it, but at the time it flowed on with a certain veri-
similitude.
He was a native of Calcutta ; his father, a descendant of the
Prophet — hence his green turban — had been a wealthy merchant
who had been of service to the Grovernrnent in the Mutiny, and
would have received the Star of India on the institution of the
Order in 1861, but he died just before the first Durbar. Though
outwardly conforming to Mohammedanism, the Sheikh said, with
tears in his voice, that he believed him to have been secretly a
believer. Though his father was so rich a man, the speaker, for
some mysterious reason unstated, was apparently brought up at a
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 275
charity school, where he received his knowledge of the Truth and
where he was baptized. Then followed narratives of cruel perse-
cutions on the parts of uncles, cousins, and aunts before unnamed.
These drove him to take refuge in Egypt, where at a certain well-
known institution he was for a time a teacher. In Cairo he made the
acquaintance of a Christian lady of title. (The last two words were
uttered in a tone which convinced me of his thorough knowledge of
our nation.) She had brought him to London, maintained him, and
had him educated, and now he was going forth to brave fire and
sword that he might ' tell out to his countrymen the precious
news,' &c. I am unwilling to write down the solemn words which
were poured forth so glibly at the meeting. The speaker knew his
audience, and I imagined every word was received as absolutely true
by everyone present except myself. Ehoda's eyes were fixed on the
face of the speaker as her namesake's might have been on the
countenance of St. Peter when he told her of his escape from
prison. She sat in rapt attention, and as his voice faltered with
emotion and his eyes kindled with enthusiasm I saw the faint flush
on her cheek and the quiver of her lower lip which revealed how
deeply her spirit was stirred. To such a nature, I thought, the
appeal to choose between Diana or Christ could only have one re-
sponse. If one wanted a model for the Virgin Martyr she was here !
The speech ended, Uncle Simeon summed up in sentences that
sounded more platitudinous than ever. Then followed prayer, and
hymn, and the dismissal. The audience were loud in their praises
and liberal in their donations ; but the meeting had exceeded the
usual time, and as trains had to be caught by some, and hilly
country roads to be encountered by others, the adieux were hurried
over and the room quickly cleared. I assisted divers old ladies and
gentlemen into wraps and overcoats, and heard on all sides mur-
murs of satisfaction. ' A blessed opportunity ! ' ' How thankful we
ought to be for the privilege ! ' ' May it be fruitful indeed to all
of us ! ' ' What an outpouring in the latter days ! '
Such was the chorus of praise that resounded on all sides.
There was only one jarring note. It came from an old Indian
general, Sir Lake Hastings, who did not reside in the neighbour-
hood, but was 'visiting at the house of one of my uncle's intimate
friends. He grunted out the remark in soliloquy as he was
struggling into his ulster, and had no idea that he was overheard :
' I have seen that black chap somewhere, I am certain, but I
cannot recollect where.'
13—2
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
III.
THE evening gathering at the schoolroom was a greater success than
the drawing-room meeting had been. The Deputation had held
back his more sensational anecdotes for the less sophisticated
audience, and made his points with the precision constant practice
secures. The Sheikh had gained confidence and spoke well. His
dress and complexion were not at once a passport to the respect of
an English country audience. A certain chemist's assistant had
the odious taste to declare in an audible whisper that he looked
like Lampson of the Theatre Koyal, Dullminster, as Othello in
the smothering scene, and certain lewd fellows on the back benches
referred to Ethiopian serenaders. If the Sheikh heard these gibes,
however, he absolutely ignored them and kept himself steadily in
hand, resolved to make as distinct an impression on the yokels and
farmers' daughters as he had done on the county people in the
afternoon. Again I looked at Ehoda, and saw that directly he began
to speak he cast a spell over her entire being. Once it struck me
he was watching what effect a striking appeal for more workers in
the mission field exercised on his beautiful listener. But this
might have been fancy.
During the rest of my stay there seemed to be missionary
meetings every day. We were always driving off to distant
villages and county towns to assist at gatherings of various kinds
and in all of them the Man in the Green Turban was the centre
figure. Every time I heard him I was the more convinced of his
ability. The Deputation had four addresses, which he delivered
in the same order and with the same intonations of voice and se-
quence of gesture. The Sheikh was always different, and, if I could
only have believed in him, always impressive. But even tales of
converted negroes pall at length upon the ear, and the last night
of the campaign arrived. Uncle Simeon had given in, and be-
moaned his inability to attend the final meeting, to be held at the
county town some twelve miles off. I recollected that he had
once tried to represent it in Parliament on Protestant principles at
the time of the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, and had not been re-
turned, which might perhaps account for his unwillingness to visit
it, but Rhoda and my aunt and the Deputation and the Sheikh
went . At the last moment the Rev. Ofedaliah asked to be allowed
a seat in the carriage, and on returning he was dropped at his
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 277
vicarage. Thus it happened that as I strolled out in the moon-
light smoking a cigar, having seen my uncle dutifully to bed, I saw
the Sheikh hand Rhoda from the carriage, linger with her until
the rest of the party came up — which they were provokingly slow in
doing — and at last raise her hand to his lips as they hurried through
the conservatory. As all this passed I was conscious of a sharp
pang, and, like Maria in ' Twelfth Night,' ' felt like hurling things.'
The next day the visitors at the Hall scattered. The missionary
wave receded from that division of the county, and lawn tennis
resumed its reign. The date of my departure was hastened by
a letter from my father, so though I would have given much to
have had another talk with Rhoda, no opportunity occurred.
IV.
I FOUND that a correspondent was wanted by an illustrated news-
paper to proceed at once to the Cape, and that I was recommended
for the post. Of course I started delighted with the prospect,
and for months Boers, kraals, and zereebas, the blunders of
officials and the desperate doggedness with which Englishmen
fight their way out of them, occupied every thought. I returned
home. My work had satisfied my employers, and I was told to
hold myself in readiness for another job; so, cutting short my
stay in town, I wrote to Devonshire to tell my father and mother
I should come down at once. Owing to changes of place and
defective communication, many of their letters addressed to Cape
Town had not reached me, and I found a formidable batch of them
put into my hand by the hall porter of my little club in Hanover
Square on the evening before I left London. I was giving some
friends and brother artists a little dinner that evening, and went
into the library to wait for my guests. They were late, so I
mechanically opened one of my letters. It was from my mother,
and was five months old. It began with many expressions of
anxiety for my safety, for it was written when a battle was imminent.
I ran my eye over the first pages, for they were all ancient history.
Then I came to news of home and family doings. Those I looked
at more carefully, thinking they might tell me something I should
be expected to be acquainted with when I got to Devonshire. I
caught one sentence : ' You will be surprised and grieved to hear
that your pretty cousin Rhoda has married a native missionary,
said to be very pious and devoted, but, as your father says, that
278 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
does not make up for his being what we should call a black man.
I am grieved that she should throw herself away like that, for you
know, my dear, I always hoped that you would '
I was interrupted by the hearty voice of my friend Jack
Aylward, and the rest of my guests entered immediately. We
were busy talking ' shop ' in a moment, and, thanks to high spirits
and champagne, the evening was a success. Everyone had his
story to tell and his joke to make. We had gone through rough
scenes in common, and had many a queer adventure to recall. I
never worked so hard in my life to keep the ball rolling, and I
believe nobody found out the effort it cost me.
After a hurried visit to my people I went abroad again. The
next months of my life were busily occupied. There were always
little wars, or autumn manoeuvres, or royal or imperial pageants
to be sketched and described, and I found myself running over
the world with eyes on the alert and pencil in hand, having very
few pauses for rest or reflection. The occupation suited me
admirably. 'I was young and active, a good horseman, with a
body patient of fatigue, and a keen interest in men and things.
I may say without vanity that I felt my reputation was rising
every year, and I had the greatest pleasure in life — the knowledge
that I had chosen the right calling for my tastes and capacities.
V.
So time swept by until the winter of 1882, when I found myself
in Cairo. I took up my quarters at the Hotel du Nil, which, as
everybody knows, is situated off the Muski. The street has been
modernised lately, but then it had an awning of matting over it,
and presented at every turn quaint glimpses of Eastern life. Its
very signboards, in Arabic, Greek, Eoman, and Armenian charac-
ters, were a study, and the costumes of the groups that thronged
its narrow causeway kept me perpetually taking out my sketch-
book. The hotel, which hid itself away at the end of a narrow
alley slanting out of this thoroughfare, was a favourite haunt of
authors and artists. It consists of a quadrangle with galleries
round three sides looking down on a garden of palms and flowering
trees. The poinsettia blazed in scarlet splendour in winter, and,
later, roses, clustering convolvulus, and the gorgeous mantle of
bougainvillea festooned the alcoves and twisted over the kiosks.
Here I landed, with many portmanteaus of curios and an
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 279
armoury of spears and scimetars, after six months of hard work in
India. I knew Egyptian sketches would be in request shortly,
and so resolved to employ myself for the winter, not without a
presentiment that events would develop themselves which would
make it worth my while, in the interests of my newspaper, to be
on the spot.
I had come to this conclusion when listening to the talk of
soldiers and civilians in Calcutta, and so I was not surprised to
find a letter awaiting me at Suez advising a sojourn in Egypt, as
there would be plenty to do there before long.
It was the third day after my arrival (can I ever forget it ?) ;
I had lunched, and was chatting with my next-door neighbour, a
clever German Egyptologist, when I noticed a lady in mourning
lying in a long Indian chair, with a servant adjusting her shawls
and arranging her pillows. I had heard that there were some new
arrivals on the previous evening, and made up my mind that this
was one of them. My Professor engrossed my attention with
some startling theories about the Great Pyramid, and I did not
look at the two women until the Herr had fallen tranquilly asleep
after satisfactorily demolishing the hypotheses of six French
savants. Then I rose to find myself face to face with Khoda !
She was terribly changed, and I looked at her with a blended
feeling of pity and resentment, for I felt sure she had been cruelly
used. In a few moments I learned the facts. After two years of
married life her husband had died. Later I collected particulars.
After their marriage the Sheikh had found himself in delicate
health and had declared his inability to go to India. The fire
with which he had glowed during the memorable revival week
had suddenly and unaccountably cooled down. The great crusade
which he had preached — the pioneer work amongst new and hos-
tile provinces of the benighted followers of Islam — the conflict for
which he was girding himself, had suddenly lost its attraction,
and Khoda had apparently resided with my uncle and aunt until
a mysterious call of duty had summoned the Sheikh abroad, and,
after an anxious interval without letters, a telegram announced
his illness, and another his death at Singapore. The shock had
been severe, and, after remaining for some time in a state which
gave the father and mother acute anxiety, it had been determined
to send the young widow to Egypt. She was herself meditating
a longer voyage and a visit to her husband's grave ; but for the
present she was too ill to undertake a further sea journey, and
280 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
was simply resting and trying to recover her strength after the
shock of the sudden news. I cannot say how unspeakably thank-
ful I was to be near her. Though the change in her appearance
wrought by her sufferings was at first so dreadful to me that I
scarcely dared to look at her, I soon found that she was the same
Ehoda whose sweetness and charm had opened upon me on that
happy day in the woodlands. I believe — and it is one of the most
cherished thoughts of my life — that I was helpful to her at this
time. The surroundings were new and strange to one who had
never been out of England, and my experience softened little
rugged places in her path and prevented her from finding herself
entirely amongst strangers. By mutual consent, certain subjects
were avoided. I did not speak of the Sheikh or her married life,
and of course she rarely referred to it ; but I convinced myself
she had not been happy, and that she had been keenly disappointed
in her husband. I noticed she insisted less than of old on the
special doctrines of her peculiar creed, and it seemed to me that
those lofty professions which had always been repellent to me had
become distasteful to her by the contrast they afforded to her
husband's actual practice. She avoided phraseology that had
once seemed to express realities to her, but which she now rated
at a lower value.
Thus the only barrier between us was vanished or vanishing,
and she was more precious to me every hour I lived in her dear
company. My sketches and descriptions of places interested her,
and I found she had followed me in my wanderings during the
time we had been separated. I mentioned there was a servant
with her. Hester Mason had been a pupil in her Sunday School
class, and had been her maid before she was married. She was a
quiet but shrewd girl, and always showed in the way that a tactful
servant can that she liked me to be with her mistress. On more
than one occasion she knocked at my door and asked me to come
in at afternoon-tea time and try and persuade her mistress to take
a drive, as she was -very depressed and wanted brightening up, and
once she ventured on a remark which was evidently to relieve her
mind and lead me to question her.
' Oh, sir, I do wish Miss Ehoda — I won't call her by that
heathen's name she never ought to have took — I say I do wish
she would forget all about him, and not mope over his letters,
and keep gazing and gazing at the telegram, every word of which
she must know as well as the Church Catechism. And I do wish
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 281
master had put off the marriage until Sir Lake had got them
letters from India he expected to get. It was all bound to be, I
suppose ; but nothing shall ever make me believe different than
that it was the General's visit as made him pack off.'
' How do you mean ? ' I said, half ashamed of myself for allow-
ing a servant to speak of a subject so sacred, and yet so convinced
of the girl's affection and faithfulness that I felt we had a bond of
o
sympathy that justified me in encouraging her to speak.
' Well, sir, it was this way. Directly it was known that Miss
Khoda was to marry him, Greneral Lake Hastings, who had seen
him at the missionary meeting when you was down, sir, called,
and was shut up with master for two hours ; and I heard from
James the footman that he told master not to be in such a hurry
with the match, and to wait until he wrote letters and got answers
from India. But master said the black man was " a chosen instru-
ment," and " a vessel," and all them things as they talk about in
tracts, and persisted ; but the General, who is a very hot-tempered
gentleman, as them is sometimes that comes from furrin parts,
stamped out of the hall in a rage, and muttering bad words, and
saying " Shame ! " " Shame ! " quite loud to himself all down the
avenue till he got to his carriage.'
' Yes ; but you said he called upon Miss Ehoda's husband '
' He did, sir ; about a week before he went away, but nobody
knows what he said because that black man fastened the green
baize door (he had made master put double doors to the rooms
because of the cold English climate) and locked t'other one
directly the Greneral said he wanted to speak to him. But what-
ever he heard, it was nothing he liked, depend on it, for he was
that bad the next day he could not preach nor conduct the
devotions nohow, but began a preparing for a journey directly.'
This was Hester's contribution to my anxiety. I felt there
was something wrong, but beyond the vaguest suspicions I had
nothing to go upon. I tried to force myself to acknowledge my
strong prejudice against the Sheikh, and to attribute much to the
inborn dislike and disgust which the servant class in our country
have to foreigners. Besides, the evil was done and the sin sinned.
Hester once hinted that the Sheikh had been unkind and cruel to
his wife on more than one occasion, and if he had lived would
have broken the poor lamb's heart ; but I felt bound to check all
disclosures of this kind, and hinted the same sharply and un-
mistakably. Meantime I felt that all I heard gave Rhoda a
13—5
282 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
stronger claim on my regard and affection, and I strove to
brighten her life by such kindness as a brother might have shown,
conscious all the time that my regard was deeper and warmer
than I could ever have felt for a sister.
VI.
BUT our little romance was about to be absorbed in the stormy
events of politics. For some time I had felt that the state of
Egypt was volcanic, though the little group of artists and savants
who lounged and smoked in the hotel garden talked of their own
hobbies in serene unconsciousness of the forces that were in action
outside. In my quality of journalist I gathered information from
officials, and I knew that Arabi — or rather the movement of which
he was the mouthpiece — would have to be reckoned with. The
state of Cairo was becoming more and more critical. Resident
Europeans were sending their families home, and at last! received
a hint from the Consul-General that all English ladies had best
go to Alexandria, as thence they could take ship easily in case
of trouble ; and he added that even Alexandria was not so safe as
it might be, and recommended everybody who had wives, sisters,
or cousins to send them to England. I told Rhoda at once, and
she resolved to do as I advised. I accompanied her to Alexandria,
and on May 17, in the cold and weird half-light of the memorable
eclipse, which was used with great effect by the rebels as a portent
to discourage the royalist party and presage ruin to their cause, I
said farewell to her. The steamer was crowded with women and
children with anxious faces. All those who had any interest in
Egypt felt it a nervous time. The wives whose husbands had to
remain at their posts said ' Grood-bye ' to them with dread looking
out behind their courageous smiles.
' I can never thank you enough. Take care of yourself. You
have been very good to me.'
Those three sentences were all she said, but to me they were
Infinite riches in a little room.
Not Solicitude and Thankfulness, but — richest jewel of all — Hope.
I returned at once to Cairo, for there my work lay. It WHS
a strange time. Everybody was expecting something ; no one
knew what. There were rumours of all kinds, and extraordinary
revelations of character. Some men credited with strength and
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 283
energy displayed the most abject weakness. Others, who were
popularly labelled as ' poor creatures,' surprised you with their
pluck and resource. My most trusted friend, whom I will call R.,
but to whose position I cannot even now give a clue, had gauged
the position of parties accurately, and to him such credit as my
letters obtained for me is due. The way in which I gleaned the
information which made my fortune as a correspondent connected
itself, however, strangely, with the family history I am telling.
Though many persons were suspected of being Arabists, and though
the leaders of the revolt were known, there were doubts about
several leading men, and it was particularly important to learn if the
inspirers of the movement had touch with the Red Revolutionists
of the Continent. These and many important facts could only be
ascertained by getting admission to one of the secret meetings,
and I learned (it is not prudent to say by what channel) when and
where the meetings took place. Bakshish liberally distributed,
and still more liberally promised on the fulfilment of certain
conditions, secured me promise of admission to this place of
rendezvous. I determined at all hazards to see the matter
through and find out exactly who were the prompters of the
native leaders, some of whom, I was persuaded, were mere puppets
whose wires were held by abler hands.
The day came. I had undertaken many risky adventures,
and gone into them with a light heart ; but this time I confess to
feeling nervous. The sort of work was new to me ; and, besides,
since I had recovered Rhoda, life seemed more worth living than
it had been before. The hour when the conspirators met was ten
o'clock at night • the place an old house accessible by an intricate
zig-zag of narrow alleys to the left of the Muski. I had been
warned to arrive a full hour before the meeting-time, and as the
clock of the Franciscan church struck nine I lifted the heavy iron
knocker and struck once, counted ten, and knocked again twice —
two sharp raps. The most complicated specimen of that clumsiest
of contrivances, an Arab bolt, was withdrawn, and I stood in a
large courtyard with the pipe of a fountain that did not spout in
the middle. I entered the salanilik, or men's apartment — a high,
bare room with a few small inlaid tables for holding coffee and
cigarettes, and two or three shabby divans. My friend the man
whom I had ' gratified,' as Gil Bias would say, then proceeded to
point out the peculiarity of the room, and to tell me what I was
to do. At one end was a sort of gallery, ornamented with gilding
284 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
and intricate traceried patterns, but with no door from behind
opening into it, and no steps leading up to it. I have seen these
erections often in Turkish houses, and after forming many theories
as to their purpose, have come to the conclusion they were not
intended to serve any purpose at all. On the present occasion,
however, my friend intimated that I was to climb up into this post
of vantage on a ladder which was to be removed, and that then I
was to lie flat behind the ornamental scroll-work carving, which
was sufficiently deep to conceal me, and from that hiding-place
see and hear what went on in the room below. The prospect was
sufficiently uncomfortable ; but my task had to be carried through.
The shaky ladder was brought. I mounted and lay down. The
place was inches deep in dust and dirt, and at first I sneezed like
the hunchback in the Arab story, but at last I found a sort of
mattress to put my head on. Cramped and uneasy, I waited for
the longest hour I had ever passed. The time seemed to drag as
though every minute contained six hundred seconds, not sixty.
At last my friend (of course, he was called Mohammed) brought
in a couple of paraffin lamps. Then I was conscious of the pre-
sence of several persons in the room below, and heard the ordinary
salutations exchanged. The men dropped in slowly, never more
than two at a time, and at last, I suppose, all who were expected
arrived. Then followed long speeches, interruptions, questions,
and replies — in fact, an animated debate. Most of the speakers
talked Arabic, which I knew very imperfectly, but two or three
employed French. The character of the speeches differed as much
as the language. Some were full of public spirit and zeal for the
expulsion of the foreigner. Some seemed little more than a string
of texts from the Koran. Some, as I guessed from the recurrence
of well-known names, were virulent attacks on the holders of
several rich posts which the orator evidently wanted for himself
and his friends. The studied harangues of the head of the revolt
were a strange mosaic of verses from the holy book and phrases
from the French revolutionary writers. At last, after listening
with straining ears to let no word that I could understand escape,
and peeping cautiously to see the faces of the group until I was
tired out, a diversion was made by a knock at the door. Then
there was an eager discussion as to whether the new-comer should
be admitted. Several persons spoke French ; hence I was able to
understand that the new arrival was a delegate of some importance
who brought news from sympathisers in India. At last it was
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 285
decided to admit the emissary. The door was opened, and he
entered. Again there were long salutations, coffee-drinking, and
salaams. At last, when I felt my powers of attention on the verge
of exhaustion, I heard the preluding sentences of a speech. The
tones, the inflexions, the melody of the voice were unmistakable.
I raised myself on my elbow and looked through an aperture in
the gilded scroll-work. There was no mistaking the man. There
he was in his green turban — the Sheikh Assad-el-Deen. He was
not dead, then. That was the fact that possessed me. Then
mechanically I listened. He spoke in French, and no previous
speaker had approached him in bitterness against Christianity.
He mocked the most sacred mysteries. He sneered at the hypo-
crisy of religious profession. He cynically contrasted our rule of
life with our practice. There was nothing sacred to him. And
this foul-mouthed fiend had been cherished by^rny people, and had
been the husband of an English girl whose every thought was
truth and purity !
There was no apology or extenuation possible. Had I been
inclined to find one, every sentence I listened to would have made
it more and more entirely out of the question. He counselled
simulation, so as to lull us into the sleep of a false security, and then
an unrelenting massacre of every English man, woman, and child
in Cairo, Alexandria, and the great towns. He said his father had
been treacherously murdered after the Indian Mutiny, and drew a
horrid picture of the righteous vengeance, as he called it, which
Nana Sahib executed on the infidels. It was clear that one or two
of his listeners thought he had gone too far ; but his eloquence told,
and I felt when he had done that the national party was stronger,
and our position more critical, than I had imagined.
At last the meeting broke up. I was a prisoner on my shelf
until Mohammed returned, after seeing the men safely off, and
brought the ladder. I could hardly lift myself up, and when I did
manage to get on firm ground again I was almost dizzy with the
shock I had received. The wretch was alive, and Ehoda, my dear
love, who two hours ago had made life worth living for me, was his
wife ! There was no hiding the fact. I had sense enough after
a few minutes to ask some questions about the conspirators.
Mohammed gave me the names of several of them. This informa-
tion was of great value to me subsequently. I then asked about
the man who came late.
' He is a Sheikh from Hind, He has not been in Egypt long,
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
but lie is a great man, and very rich, for he has married the only
daughter of Y Pasha, who will be Prime Minister before many
months are over.'
VII.
MY bodily weariness gave me sleep that night. Next morning
I wrote my letters and sent off my telegram. I had at least the
satisfaction of knowing that I was the only correspondent who had
sent home accurate tidings as to the conspiracy which was ripening
to revolt so rapidly. This done, I had a few necessary interviews,
and then sat down to realise what had befallen me, and to see what
could best be done to save Khoda.
The position was terrible. The man to whom she was married
was one from whom any masterstroke of villainy might be expected.
He might have had a wife in India, and Khoda's marriage in
England may have been invalid. I execrated the folly of my
uncle, and thought and said in the bitterness of my spirit many
things about religion and religionists that I was ashamed of.
Still smarting under the sense of powerlessness to redeem a cruel
wrong, I must be judged leniently if all the agencies that directly
or indirectly had brought that wrong about were alike hateful to
me. I was feverish with anxiety to do something — but what ?
I sat for hours in my room revolving the problem, then I went out
and walked aimlessly about the streets. I stopped before an Indian
curiosity shop and looked in. How well I recollect the pattern of
some filagree work that I priced and examined as a pretext for
loitering ! The native shopkeeper was, like the rest of his brethren,
swarthy of face, lithe of limb, oily of tongue ; and he tried to
baffle my attempts to beat down his price with deprecatory ges-
tures and cajolin'g smiles. I was thinking so little about my
bargain that I believe I put down twice as much as I need have
done. According to the rules of the bazaar game, the Indian
should have smiled and offered me a brass idol or a bangle as a
bakshish. Instead of that, as he folded up my purchase his face
grew livid ; he sprang over his counter and brushed me out of the
shop, upsetting a pile of screens, bowls, fans, and trinketry. I
went to the door just in time to see the Sheikh and one of the
men I had watched last night enter a carriage and drive away,
while the Indian, like a hunting leopard in the leash, ready to
spring, crouched behind a pile of merchandise which projected
over the pavement, and strained his eyes after the disappearing
pair.
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 287
' Do you know that man ? ' I asked as he entered quivering
with excitement.
' Man, Sahib ! ' and he poured out a string of curses in his own
language that, if the proverb is true about young chickens,
must have crowded every roosting-place of his future life with
retributive visitations. I pressed him to tell me something more ;
but after his outburst he was silent and nervous, evidently anxious
to get rid of me, for he handed me my purchase and said some-
thing about closing his shop. I hesitated for a moment, and then
resolved to try and enlist the man as an ally. I told him I would
reward him if he would tell me something of the Sheikh's move-
ments.
' It is not good, Sahib ; it is not good.'
I told him I knew the man, and that I could bring him to
justice and have him punished.
' It is not good, Sahib ; it is not good. It is not you who
must punish him.'
At this moment a group of tourists with veils and sun-
shades poured into the shop. I turned to see if I knew them, and
in a moment the Indian had caught up something in a sheath
that lay on a counter and disappeared. Another man, his partner,
began chattering to the customers, and far away in the distance
I saw the flying feet and fluttering silk garment of the Indian as
he ran, swift as an arrow, in pursuit of the enemy.
VIII.
ABOUT a week passed. Every day brought confirmatory news of
the progress of the military conspiracy, and the feelings of sus-
picion and irritation increased. I was warned not to transmit any
important information to Europe through the Egyptian telegraph,
but to wire from Alexandria, so, when certain facts came to my
knowledge that seemed to point to a speedy outburst, I resolved
to take the morning train. Knowing I was watched, I did not
give any orders to the waiters about being called early, but break-
fasted and, taking my sketching-traps with me, strolled out as I
usually did. Some interruption delayed me, however, and I
reached the station as the bell was ringing. I ran up the steps
and through the refreshment-room, but the wicket leading- from
the waiting-room to the platform was shut.
It was disappointing, especially as the train did not start for
288 THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN.
two minutes at least, and had the gate not been shut before the
proper time I could easily have taken my place. The Arab
ticket-taker having once locked the gate and said ' Makfool,' * was
inexorable. I stood staring at the carriages as they moved out of
the station. In the last first-class compartment was the Sheikh ;
in the first second-class carriage the Indian.
What could it mean ? Were they both evading me ? Were
they in league, and was the anger of the silver-worker feigned ?
I think the only thing that I was certain about in rerum natura
was that there was no unreality in that wrath, and no evasion of
its deadly purpose possible.
There was nothing to be done but to go to my hotel, which I
did, for I was too excited to sketch, and, indeed, it was too hot to
work, except in the shady bazaars and mosques, which at this time
were not very safe, ill words, hisses, bustlings, and stones being
the portion of the Christian who went into the native quarters of
the city.
I can never be too thankful that that day was mail-day and
the mail brought me a letter from Rhoda. It was, like herself,
frank and kindly. She put in writing, she said, what she was
afraid she had not expressed in words — her deep gratitude — and
asked me to let her hear from me from time to time, as she was
anxious. I read the lines very often, and now, though years have
passed away, I read them still. Determined not to miss the train
this time, I went half an hour before the starting-hour to the
large dingy railway station. There were groups of people about,
talking to each other, who did not seem to have come to take the
train. I asked the engine-driver if there was anything the matter.
He said telegraphic communication was stopped by an accident,
and the natives said there was trouble at Tanta. I started on my
journey. At any other time I should have enjoyed it, for the
train passes through a series of pleasant landscapes. But a strange
anxiety for the solution of my mystery, and a presentiment that
that solution was at hand, filled my mind. We reached Tanta.
I saw the crowd of mud-built houses, the dome of the great
mosque — centre of Arab fanaticism in Egypt — the slender
minarets, the two towers of the Christian church. I looked out
on the dusty platform and on the barred and shuttered windows
of the station. There were a crowd of natives, some in robes and
turbans, some in stiff black Stambouli coats. There were fruit-
* Makfool = 'It is closed,'
THE MAN IN THE GREEN TURBAN. 289
sellers with cool green melons, and some hideous deformed children
fighting viciously. Just by the bureau of the chef de la gare there
was an open space, now railed with wooden palings and planted
as a garden. The last time I passed — about a month ago — a
crimson oleander was blooming on the very spot where I saw what
I am going to describe.
A crowd of men gathered in a circle, enthralled by the extra-
ordinary eloquence of Sheikh Assad-el-Deen. I could see by his
vivid gestures and their silent, attentive faces that they were under
the spell. I could not hear what he said, but one or two familiar
sounds recurred, and I knew he was stirring them up to some
deed of bloodshed. Half mad, I tried to get out of the carriage
O O
to reach him and strike him down. Fortunately, the door was
locked, for I should have been torn piecemeal had I interfered. I
believe he was urging them to stop the train we were in and
murder all the Christian passengers by laying them on the rails
and letting the engine pass over them. I saw the faces of his
listeners flame with fanatical passion, when suddenly, from behind
or out of a tomb hard by, flashed a half-naked figure. He cut
through the crowd and fastened on the speaker. An arm rose
with gleaming steel in the hand. It fell, and the evil genius of
my life and Khoda's was out of them both for ever.
If the wretch uttered any cry it was drowned in the shriek of
the engine that bore our train out of danger ; for had we stayed
in the station longer, the mob would have acted on the Sheikh's
advice.
I never saw the Indian again, and cannot tell whether he
escaped. Later, I learned that he had received an injury from
Sheikh Assad which no Oriental could forgive, and had dogged him
for years.
From that day political matters engrossed me. I was all
through ' the events.' Then I returned to England, and, exactly
a year after we parted at Alexandria in the mysterious shadow of
the eclipse, Rhoda and I were married.
290
AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP.
I.
I LEFT Baltimore, convalescent from a bad attack of fever which
had kept me in bed for some time. I had been but a few hours
in New York, and was lying down, when the ' help ' told me I
was wanted. ' There's a couple of fellers waunts to see you,' she
said, and disappeared. I went downstairs and saw two strangers.
Our conversation resulted in the rather hurried exit of one, and
in the other's introducing himself to me, by means of a tin badge
on his shoulder, as a sheriff's officer. He told me I was his prisoner.
As there was no help for it, I acquiesced. He proposed, he said,
* fixing me up at Ludlow Street ' — a debtors' prison and common
house of detention. By his advice I elected to enter as a boarder.
That entitled me to all the * privileges,' which is, being inter-
preted, that I had the run of the house, and might have in any-
thing I could pay for. The advice turned out to be worth having,
and I am grateful for it to this day.
It was between eight and nine at night, when, in company with
the sheriffs officer, I entered Ludlow Street gaol. As the outer door
banged behind us I do not quite know how I looked, but I felt
white and giddy ; and it was not until my name had been regis-
tered in the books, and I had been ushered through a grated door
into the prison proper, that I had sufficient courage to look round.
The click of the locks a little unnerved me, and the care with
which the warder closed each door before opening the next, was
particularly offensive. The shutting of a door has a peculiar
significance when you reflect that you may not open it yourself
again ; and the sense of utter helplessness it breeds in you is, so
far as I know, unique in human experience. I would gladly have
run away, but I could not. I was a prisoner, and alone in the
reception-room of Ludlow Street lock-up. So I lit a cigarette and
looked about me.
The reception-room is the room where the prisoners receive
their friends — and lawyers. It is a lofty place, in shape not
unlike what architects call a * T square,' with one side of the
cross-piece cut off, while the other remains to form a sort of large
AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP. 291
recess. Fastened to the walls are a good many chairs and benches,
and at the end of the recess is a large, naked-looking writing-desk,
with pens and ink, and so forth. Scattered about the floor are a
number of big iron spittoons — ' spit boxes ' the warder termed
them boldly ; and to the left are several doors — one leading into
the yard and left wing of the prison, another to the kitchen and
dining-room, a third opening upon a flight of perforated iron
stairs, conducting in their turn to the cells, which run in long
galleries, one above the other, the whole length and breadth of
the building. It was not excessively comfortless, nor excessively
dirty, nor even extravagantly inhuman ; but I wondered at it all
with a sickness of curiosity and disgust. My nerves were attent,
and I began to understand why people prefer death on the high-
way to life in a workhouse.
In the reception-room there were three people besides myself.
Two were prisoners, and one was a visitor. Of the prisoners,
the first (James Fish, ex-president of a Bank) was a nice, mild,
pleasant-looking, soft-voiced gentleman of about sixty-five, in a
grey tweed suit and a black skull-cap. I was taken with the
look of him ; and when next day he told me his story (some of
which I already knew from the journals) I pitied and sympathised
with him with all my soul. The visitor was his, so I fell to look-
ing at the other, his ' co-mate and brother in exile.' An ill-
looking dog at the best, he was leaning against the wall, smok-
ing vigorously, his hat on the back of his head, one hand in
his breeches-pocket, and one leg over the other, swinging
from side to side with an ugly nervousness that was madden-
ing. He was of medium height, well dressed, and in a wicked
kind of way quite handsome : with a fine, well-shaped sallow
face, close-clipped, jet-black beard, and a long, heavy, drooping
moustache, which dissembled — as inspection revealed — one of
the cruellest mouths I ever saw. His eyes, which were of a
brownish-green, seemed bursting from his head ; he was plainly
devoured with expectation. As I looked at him he began to look
much at me, and I had got dreadfully apprehensive of his ap-
proach, when, to my relief, there entered another gaol-bird, who
sat down by me and immediately entered into talk. After the
customary formalities, I took the liberty of asking my new ac-
quaintance (who was an old hand, and thoroughly well posted in
everybody's case) what the dark creature was * in ' for. Of course
it was embezzlement — he was quite a high-class criminal, you see —
embezzlement and an ungenerous habit of falsifying his accounts.
292 AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP.
He had been cashier in a large hotel in New York, and had had
the handling of all the money. He got an excellent salary, but he
had expensive tastes, and could not contrive to live on it. The
result was that when he wanted money (and that was pretty
frequently) he helped himself. He had done so, it appears, to
the extent of some four thousand dollars ; and , when his peculation
had come to light, had tried to foist the affair upon one of the
directors, to whom (he said) he had handed the money on order
and without a formal receipt. He was arrested ; sent to the Tombs
(a criminal jail) to await his trial ; lodged there for eleven days ;
and then, on the application of his lawyer, remanded to Ludlow
Street, where he had been housed about a week when I first saw
him.
In the course of this history a visitor was announced for
its hero, and to him there entered a woman. She was of the
middle height, and plainly dressed in black ; and with her care-
worn, white face, unnaturally old and shrunken, she looked the
picture of misery. He received her chillingly enough, yet with
a certain nervous embarrassment, and they sat down together in
the recess. I heard nothing of their talk, but I could see enough
to understand without hearing. He sat there, tilting his chair,
and blowing smoke into her face as she spoke, and every now
and then he would sneer out some monosyllable in reply. She
stayed perhaps five minutes ; and then they parted, and she went
away in tears (such bitter tears !), he not even troubling to see
her to the first grating, but shrugging his shoulders and chewing
the end of his cigar. All the while, too, he was ill at ease, for the
fearful whiteness of his face contrasted curiously with his would-be
swashbuckling air. He seemed relieved when she had departed ;
and I understood the reason when, a few minutes later, another,
and a much younger, woman came to see him. My impression is
that she had watched the other go. She was pretty, in an
impudent kind of way, and she was very well dressed. At sight
of her the fellow changed almost to another man. He ran forward
to meet her, caught her in his arms, and kissed her again and
again. Then he drew her into the recess, and they sat down, she
in the other woman's seat. He put his arm round her neck, and
she lay with her head on his shoulder ; and so they sat, and talked,
until the bell rang for visitors to leave. He walked with her
to the grating, his arm still round her, and kissing her as they
went ; nor would he let her away until the warder took her by
the arm, and put her out. She,'.too, cried at parting, J}ut
AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP. 293
how her tears awoke no sympathy of mine. I saw the two women
come and go, and I know how I felt. The first one was his wife.
I can taste the flavour of his rank tobacco even yet.
The visitors having all departed, I was introduced by my new
friend to the old gentleman. ' I am delighted to see you,' he
said ; and then, seeing my face pale, he added, ' but would sooner,
for your sake, have had that pleasure outside.' This is the regula-
tion joke ; it is generally the first thing a new comer is greeted
with. For a moment I was inclined to be angry ; but it was said
so good-naturedly, that, miserable as I was, I was forced to laugh.
From that time we two were on the best terms. He gave me a
cigar (a very good one), and we sat down. We had been chatting
a few minutes when a new prisoner was brought in. His appear-
ance was a study. Rather short and very dirty, he was dressed in
a suit of rusty brown and a top-hat, both very much the worse for
wear ; and with his almost russet-coloured boots and unshaven
face he looked as though he had been hauled straight out of a
rag-shop. Added to this, he squinted horribly ; and yet, as he
stood there, blinking at the gas, there was a touch of, pathos
about him too — he might have passed for a newfangled ideal of
simplicity. He seemed surprised to find himself in prison. The
bailiff had told him he was wanted by a friend, and with child-
like ingenuousness he now fell to asking where his friend was.
In reply the bailiff produced his warrant, and with the utmost
gravity went through a mock ceremony of introduction. This he
concluded by saying, ' Now you know each other I'll git out of
this ' ; which, being an officer, and therefore a man of his word,
he did.
The captive stared round him vacantly; took off his hat;
polished it thoughtfully with the palm of his hand; squinted
stupidly at everybody ; and then, with a great sigh, sat down.
Poor fellow ! He was the captain of a little coaster, and should
have put to sea that night ; but he was arrested for a debt of forty
dollars, the ship sailed without him, and he lost his berth and
his liberty at one blow. Suddenly he jumped up and said, with
the utmost simplicity and earnestness, * I've got an appointment
at half-past ten, and it's most important.' * Is that so ? ' asked
the warder. * Yes,' replied the sea-captain ; * I must go, but I'll be
back by eleven, sure.' ' I hope so,' said the warder, * because, if
you stayed later, you might git me into trouble.' * Oh, I wouldn't
do that for the world,' said the sea-captain. ' Quite sure you
won't git lost ? ' inquired the warder. * Oh, quite,' said the sea-
294 AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP.
captain. ' Well, good-bye,' said the warder, laughing. ' Open the
door then,' said the sea-captain eagerly. ' George,' sang out the
warder, * open the door of Sixteen for this heer tenderfoot, he
wants to go to sleep.' Anything like the mariner's astonishment
I have never witnessed. He did not seem able to understand that
the warders were fooling him ; and with the utmost gravity he
went on begging to be allowed to depart upon parole, until at
last the turnkey lost his temper, called him a ' d d fool,'
and pushed him upstairs — rather roughly I thought — and I saw
him no more that night. Poor simple sea-captain ! Is he still in
hold, I wonder ? He looked the sort of man to stay there for ever.
Shortly after this we all went upstairs to the second gallery of
cells (their inmates called them * rooms '), and in one of these I
was introduced to several other gaolbirds. The first question put
to me was the ceremonial, ' When do you expect to go out ? ' I
answered with the traditional, ' To-morrow morning.' There was
a shout of derisive laughter. ' Ah, we all say that,' some one was
kind enough to observe ; ' I said it, and thought it too ; but I've
been here eleven months and three days, God help me ! ' I may
here remark that I never once heard a man refer to his imprison-
ment without mentioning the odd days over and above the weeks
or months he had served. My impression is that they count the
hours, and the minutes too. I know I did.
I sent out for half-a-dozen of Bass, for which I paid one-and-
eightpence a bottle, and, by the old gentleman's advice, for some
candles to light my cell with (there being no gas), and a sheaf of
newspapers to read. I sat on the edge of a bed, drinking beer
and wondering when I should be locked in for the night. I was
not kept long in suspense. The warder appeared and called me
by name. < This way,' he said ; and I bade the others good-night,
and followed where he went. After marching me the whole
length of the gallery, he stopped suddenly, wheeled half round,
flung open a door and said, ' Inside ! ' Inside I passed. Bang !
clack ! went the door behind me, an outside bolt was shot
viciously, and I was alone. I struck a match, Lit my candles —
there were four, and had there been forty I should have lit them
all — and took a look at my ' room.' It was about six feet square,
and very lofty, with black walls of solid stone and a floor of cast
iron. Moreover, it was very dirty, and smelt like damp whitewash.
Directly facing the door, which was also of iron, solid, save for a
lattice at the top, was a. very small and very filthy deal table,
fixed to the stonework with large iron staples and crutched in
AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP. 295
front with one rickety leg. Alongside the wall, to the left, was
my bed. A curious piece of furniture it was. Of solid iron, about
five feet long and two feet wide, it stood perhaps eighteen inches
high ; it was covered with a flimsy quilt of a curious yellow ; it
was furnished with a consumptive-looking straw mattrass, about
two inches in thickness, worn into a hollow in the middle, and
stinking like a disused cellar ; and it was covered with a coarse
canvas sheet. There was a blanket, too, but it felt so greasy
and smelled so deadly that, incontinently, I Ihrew it under the
table. The pillow was the mattrass in little ; it was scarcely so
plump, but it had the advantage in dirt. Had the flooring been
of wood, instead of iron, I should have preferred it to my couch.
As it was, I had not the courage to undress, and I lay down in
my clothes and tried to sleep. Of course I failed ; so I collected
my candles, stuck them to the floor at my bed-head, and went to
work on the newspapers. I read them all — there were five, 'I
think — even to the advertisements ; and about five in the morn-
ing I dropped off to sleep. In my dreams I was chased, caught,
tried, convicted, sentenced, and hanged a hundred times over;
and when the warder woke me up I was more than sorry I had
slept at all.
II.
< Seven o'clock,' said the warder not politely, ' git up ! ' Then,
seeing I was dressed, ' Why,' he asked, with some temper, ' what
sort of a man do you call yourself to go to sleep in your clothes ? '
I evaded the question by telling him that I had dropped off whilst
reading ; but he caught sight of the blanket under the table, and
his wonderment became a kind of stupor. He picked it up, and
considered it as one in a dream. 'Wall,' he remarked, 'this heer
gits right through me anyway,' and, with the look of one whose
feelings have been hurt, he tossed it on the bed and went away.
There was a bath in the prison for the use of the ' privileged,'
and in it I got rid of as much of my bed as washing would cleanse
away. Breakfast was not till eight, and I had some time before me,
so I stepped out upon the gallery, and looked into the court below.
It fairly swarmed with people : some lying down, some idling and
chatting, some smoking (how nasty the morning tobacco smelt, to
be sure !), and some washing themselves at a long stone sink.
These men were the poorest of the'poor ; they fed on the prison fare,
and, with the exception of one daily hour of exercise in the yard,
they passed the whole of their time in that stone-flagged corridor.
296 AN AMERICAN LOCK-U?.
They were not criminals, and therefore did no work ; and the idea
of thus lounging about, day after day, week after week, month
after month, year after year even, in enforced idleness, seemed far
worse to me than the horrors of hard labour. One was afterwards
pointed out to me who had lived this life for sixteen years. His
case was singular. Soon after the Civil War he brought a claim
against the Government for forty thousand dollars, the value of
property destroyed .by the Federal troops. The affair excited no
particular interest, as at that time dozens of the same sort were
being heard and settled every day. He established his claim,
received a Government order for the amount, drew the money, and
disappeared. Soon afterwards another claimant came forward.
The case was heard once more, and then it was discovered that
the wrong man had got the money. Detectives were put on the
track, and he was run down and arrested. Some thirty thousand
dollars were recovered ; and he was ordered to pay the remainder
and the cost of the investigation (some fifteen thousand dollars in
all) into the Treasury. As he had not a rap, he was lodged in
Ludlow Street, and has been there ever since. The first time I
saw him he was making coffee on a little oil-stove ; and the
chances are that, could one look in at Ludlow Street at about the
same time in the day some five or ten years hence, he would, if
still in life, be making coffee still. Fancy taking that man, after
sixteen years of idleness, and putting him to hard work ! It
would kill him in a week.
Breakfast was excellent : there were fish, ham, eggs, hot rolls,
and very good tea. I had eaten nothing since four o'clock the
day before, so I did full justice to it. We were seven at table —
my three acquaintances of the preceding evening, a young fellow
I had not seen before (he was an actor, I believe), two Spaniards,
and myself. The conversation was limited to a discussion on the
relative merits of England and Russia, in which, as a true Briton,
I joined. The two Spaniards spoke no word of English, but they
took the wildest interest in the argument, and seemed quite sorry
when it came to an end and we went into the yard. I sup-
pose all prison yards are alike. The high unbroken walls, like
a huge raised shaft cut short off and squared at the top ; the
nakedness, the grime, the parallelogram of sky above — these
features are common to them all. Thus is the yard at Ludlow
Street, and here did some of us play base-ball for an hour.
During that time three of us got damaged, two with black eyes,
and a third— myself — with a sprained ankle. I it was who had
AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP. 297
hurt the others, but they bore no malice ; they took their punish-
ment like men, especially one, who lay abed with four leeches on
his cheek all day. The other sufferer was Ferdinand Ward, and
I read that he since got ten years t hard,' for a course of fraud
which shook commercial America, and ruined thousands. In
the yard, I should note, I again saw the simple sea-captain.
He looked, if possible, simpler and dirtier than last night. I
saluted him, and asked him how he liked his quarters. He shook
his head, smiled sadly and stupidly, and resumed his walk. Poor
simple sea-captain ! Is he still in Ludlow Street ? If he is, how
very simple and how very dirty he must be !
My lawyer's visit was a solatium. He pooh-poohed the whole
case ; he said I should be free in forty minutes by the dial. He
happened to be wrong — by some four-and-twenty hours — but he
made me happy and confident, and I am grateful to him still.
He departed, breathing vengeance and legal terminology ; and
then I found that our interview had furnished a fellow-captive
with food for thought — in a word, had amused him consumedly.
He was seated on the opposite form, and he seemed to take the
most excited interest in my case. He had gathered from the
consultation that I was an Englishman, for he at once addressed
me as ' Britisher.' He was a Hebrew, round-shouldered and un-
wholesome ; with very dirty red hair, a prodigious nose, and un-
healthy looking ears of the same enormity. His hands, which
were stumpy and scarred and filthy, looked like the strips of raw
meat one sees on a butcher's sideboard. He reminded me of Fagin
— of Fagin in his youth. He discoursed with violence on various
topics — the weather, ( our Mary Anderson,' i your Prince of Wales,'
and so forth. He opined that in the event of war with Russia we
should be * knocked out.' He d — d our institutions, he d — d our
qualities, he d — d everything that belonged to us, including all
our aristocracy and most of our statesmen. * Your Mr. William
Gladstone,' quoth he, * don't know enough to go out in the rain.' A
finer development of ths cad I never saw; and, as is natural, I look
back upon our conversation with a satisfaction rather heightened
1 than not by the reflection that he must one day get himself hanged.
I asked him the cause of his detention, and he answered in
i one word, f Sawdust.' He refused to translate, but a warder, who
'was less fastidious, and to whom I am eternally obliged, enlight-
ened me. The ' Sawdust Trick ' is one of the most ingenious
swindles ever concocted by one gang of knaves for the fleecing of
VOL. XXI. — NO. 123, N.S. 14
298 AN AMERICAN LOCK-UP.
another. The way of it is this : an advertisement appears in
some country print : —
SPECULATORS, $20,000 for $2,000. Good goods guaranteed. Stuff not to be
disposed of in New York State. Address, 0. O., Box P. O., N. Y.
Some country sportsman reads, and is taken with the reading.
He writes for particulars, an appointment is made, and our
rascals get to work. The speculator is taken to a house where he
is shown a pile of new five, ten, and twenty-dollar bills. The
tradesman takes one from the heap, proposes drinks, and the pair
go off to a saloon. There the supposed ' flimsy ' is cashed, and
the sporting character's last doubts are dispelled at sight of the
change. He is enchanted with his bargain, the money fever is on
him, and he buys heavily, believing his purchase to be bogus money
so well produced as to pass muster anywhere. The bills, which are
good, are made up into a neat parcel. He pays his money, receives
what he believes to be his package, is seen to the train by one of
the gang, and steams on his way rejoicing. It is a condition of
sale that he shall not open the package by the way, and he has per-
force to smile in ignorance till he reaches his journey's end. He
hurries home, rushes to his room, locks the door, cuts the string,
rips open the paper, and discovers — a cardboard box stuffed with
sawdust ! The safety of the swindlers lies in their number. No
one man does two things, and hence the difficulty of detection.
One rascal sends the advertisement, another calls for the letters,
another opens and reads them, another answers them, another
meets the speculator at the station, another shows him the pile
of bills, and so on. The speculator, of course, has no redress. I
He intended fraud, and he can only curse his luck and burn the I
sawdust. Meanwhile the advertising continues, the game goes
merrily on, and the chances are that every post brings grist to
the long firm's mill.
At twelve next day my lawyer told me I was free. I bade
those good-bye whom I knew, and limped to the wicket. I was
stopped by the bailiff with a little account for ten dollars, the
costs of my arrest. I paid it, of course, and the next minute ]
was in the street. It struck me as odd that a perfectly innocent
man should have to pay for being arrested and sent to gaol. I am
pleased, as a good Englishman, to reflect that on this side the
water I can, if so disposedj enjoy the luxury for nothing.
299
MY NURSERY REVISITED.
MY nursery is a little old-world village nestling in a hollow amid
the Berkshire wolds. I was five years old when last I saw the
place ; but so tenderly has time dealt with it, that, save I see it
as through a telescope reversed, the picture I have carried in
memory for a quarter of a century is faithful to the reality of
to-day. And truly there is little change. The railway has cut
its path through the hillside and raised a huge embankment
across the valley, but its invasion has not awakened H from
her pastoral slumber. She scorns the rope civilisation has thrown
to her and drifts along in her groove of agriculture, secure in
the lack of possibilities which might tempt enterprise to disturb
her peace.
In the foreground of my picture of H stood the house I
knew best — the ivy-covered vicarage, my cradle. What a noble
mansion memory held it ! Having grown from three feet high
to six the picture needs corresponding alteration ; the house I
had in mind was twice the size of this ; those lofty, spiked rail-
ings dwindle down to the merest fence, and the spacious front
garden disappears in a strip of gravel walk. Only the shrubs
remain true ; because they have changed and grown up with me ;
but that luxuriant Virginia creeper, which outshines the ivy, looks
like a wig over a familiar face.
Within the vicarage, once my eye is reconciled to the reduced
scale, every corner calls up a flood of memories, clear-cut, blurred,
and dim. This is the night-nursery, where Mrs. Eales, our nurse,
ruled with a hair-brush as with a rod of iron ; a queer feeling
akin to funk creeps down my back now as I look round the
room. I feel the rap of Mrs. Eales's bony knuckles on my head,
and shudder at the sight of a brush such as that, with whose
flat side ! A glance at the washstand so vividly recalls the
agony of morning ablutions as administered by her hands, that
my eyes smart again ; with a bit of yellow soap and a rough
towel that nurse could inflict unspeakable tortures ; she gave me
a distaste for washing I retained for years. The day-nursery is a
bed-room now, and every stick of the old furniture is gone, but I
spent far too many days here to have forgotten it. There, in that
14—2
300 MY NURSERY REVISITED.
corner, my little brother laid the seeds of a life-long feud by
smashing my sailor doll. I have forgiven him now, but I can
never forget the tragedy ; the stolid indifference wherewith the
one-year-old destroyer regarded the mangled corse we drew from
the grate with the nursery dust-pan ; the tears my sympathetic
sister mingled with mine when the case was pronounced hopeless ;
and, above all, the redeeming joy of the funeral we gave the saw-
dustless remains next day. The whole affair comes back vividly
as though it were only yesterday I was playing here on the floor,
and I catch myself peering towards the open cupboard to see if
my big Noah's Ark is still in its place on the bottom shelf.
A stone's throw — quite a long walk it used to be — from the
vicarage gate stands the old grey church among the decrepit,
lichened tombstones ; nothing of its outward face has changed.
There, on the stunted square tower, still twirls in legless, much-
tailed brilliancy, the gilded cock I used to covet for a plaything,
and the swallows' nests occupy their identical old nooks. But
within, restoration — much needed, they tell me — has laid its trans-
forming finger on all old acquaintances. Gone is the black oak,
three-decker pulpit, with its queer sounding-board ; vanished are
the rows of wooden hatpegs which ran along the walls ; nor does
a trace remain of the old-fashioned, high-backed pews. I wish
they had left the big, square pew which belonged to the vicarage ;
I remember its faded blue cushions so well. It was my especial
privilege to stand on the seat during the hymns if I had been
< good ' during the whole of the previous week ; but, inasmuch as
the occasions on which I enjoyed this valued prerogative stand
out like landmarks, I am forced to conclude that my moral
behaviour in those days left much to be desired.
Visitors to H are very rare, I imagine. When I inter-
viewed the baker's wife, to whom I was recommended to apply
for lodgings, that excellent woman regarded my intention to stay
a month or so in the village with doubting concern. Anxious to
disabuse her mind of the idea that I was a fugitive from justice,
I explained that my early childhood had been passed in H ,
and that a sentimental yearning to see the place again had brought
me hither. Mrs. Marsh is a comparatively recent settler in the
village, so further explanations were entailed. My appearance
assumed the magnitude of an Event ; and before the baker's ap-
prentice had brought my portmanteau from the station, whither
he had been sent with his wheelbarrow, the entire populace had
MY NURSERY REVISITED. 301
been thrilled with the news. There are many old servants and
retainers of the vicar of twenty-five years ago still resident in the
village, and from the hour of my arrival I breathed an atmosphere
of reminiscence almost embarrassing in its personality. There is
Louisa, our sometime nursemaid, for instance. She is respectfully
anxious to learn whether I remember once telling her I was too
fat to lace my own boots ? Whether I recall the days when I used
to kiss her ? (0 Louisa, Louisa ! Thou art but forty to-day and
comely !) Whether the sight of porridge still moyes me to tears ?
And do I retain my infant passion for raw bacon ? Louisa loves
to linger over these interesting details, and our daily meetings at
the post-office, where at noon many do congregate to inspect the
mail-bag, afford her opportunities of putting me to the blush,
upon which she pounces with an eagerness that has some-
thing almost uncanny about it. I do not believe there is now
in H a soul who does not know I once kicked the shins of
John Wells, the groom-gardener, because he, in the execution
of his duty, had slain a pig to which I was deeply attached ;
and the village children point at me as he who appeared in
the public road wearing the Sunday bonnet of the then vicarage
cook, and who was chastised for putting the cat into the dough.
Lapse of time seems to have invested such early imbecilities with
a halo of touching romance, but I am made to feel that I am in
H a marked man. I suppose three active children left in
charge of an indulgent guardian for three years could scarcely
have failed to make their presence felt and remembered in a
village like this ; we seem to have left an indelible impression, at
all events, and perhaps it is natural that old acquaintances should
take up the thread where it was broken off. Sally, the washer-
woman, does not realise how many years have passed since she
saw me last. Sally is eighty-two, an age when the years are as
drops in Time's ocean, and she talks of the days twenty-five years
ago as though it were but a week or two since I pleaded for a
taste of her blackberry jam. A charming old woman is Sally ;
hale, intelligent, and wonderfully well informed, as delightful an
example of the English cottager as one might find throughout the
length and breadth of the land.
But the H of memory is fast fading into oblivion in the
light of renewed acquaintance ; and the village I have for so long
pictured is become a prosaic reality, whose chiefest interest
centres in the cottage where I have taken up my quarters. Mr.
302 MY NURSERY REVISITED.
Marsh, the baker, is an elderly man of severe demeanour, who
defies all overtures by the impregnability of his reserve ; uncom-
municative he is and stern. Proud too : on the day I came to
dwell under his roof I went into the shop for a box of matches,
and offered a halfpenny in payment. Mr. Marsh eyed the coin
gloomily, sniffed faintly, and said, ' Put that in your pocket ! '
with the air of a Kothschild suffering from acute neuralgia. I,
crushed and humiliated, crept away, matches and halfpenny in
hand. He makes excellent bread though, does this majestic
baker ; and if he deigns to feed his own pigs and poultry by day,
he redeems his self-respect by burning the midnight oil over the
works of Sir Walter Scott. I fear I shall never know Mr. Marsh.
I should like to ; I feel sure he is a man with a history. Mrs.
Marsh is a quiet, soft-spoken little woman, who has, I think, seen
better days ; she endeared herself to me on our first meeting by
the keen anxiety she displayed to charge moderately, and has
since won my heart by the perfection of her pastry and motherly
regard for my comfort. Her eagerness to do things in becoming
style is almost painful ; if a wasp dare trespass in the honey or a
fly presume to commit suicide in the cream, Mrs. Marsh pours
forth an oration of apology no reassurances can check. One
memorable morning she boiled and brought to table an egg of
undesirable quality ; we had quite a scene ; could the respon-
sible hen have been traced, its life had not been worth a moment's
purchase.
Whilst I was alone, Mrs. Marsh tended me herself; but when
my two sisters joined me, she found it necessary to engage assist-
ance. Her choice fell upon a village maiden, who answers to the
name of Pollyemily, and whose performances constitute irrefutable
evidence of the truth of her statement, that she has never been
* out at service ' before. As a waitress she may be lacking in skill,
but we would not part with her for three of the most accomplished
table-maids in England ; for Pollyemily's ministrations lend a zest
to life. There is about our handmaiden a cheerful buoyancy,
which makes it a positive pleasure to see her drop a dish ; she
possesses a fertility of resource, unhampered by conventionality,
which keep us in a chronic state of interested speculation. We can
never guess into what difficulty she may flounder next, nor hazard
a surmise as to the method she will adopt to get out of it. She is
brimming over with a vigorous originality, which invests her
every movement with piquant charm. The advent of Pollyemily
MY NURSERY REVISITED. 303
with afternoon tea is quite one of the events of the day. The cough
she substitutes for the orthodox knock at the door gives warning,
and we clear out of the way to leave space for her manoeuvres.
First, the door-handle rattles violently, as though someone in
falling had clutched at it ; and the clatter of crockery is followed
by a crash. Then silence for a moment. Another grab at the
handle, more rattling of cups, and the door creaks dangerously in
answer to the muffled lurch of a heavy body against it. Again
momentary silence, broken by breathless panting ; a third spas-
modic snatch half releases the lock, and a heavier pitching against
the panels bursts the door open. A large, flat boot-heel, sur-
mounted by grey worsted stocking, leads the way, as with one long,
backward stride Pollyemily falls into the room ; she * brings up '
against the piano, swings round, and surveys us over the debris on
the tray with a triumphant ' Her e-we-are- again ! ' smile. She
puts her burden down — somewhere; on the floor for choice — and
bustles cheerfully away to collect the spoons and toast in the
passage.
We dare not attempt to assist her by opening the door in
answer to that cough. I did so once. Pollyemily was in the very
act of hurling herself against it, and the result was most disas-
trous. Safety dictates that we should offer her no aid, save in
the shape of advice, and that only at carefully selected moments.
Her education is making great strides already, though ; she never
now attempts to remove the breakfast things en masse in the
table-cloth, and if she does place the potatoes on the floor during
dinner, it's the rarest possible thing for her to put her foot in the
dish by mistake. She has learned, too, that her mouth is not the
proper place to put a spoon when her hands are full ; no, she stows
it under her arm or in her pocket.
Opportunities of teaching her the mysteries of social usage
occur hourly, but we do not always feel able to turn them to
account. One afternoon a lady called upon my sisters, and, hearing
they were out, tendered cards to Pollyemily.
'Thank'ee, mum,' I overheard that young woman say, in
accents of gratified pride. * Thank'ee, mum, vei*y much.'
We have not had the heart to ask for those pasteboards, and I
doubt not Pollyemily counts them still among her most cherished
possessions.
We value our handmaiden as affording the only excitement
which leavens the otherwise unruffled calm of our existence here.
304 MY NURSERY REVISITED.
The week from end to end is one long Sunday, and a more secluded
spot wherein to dream away the summer would be hard to find.
There are few people, other than cottagers, in and about the village,
and the absence of most adjuncts of civilised life proves how little
man really wants of all he is wont to consider indispensable.
There is no butcher's shop within many miles, and the daily paper
comes from Newbury; we have neither library nor barber in
H , and I never heard a resident complain of the lack of one
or the other. Mr. Marsh's establishment fulfils all purposes ; it
is a kind of co-operative stores in miniature, and so convenient do
we find it that I tremble for the time when I shall no longer live
under the same roof with a general shop. If you break your boot-
lace and want another ; if Pollyemily drop the sardine-tin upside
down at lunch ; if hunger suggest a biscuit, or darkness demand
candles, all you need do is, take three steps down the passage,
dodge under the festoons of clothes-line and hobnailed boots, and
there you are in the midst of plenty. If Mr. Marsh chance to be
presiding at the counter, you take what you want and meekly
request him to name and accept the cost. If, as is usually the
case, the cat is in sole charge, you help yourself, and put what
you think ought to be the price in the till ; the only drawback
attendant upon this being a certain liability to overcharge
yourself, unless you are acquainted with * market prices ' current
inH .
The shop with which the post-office is amalgamated ranks
next to Mr. Marsh's emporium in point of importance ; it owes
nothing to its legitimate stock-in-trade (which consists, so far as
I have been able to ascertain, of half a barrel of potatoes and a
box of writing-paper), but bases its claim to our respect on its head-
quartership of Her Majesty's mails. There is a one-leggedness
about our post-office which is very typical of H ; for instance,
you can purchase ' postal orders ' there, when they happen to be
in stock, but for some occult reason the authorities deny us the
privilege of obtaining payment for such. In other respects,
business is conducted with an artless simplicity which trenches on
the irregular, but is calculated to meet the public convenience.
The methods adopted might create chaos elsewhere, but, in a place
where the incoming mail averages five letters and a newspaper,
occasional deviations from strict official routine are unattended by
any evil results. William, our postmaster, is a hearty, laughter-
loving young fellow of three-and-eighty ; he has still one tooth
MY NURSERY REVISITED. 305
left, and makes light of a ten-mile walk. William is a bit of a
character ; Nature made him a bibliomaniac, but Fate ordained he
should pursue the calling of a clockmaker, whence the singular
medley which lends dusty interest to his shop. By regular
attendance at all the auction sales which take place within reach,
he has possessed himself of a large and varied assortment of odd
volumes, into whose contents he never pries before purchase
or after, and for which he will entertain any reasonable offer.
The local demand for literature, however, is out of all proportion
to the diligence wherewith William continues to increase his
library, and the counter of the post-office is well-nigh inaccessible
by reason of the piles of musty tomes heaped casually on the
floor. The vast majority of the books date from the last century,
and the forgotten works of forgotten divines rub covers with long-
expired magazines and nameless novels, whose stout bindings have
long outlived their fame. I bought a complete copy of Milton's
works for fourpence, and was pressed to accept nine volumes of an
old encyclopaedia at the modest figure of one and six. * There's a
deal of reading in 'em,' said William, wistfully, ' and I wa-ants to
get 'em off the chair.' But the encyclopaedia still occupied the
only chair in the shop when I went to bid the proprietor adieu.
H is deplorably blind to its opportunities for culture and self-
improvement.
I imagine that an affectionate recollection of his old craft,
degenerated into a species of diseased sentiment, is the feeling
which prompts William to offer his premises as an asylum for
decrepit and incurable clocks. Lying among the books, upstand-
ing like melancholy lighthouses, and buried, as dead timekeepers
should be, are numbers of battered old clocks, varying in size and
style from the * grandfather,' six feet high, to the * cuckoo.'
William professes careless ignorance as to how he 'coom by
them,' and is impatient of question on the topic ; but while he
regards with callous indifference the accidents which occasionally
reduce a clock to more total wreck, he puts aside all propositions
to buy with an oracular shake of the head and pensive smile.
Our life at H were most graphically described by blank
pages, so uneventful is its course. My diary bears eloquent testi-
mony to the suitability of the place for anyone for whom ' perfect
quiet and freedom from excitement ' have been prescribed. The
following entries owe their being to an unusually idle morning and
a crude taste for experiment on porcine appetite :
14-5
306 MY NURSERY REVISITED.
September 4.- — Struck by abnormal appetite of junior pig.
Tested capacity with apples. Pig ate twenty-nine ; retired beaten
half-way through No. 30.
September 5. — Pig seems unwell.
September 6. — Continued indifferent health of pig attracts
Mr. M.'s attention ; feel rather uneasy ; apples (?)
September 7. — Pig seriously indisposed. Medical Board,
William, Mr. M., and self, assemble at stye. Unanimously resolved
that * go of ile ' be administered. (Query : What, and how much,
is'goofile'?)
September 8. — Pig better.
September 9. — Wet day. Mrs. Marsh reports pig doing well.
Never, I venture to assert, in the history of pork, has a sick
pig been the recipient of such sincere attention as we lavished
upon this one of the baker's. His ultimate recovery deprived us
of a really valuable subject of conversation. It may gratify
believers in the higher intelligence of the pig to learn that, from
the day of this invalid's restoration to health, he disdained the
rosiest apple we could set before him ; he pushed it irritably aside,
and watched his companion eat it with thoughtful grunts, in
which imagination detected a note of cynical warning.
What an amusing bird the domestic fowl is, by the way. Her
usual demeanour suggests a profundity of self-satisfied wisdom
undiscoverable in any other member of the feathered race ; and
this same air of preternatural sagacity veils a wealth of foolishness
which might provoke the scornful smile of a gosling. Her gulli-
bility in the matter of * nest eggs ' throws a lurid light upon her
true character. How in the world a hen of any experience can be
deceived into self-gratulation and advertisement by so paltry a
fraud is a perpetual puzzle to me. Over and over again I have
caught Mrs. Marsh's best Brahma clucking the praises of a lump
of chalk so chipped and stained that you would never suspect it
capable of imposing on the youngest chicken ; yet this fowl, which,
I understand, has for three summers laid five eggs a week, gloats
over the sorry imposture time after time in the triumphant con-
viction she has just * laid ' it herself. She really ought to know
better at her age ; but what can you expect from a bird so puffed
up with fatuous conceit ? Watch her for a while as she strolls
about the neighbourhood of the back door. Her deportment is
dignified to solemnity ; her carriage studied as that of a dancing-
master ; now and then she pauses in her stately walk, and with
MY NURSERY REVISITED, 307
one foot uplifted and her head on one side gazes into vacancy
with a wrapt intentness that hints consideration of some abstruse
problem in philosophy or science — as a matter of fact she is look-
ing out for kitchen scraps. You -say, ' Shoo ! ' Her head goes
over to the other side and her foot comes to ground. ' Cluck-
cluck ! Did you call me ? Cul-luck ! I know that is Indian corn
in your hand, but I don't think I care about it. Cluck-cluck !
You can't take me in, you know. Cluck-cluck ! Cul-la-a-rck ! ! ! '
Dignity melts away, and she is bowling forward with outspread
wings to devour the handful of nothing you throw, before any
other fowl comes to share it. A searching scrutiny of the cobble
stones and a peck or two, and she is gazing heavenward again.
4 Cul-luck ? ' interrogatively. * Cul-luck ? Very singular ; no corn
here ; it must have fallen up instead of down, but I don't see it
in the sky anywhere. Very odd indeed. Cul-luck ! ' And she
wanders away to the ash-pit to think it over ; here she scratches
with spasmodic energy among the rubbish, but with a preoccupied
air meant to convey that she indulges in scarification merely as an
aid to thought.
It is an ungrateful task to tear up by the roots the most care-
fully implanted teachings of one's childhood ; but how in the name
of consistency came the turtle-dove to be selected as a synonym
for gentleness and amiability ? Here in H , five-and-twenty
years ago, we were taught to regard this bird as the model upon
whose behaviour we ought to mould our own ; its affectionate
and forgiving disposition was painted in colours to which
words can do no justice, and we looked upon the turtledove
with a reverential awe untinged by suspicion. It has been,
reserved for me until now to learn how utterly undeserved was
the character wherewith nursery legend invested the turtle-dove,
for here I enjoy opportunities of studying him — and her — which
have been hitherto denied me. You have only to scatter a
few morsels of biscuit before them to bring out their true colours.
"With one consent they dash at the biggest bit and quarrel for it
with a whole-hearted viciousness that would shock a fox-terrier ;
the strongest or luckiest secures the prize and bolts it whole, with
a promptness which betrays his opinion of his companions. How
well-founded that opinion is you quickly discover ; to snatch the
food from his neighbour's beak, and swallow it himself before a
third party can misappropriate it, is the first article of turtle-dove
creed. Grasping selfishness and bitter jealousy are his most promi-
338 MY NURSERY REVISITED.
nent characteristics, and he is never at peace unless he is quarrelling.
He is, I admit, a devoted mate, but not more so than any other
bird : the flouted cock-sparrow is quite as assiduous in his atten-
tions to his wife, but receives no credit, simply because he is not
perpetually calling public notice to his goings on. There lies the
whole secret in fact ; on the slender strength of a soft voice we
have dubbed the turtle-dove a paragon, oblivious of the detail
that his seductive *coo' is oftenest raised in ornithological
Billingsgate.
Mrs. Marsh, whose inventive faculties are ever busy devising
means for us to kill time, diffidently placed at our disposal on
4 off-days ' the pony and cart attached to the bakery. She was
diffident, being fearful lest the suggestion that we should drive a
conveyance so conspicuously the property of * Marsh, Baker,
H — — ,' should hurt our feelings. But we dispelled all such ideas
by the promptness of our acceptance, and at once planned a series
of drives to the ' places of interest ' in the neighbourhood. We
only went out three times, however ; the cart was limp about the
springs, and the pony was of a markedly deliberate temperament ;
but these were trifles by which we would never have been deterred.
What brought our excursions to a close was the dogmatic con-
scientiousness of our steed ; to pass, without halting, a gate at
which he was accustomed to stop, was a breach of duty nothing
would induce him to commit ; and, as Mr. Marsh's customers in
and about H are numerous, this unfaltering fidelity was
trying. At first, indeed, we made light of it; enjoyed the
astonishment of cottagers who came out to receive the loaves we
had not brought, and lavished praises on the retentive memory
of the pony. We humoured him and treated his eccentricity
with almost respectful indulgence. But when, one very wet
evening, we being hungry and late for dinner, the brute insisted
on one or other of us getting down and pretending to deliver
bread at six different cottages in one half-mile of muddiest lane
before he would consent to proceed, we voted such narrow-minded
intelligence a bore, and renounced carriage exercise thenceforward.
I had always been under the impression that a village wedding
partook of the nature of a rustic festival ; that it was a pretty,
pastoral scene, in which hearty rejoicing and floral display shed an
appropriate halo over the union of the two fond hearts. Hence,
when William one morning suggested that I should wait at the
post-office and see the wedding about to be celebrated in the church
MY NURSERY REVISITED. 309
just opposite, I congratulated myself on the opportunity and
thanked the old man warmly for his notice. * They're to be
married,' said William, * at eleven o'clock ; th' passon's awaitin'
now.'
The hands on the black dial in the church-tower already pointed
to ten minutes past the hour, but, though a number of young people
were lingering round the gate, there was no sign of the principals.
' They be awaitin',' said William reassuringly. ' That's hur and hur
fa-arther in the ca-ahner. They be awaitin' for the groom.'
His finger directed my eye to a corner of the churchyard where,
upon a flat tombstone, sat a young woman and an elderly man ;
neither their dress nor bearing gave any clue to the nature of the
ceremony before them. Papa, with his hands in the pockets of his
corduroys, meditatively chewed a straw, and the bride-elect swung
her crossed feet to and fro carelessly, now and again exchanging
a word with the group at the distant gate. Ten minutes passed
and the clerk came to the church-door to inquire if the party were
not ready.
* 'E baint a-coom yet,' replied Papa. * Be I to go and fetch 'e
along ? '
The clerk approved ; the proud parent shuffled off the tomb-
stone and, advancing to the churchyard gate, looked up and down
the road. The missing link was not in sight, so, with an impatient
grunt, Papa turned in the direction of the * White Hart.' Pre-
sently he returned, followed by a young labourer, whose delay was
doubtless due to the difficulty he had found in persuading two
double dahlias to stick in each button-hole. His appearance was
gay, if not brilliant, but he kept any feelings of enthusiasm he
may have entertained under admirable control. Arrived at the
church-door, Papa paused, shouted * Hi ! ' to his daughter, and
ushered the pair into the porch with his hat,'much as though fold-
ing wayward sheep. The ceremony was soon over, and the last I
saw of the wedding-party was its procession in Indian file into the
' White Hart.' There was a crude simplicity about the whole affair
which was more original than attractive, and I am loth to believe
it a representative example of a rural wedding.
But, after all, when we lift a corner of the curtain which hides
the home-life of the agricultural labourer, so prosaic an entry upon
the married state appears only in harmony with the future. Are
the clash of wedding-bells and feasting of neighbours the fittest
beginning for the new life of harder toil upon which he enters almost
310 MY NURSERY REVISITED.
at the church-door ? No gentle gliding down the golden strand
of ' honeymoon ' launches the hind upon the treacherous sea of
matrimony. He goes to the altar to-day, and to-morrow's sun rises
upon him trudging back to the fields to earn for two the bread it
has been hard enough to find hitherto for one. Work in which
he can take no interest, alternating with idleness he does not
enjoy, make up the sum of his colourless existence ; but he asks
no sympathy ; his world is bounded by the horizon, and he is blind
to all beyond the confines of his own parish. A rare visit to the
market-town and the half-yearly appearance of the travelling
cheap-jack, with his van-load of varied wares, form his landmarks
of time. Given enough to eat and drink, and a corner in the
* White Hart ' on his missus's washing-day, he is content. Know-
ing little he wants little ; and surely Wisdom on ten shillings a
week were Folly indeed.
In vain have I sought the agricultural labourer known to
politicians — that keen-eyed, intelligent man, whose rude eloquence
contrasts so strangely with his untrimmed finger-nails and patched
pantaloons, and whose eagerness to discuss the Allotment Question
and beneficial legislation holds the sympathetic stranger spell-
bound on the cottage doorstep. Perhaps H , in her lagging
behind the times, is less advanced than other rural villages, for I
could not find that labourer, though I searched every heart pints of
beer and pipes of tobacco could render accessible. Dubious nails and
ragged pantaloons there were in plenty ; a sense that higher wages
would be acceptable was universal ; that farmers could not afford to
pay more was almost equally widely acknowledged. But beyond the
narrow boundary of these closely personal interests all was dense,
impenetrable mist. I found no ' opinions,' advanced or otherwise ;
no eloquence ; not even a vague hunger for acres and cows. Party
government was no more than a name to these contentedly unen-
lightened rustics ; the coloured lithograph portrait of the Queen,
which adorned many a cottage wall, embodied the owner's idea of
Authority, and the existence of any other between Her Majesty
and the landlord was a vague fact, admitted only to be ignored.
Let anyone who believes this a libel investigate for himself ; let
him go to some other such out-of-the-way village as this and take
the adult population man by man into confidential chat ; much
that now perplexes his political soul will then, I warrant him,
become plain.
And now the day draws near when, lor the second time, I am to
MY NURSERY REVISITED. 311
leave my nursery. The present fades out of sight a while, and I
recall the last departure hence, when strangers they told me were
my parents came to take me away.
It is Sunday evening. I am in the vicarage garden saying
good-bye to the dog and cat overnight, lest I shall have no time to
spare before the early start to-morrow morning. The exciting
prospect of a railway journey does little to qualify the sorrow of
parting from the animals, my tailless bantam and my own par-
ticular garden down by the pond. That I am to leave for ever
the kind old vicar and his daughter who have been as parents to
me is more than I can realise. I am about to leave the only
* home ' I have ever known, and with a strange father and mother ;
4 life ' lies behind ; I know no farther future than to-morrow, and
it seems as though the end of all things were come.
Again it is Sunday and evening. I am standing on the same
spot under the copper-beech on the vicarage lawn-; the bells are
ringing for service, and from the school-house down the road comes
faintly the echo of children's voices chanting the evening hymn.
I cannot choose but listen, and listening I am five years old once
more, leaving my nursery for the unknown. The bells have
stopped. Bedtime ; I must go in.
312
CHARACTER NOTE.
INTELLECTA.
Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il ne le croit.
IT is not the intellect itself that is objectionable. In fact, intellect
is an excellent thing. It is a better thing than genius for prac-
tical domestic purposes. For genius is apt to be a nuisance. It
always gets up late, and it is not particular about its bath. It is
not at all practical, and the tradesmen fail to understand it. No,
the fault seems to lie in the use that Intellecta makes of her mind
— not in the mind itself.
There is a story about a Scotchman who introduced his native
thistle into some colony where the soil was rich and the rainfall —
it is to be presumed — bounteous. Nothing but thistle grows in
that country now, and the Scotchman has left.
Some imprudent woman has been busy introducing intellect
and other things into the female mind, and, like the thistle, it is
beginning to spread.
Intellecta made her first appearance to our delighted vision
at a certain town on the Cam where certain young women have
most distinctly and unblushingly f followed certain young men.
Intellecta attended lectures which were not intended for Intel-
lecta's delicate ears, and we were forced to blush — merely because
she would not do so.
She dragged her hair back from a brow which would have
looked better beneath a feminine fringe, and while the lecturer
lectured she leant this brow upon a large firm hand. She was
preternaturally grave, and there was a certain harassed go-ahead
look in her eyes, before which some of us quailed. We were young
then. The lecturer was an elderly gentleman of the unabashed
type. ' And now, gentlemen,' he said from time to time, which
was rude, because it ignored Intellecta. But she did not appear to
notice. She leant that rounded, pensive brow on her hand, and
simply lapped up knowledge. One could see it bulging out of the
pensive brow unbecomingly all round. The dragged-back hair
gave her head a distended, uncomfortable look, as if it was suflfering
from mental indigestion.
CHARACTER NOTE. 313
Intellecta's father was a well-known dissenting minister in a
large manufacturing town. He knew the value of learning, on the
principle that the pauper knows best the value of money, and he
sent Intellects to a high school. She graduated, or whatever they
do at high schools, and obtained a scholarship. There was no
small rejoicing in a chaste, dissenting way ; and very few people
knew that only three girls had entered for the scholarship. One
retired and had measles, and another, Intellecta's sole rival, lost her
nerve and wept when she saw the algebra paper. And Intellects
simply cantered in.
What Intellects did not know in the way of knowledge was not
worth knowing after she took that scholarship. What she knows
now is less worth knowing because she seems to have turned none
of it to practical account yet. But some one once said that Know-
ledge may come while Wisdom lingers.
From the very first Intellecta's only joy was an examination
paper. She studied these in the privacy of her own apartment.
She walked down Petty Cury with bundles of them under her arm.
All her learning was acquired from an examination point of view.
She did not want to be learned, she wanted to pass examinations.
Her knowledge nearly approached to cunning. Moreover, she
passed her examinations. She exceeded her father's fondest de-
sires. She dashed our highest hopes to the ground.
She continued to attend lectures, surrounded now by a
guardian atmosphere of learning. We felt that she despised us
more than ever. We felt that she saw through us and knew thst
we were only grinding in order to please our fathers or with an
ultimate view of gaining a living. Whereas she was working for
something higher and nobler — to wit, the emancipation of women
— the march of intellect. All the while her hair receded farther
and farther back from her brow as if the march of intellect entailed
pushing through tight places.
' We are progressing,' we heard her say in a deep mssculine
voice to a lady with short grey hair in King's Cross Station.
Short grey hair is, by the way, sometimes conducive to cold shivers
down the Philistine back. * We are progressing. We are getting
our feet upon the ladder.'
And good serviceable understsndings they were, with square
toes. That was the last of her so far as Cambridge was con-
cerned.
From that time her walk was upon the broader stsge of life.
314 CHARACTER NOTE.
We met her again at an intellectual gathering in a picture
gallery, where she came suddenly round a corner upon two young
persons of a different sex discussing ices and other pleasant things,
away from the busy hum of debate.
Intellecta sniffed. We rather liked her for it — because it was
a remnant as it were of a vanishing femininity. The question that
evening was one of political economy : How were we, in fact,
assembled in a picture gallery in Piccadilly, to reduce the popula-
tion of China ? Intellecta was great. She proved mathematically
that things were really coming to a pretty pass. If China was
allowed to go on in this reckless way, its teeming population would
simply overwhelm the world. At this point an old gentleman
woke up and said ' Hear, hear ! ' And immediately afterwards
' Don't, Maria ! ' which induced one to believe that he had been led
to see the error of his ways.
Intellecta spoke for twenty-five minutes in a deep emotional
voice, and when she had finished there was a singular feeling in
the atmosphere of being no further on. She had spoken for
twenty-five minutes, but she had not said much.
Other people spoke with a similar result. They were ap-
parently friends of Intellecta's, who clubbed together to hear
each other speak, and on certain evenings they invited the
benighted to come and listen. We soon reduced the population
of China, by carrying a few motions in that picture gallery in
Piccadilly. And there are people who hold that it is useless to
educate women, even in face of such grand results as this.
' Of course,' Intellecta was overheard to say at a dinner-table
the other evening, ' of course, Dr. Kudos may be a great man.
I do not say that he is not. I went into dinner with him the
other evening ; I tried him on several subjects, and I cannot say
that he had much that was new to tell me upon any one of them.'
That is the sort of person she is. She is fearless and open.
She would question the learning of (ribbon on matters Roman, if
that reverend historian was not beyond her reach. The grasp of
her mind is simply enormous. She will take up, say, political
economy, study it for a couple of months, and quite master it.
She is then ready, nay anxious, to lay down the law upon matters
politico-economical in a mixed assembly. If she is in the room,
her deep emotional voice may indeed generally be heard, laying
down the law upon some point or another.
languages she masters en passant. She learnt French tho-
CHARACTER NOTE. 315
roughly in five weeks, in order to read a good translation of one
of Tolstoi's novels. She had not time for Kussian, she said — she
had not time — that was all. Having acquired the tongue of the
lightsome Gaul, she proceeded one evening to discourse in it to a
gentleman who had no English, and the Frenchman was appa-
rently struck dumb by awe — possibly at her learning.
Intellecta is now getting on towards middle age, as, alas ! are
some who sat with her in a lecture-room near the Cam. She
still has the go-ahead look : there are one or two grey hairs among
those dragged back from her forehead ; and a keen observer — one
who has known her all along — may detect in her spectacled eyes
a subtle dissatisfaction. Can it be that Intellecta has been born
before her time ? It would almost seem that the world is not
quite ripe for her yet. She is full of learning — she has much to
say upon all subjects — she is a great teacher. But why that
mystic smile behind the spectacles of Dr. Kudos ?
' She only repeats,' he will say gently to men only (such as
her father's Wednesday evening Bible-classes). ' She only teaches
what she has been taught. She is only a talking book.'
The old gentleman may be right. There may be something
in him, although Intellecta could not find it. For he has seen
many men and many things in books and elsewhere. It may be
that Intellecta can only teach what she has been taught. And
what she has learnt at Cambridge, Whitechapel does not want to
hear. What she has seen at Whitechapel is odoriferous in the
nostrils of Cambridge.
That dissatisfied look haunts us sometimes, when we think
of the men who laughed at Intellecta when she attended her first
lecture. Some of those men are celebrated now — some are leading
lights at the bar — others are pillars of the Church ; the rest of us are
merely prosperous and happy. We have quite forgotten to be
learned. But Intellecta is where she was. She is still a learned
woman. She is still looking for an outlet for all that knowledge
which is within her brain, which has never germinated — which she
has not been able to turn to account.
Intellecta despises women who have husbands and babies and
no aspirations. She despises still more perhaps those who dream
vaguely of the encumbrances mentioned ; but even some whose
dreams never can be realised have not the look that Intellecta has
in her eyes.
She is very busy. She addresses meetings of factory girls in
316 CHARACTER NOTE.
the Mile End Road, and she will tell you in her deep tones that
she is due in Bradford to-morrow evening, where a great work is
being carried on. She is always improving her mind during the
intervals snatched from the work of telling others to go and do
likewise. She still finds time to drop in on a science and master
it. The old familiar curse of the lecture-room is still upon her ;
and she still laps up, eagerly, knowledge which the limited male
intellect is inclined to think she would be better without. But it
is not for the sake of the knowledge that she seeks it. It is the
old story of he examination paper over again.
Her chief aim in life is to forward the cause of education.
She is one of the prime movers in the great schemes for bringing
knowledge to the masses — instead of letting the masses come and
take it. She may be seen at cheap lectures in the suburbs in an
ill-fitting cloth dress, leaning that heavy brow on the large firm
hand, drinking in the lecturer's periods.
She does not go to church very much. She complains that
the clergy are deficient in intellectual power. There is a vague
mystery overhanging her religious tenets. She has learnt too
much. It is often so with women. One finds that as soon as
they know more than the local curate they begin to look down
upon St. Paul, and Paley, and good Bishop Butler, and a few others
who may not have been intellectual as the word is understood
to-day, but who, nevertheless, wrote some solid stuff.
Intellecta is not a tragedy. Not by any means. She would
be indignant at the thought. She is naturally of a grave tempera-
ment— all great thinkers are. She is quite devoid of any sense of
the ridiculous, which is a great blessing — for Intellecta. She is
profoundly convinced that she is an interesting woman. She feels
at the cheap lectures that local young women of mind nudge each
other and ask who she is. She trusts they will profit by her
example, and in time they may perhaps acquire her power of con-
centration— they may in time learn to bring their whole mind as
she brings hers (a much larger affair) to bear upon the question in
hand. She does not know that they are commenting on her cloth-
ing and longing for the lecture to be over that they may walk home
with a person who is waiting for them outside.
There is no one waiting for Intellecta outside — not even a
cabman.
Being devoid of humour, she is naturally without knowledge of
the pathetic, and therefore she does not see herself as others see
CHARACTER NOTE. 317
her. She is probably unaware of that dissatisfied look in her eyes.
It is a physical matter, like a wrinkle or a droop of the lips. It is
the little remnant of the woman quailing before the mind.
' Knowledge is power,' she always says when driven into a
corner by some argumentative and mistaken man.
' Yes, but it is not happiness,' Dr. Kudos replies — not to her,
but to a friend of his own sex ; ' and we are put here to try and
be happy.'
' We are making progress,' says Intellecta still. ' We are
getting our feet upon the ladder.'
Yes, Intellecta ; but whither does that ladder lead ?
318
A\ WIDOW'S TALE.
BY MRS. OLIPHANT.
CHAPTER VIII.
THERE were excuses for him; he had been interrupted, and he
had come back to have it out, to tell his tale, to make his declara-
tion. Mrs. Grlynn, who was quite cool and impartial, not bewildered
by excitement like Nelly, thought so. But then she had not that
heavy sense of something else — some things said that ought not
to have been said — which crushed Nelly's heart like a stone. ' Was
it indispensable that he should catch the last train ? Had she not
expected him back — left the window open for him ? ' If Mrs. Grlynn
had known of these words, would she have still thought there were
excuses ? Nelly's heart lay in her breast like a stone. The scientific
people may say what they will — that the heart is a mere physical
organ ; not those who have felt it ache, who have felt it leap, who
have felt it lie like a stone. There seemed no beating in it, no
power of rising. She said to herself that she was relieved and
comforted, and thanked Gfod that, to a calm spectator, there were
excuses for him. But her heart did not respond ; it lay motionless
in her breast, crushed, heavy as a stone.
She did not, however, leave the house all that day, expecting,
yet not expecting, the visit which should put everything right,
of which her friend had been so confident ; but he did not come.
Next morning there arrived a letter, full of agitation and bewilder-
ment to Nelly. It was not the apology, the prayer for forgiven ess.
which she had expected. The letter took a totally different tone.
He accused Nelly — poor Nelly, trembling and miserable — of dis-
trust, which was an insult to him. What did she think of him
that she had fled from him, turned him over to a servant ? What
horrible idea had she formed of him ? What did she expect or
imagine ?
' I have often been told,' he wrote, ' that women in their imagi-
nations jumped at things that would horrify a man : but I never
believed it, least of all of you. What could be more simple or
more natural, than to go back to the house of my only friend — to
one more dear to me than any other friend — instead of walking to
A WIDOW'S TALE. 319
London, which was my only alternative ? What dreadful things
have people put into your head ? for they would not arise there
of themselves, I feel sure. And now here we have come to a crisis
which changes our relationship altogether. How are we to get
over it ? My first thought was to rush off at once — to put the
Channel between us — so that you might feel safe ; but something
tugs at my heart, and I cannot put myself out of reach of you
whatever you may think of me. 0 Nelly ! where did you learn
those suspicions that are so insulting to me ? How can I come
again with the recollection of all that in my mind ? Do you wish
me to come again ? Do you want to cast me off ? What is to
happen between us ? After the insult you have put upon me, it
is for you to take the next step. I am here at your orders — to
come or to stay.'
Nelly was struck dumb by this letter. She did not know
what to think or to say. A simple-minded person, not accustomed
to knavery, has always the first impulse of believing what is said
to her (or him), whatever she may know against it. How could
she tell, a woman so little acquainted with life, whether he might
not be in the right — whether he had not cause to feel insulted and
offended ? If his motives were so transparent and his action so
simple as he thought, he had indeed good reason to be offended —
and for a moment there was a sensation of relief and comfort
indescribable in Nelly's heart. Ah ! that these vile things which
had given her so much pain had not risen again like straws upon
an evil wind, and blown about her, confusing all her thoughts !
Not indispensable that he should catch the last train — he who
treated this incident now as so inevitable, so simple an occurrence !
And had she not expected him to come back — left the window
open for his stealthy entry, which was to disturb nobody ? — he
who now took so high a tone, and explained his coming as so
entirely accidental and justifiable. Nelly did not know what to
think. She was torn in two between the conviction which lay
heavy at the bottom of her heart, and the easier, the delightful
faith to which he invited her with that show of high-toned indig-
nation. And even now he said no more : a dear friend, the dearest
of all — but not a word of that which would smooth away all doubt,
and make it possible for her to believe that her ears had deceived
her, that he had never said anything to make her doubt him. Poor
Nelly was torn with trouble and perplexity. They had come to a
crisis ? Oh, yes ! and she had felt so long that the crisis was
320 A WIDOWS TALE.
coming, but not — not in this guise ! She sat all the evening
alone, pondering how to reply, writing letter after letter, which
she burned as soon as they were written. At last, after all these
laborious attempts, she snatched her pen again, and wrote in great
haste, taking no time to think : for the powers of thought were
exhausted, and had nothing more to do in the matter. She wrote
that it was best he should not come again — unless . And
then, in greater haste still, with a countenance all glowing with
shame, she scratched out that word ' unless.' Oh, no, no ! — not
from her, whatever were the circumstances, could that suggestion
come.
During the next two days a hot correspondence went on.
Fitzroy wrote angrily that he respected her decision, and would
not trouble her again. Then, almost before the ink was dry
— before, at least, she had awakened out of the prostration of
misery caused by reading this letter — there came another im-
ploring her to reverse her judgment, to meet him, at least, some-
where, if she would not permit him to come ; not to cast him off
for ever, as she seemed disposed to do. Poor Nelly had very little
desire to cast him off. She was brought to life by this hot protest
against the severance which she felt would be death to her. She
began to believe that, after all, there was nothing wanting on his
part — that all he had not put into words was understood as
involved in the words which he did employ. Poor Nelly ! ' It
must be so,' she said to herself — ' it must be so ! ' A man in whose
thoughts there was nothing but love and honour might never think
it possible that he could be doubted — might feel that his truth
and honesty were too certain to be questioned. ' Women in their
imaginations jump at things that would horrify a man.' Was this
true ? Perhaps it was true. At what horror had Nelly's imagina-
tion jumped on that dreadful night ? Dared she say to any one
— dared she to put in words, even to herself — what she feared ?
Oh, no, no ! She had not known what she feared. She had feared
nothing, she said to herself, her cheeks burning, her bosom panting
— nothing ! All that she was conscious of was that this was not
what he ought to have done — that he had failed in respect, that he
had not felt the delicacy of the tie between them. Was that all ?
Surely that, after all, was not a matter of life and death.
Nelly went on reasoning with herself that had she been a man
it would have been the most natural thing in the world that he
should have come back, having lost his train. Had her husband
A WIDOW'S TALE. 321
been living, had she been in her father's or her mother's house, of
course he would have done so ; and why should she think herself
less protected by her own honour and good faith, by the presence
of the children, than by these other safeguards ? Nelly began to
be ashamed of herself. ' Women in their imaginations jump .
Was she so little sure of herself, she cried at last to herself with
burning scorn, her heart beating loud, her countenance crimson,
that she attributed to him ideas altogether alien to his thoughts —
that she had fled to the help of nurse as if she wanted protection ?
After this argument with herself, which lasted long and went
through more phases than I can follow, Nelly read Fitzroy's first
letter over with feelings ever varying, ever deepening in force.
Had she done him wrong ? She had done him wrong — cruel
wrong ? He had acted with simplicity all through. She it was
who had put meanings he never thought of into his mind. She
it was . Oh ! and she had thought herself a good woman !
"What horrors were those that filled a woman's imagination —
things that would confound any man ?
The result was that, with many a confused and trembling
thought, Nelly granted to Fitzroy the interview he asked for.
Something in her heart — a sick sensation of giddiness and be-
wilderment, as if everything had gone wrong in her life — pre-
vented her from receiving him again at home ; but she consented
to meet him (of all places in the world) at the railway station —
the noisy, bustling place where no quiet could be secured, where
anybody might see them, where, indeed, it was impossible that
they should not be seen. I wonder if any other pair ever walked
about Paddington, rubbing shoulders with the calmest suburban
folk, and all the daily commotion of the little commonplace
trains, with such a subject between them. But we never know
how often we touch tragedy as we walk about the world un-
conscious. They met, these two people, with such a question
between them, with all the confused and incomprehensible in-
termediate atmosphere which veils two individual minds from
each other, in the midst of all the bustle and noise, in which,
in their self-absorption, they were lost as in a desert. They
walked about, round and round, in the darker corners of the
i^reat area, and at last, overcome with fatigue and excitement, sat
lown upon a bench a little out of the way, where few passengers
iame. I cannot tell what was in the man's mind — if he was
conscious of wrong and acting a part, or conscious of right and
VOL. XXI. — NO. 123, N.S. . 15
'
322 A WIDOW'S TALE.
only speaking as a man who felt himself to be under an unjust
imputation might have a right to do. But it became very visible
now if never before that he was a coarse-minded man, notwith-
standing his outside of refinement, and that he no longer took
the trouble to attempt to veil it as he had hitherto done. And
Nelly, on the other hand, though keenly conscious of this,
accepted it as if she had always known it. They had been to-
gether for nearly an hour, pacing up and down the gloomy
background of the great noisy station, talking, talking ; and yet
she did not know with any more conviction than when they first
met whether it was he or she that was in the wrong. Was he
true — a man who had acted in all simplicity and honour — and she
a woman with a bad imagination which had jumped at something
enough to horrify a man ? Nelly's mind seemed to be enveloped
in cobwebs and mists, so that she could make out nothing clearly,
though sometimes there pierced through these mists a keen ray
of light, like an arrow, which seemed to break them up for a
moment and make all plain. Ah ! but it came sometimes from
one side, sometimes from another, that sudden arrow cleaving the
confusion. Sometimes its effect was to make her heart leap ; I
sometimes to make it drop, down, down into the depths. Oh ! if
she could but see into his heart ! But there is no one who can |
do that — not into the heart of the dearest and most near our own J
— or be absolutely certain of those motives which bring the smile j
or the sigh.
There was one strange thing, however, that this strange inci-
dent had done — it had set the two upon a level of intimate |
acquaintance, of sincerity in speaking to each other, which
their previous intercourse had not accomplished. With what veils
of flattering illusion that intercourse had been wrapped ! It hat
never been mentioned between them that she expected or that he
withheld any proposal, that the time had come for any decision
that there was any question between them greater than the
question whether he might come again to-morrow. Now thai
pretence had blown away for ever. When they sat down upon
that bench at the dreary end of the long platform, where once in
a half-hour or so a railway porter went past, or a bewildered
stray passenger, this was what Fitzroy said :
' The thing that has risen between us now is the bruta
question of marriage, and nothing else, Nelly. Oh, you needn't
cry out ! I use the word " brutal " in the French sense ; all that
A WIDOW'S TALE. 323
belongs to the imagination or the fancy, all that's vague, seductive,
and attractive is over. It is a brutal question '
' Mr. Fitzroy ! ' cried Nelly, springing to her feet.
' Don't " Mr." me ! ' he cried, almost angrily, seizing her hand,
drawing her to her seat again. ' What good will all this com-
motion do ? We must face the real question ; and you know this
is what it is. I should never have forced it upon you ; but still,
here it is, and there is nothing else for it now. Don't you think
I see that as well as you do ? It is the only thing, and I have
made up my mind to it.'
The colour that covered Nelly's face was more than a blush —
|fc was a scorching fire. She drew further from him, raising, with
what pride she could, her abashed and shamestricken head. ' If
you think that I — will permit any man to speak to me so — that
to make up your mind is enough '
Oh ! the humiliation even of that protest, the deep destroying
shame even of the resentment which was a kind of avowal ! For
here, at least, he was logically right and she helpless, dependent
"or so much upon the making up of his mind.
' I can't stop,' he said, ' after all that's past, Nelly, to pick my
words. Here's the fact : I was an ass, I suppose, to go back that
night. I was off my head ; and you had not given me any reason
X) suppose you were a prude. I had not expected to find — the
British matron up in arms, and an old witch of a duenna to watch
over her mistress ! What more harm is there in talking to a lady
after midnight than before? I can't see it. But we needn't
argue. After all this fuss, and the maid, and the vicaress, and so
on, there's nothing, I say, but this brutal question of marriage.
Can't you sit still, now, and hear me out ? '
' You have no right,' she said — ' you have no right — to speak
to me in that tone ! '
' What tone ? There is nothing particular that I know of in
my tone. I haven't time to pick my tones any more than my
words. Your train will be going soon, and the deuced affair must
be settled somehow. Look here ! it is horribly inconvenient for
me to get married now. I have no money, and I have a lot of
debts to pay. A marriage in St. George's, published in the
papers and all that, would simply make an end of me. These
tradesmen fellows know everything ; they would give each other
the word : Married a widow with a family and with no money !
By Jove ! that would finish me ! '
15—2
324 A WIDOW'S TALE.
' Mr. Fitzroy ! '
' I tell you not to " Mr." me, Nelly. You know my name, I
suppose. We are past all that. The question now is how to
manage the one business without bursting up the other. Making
a regular smash of my affairs can't do you any good, can it ? We'll
have to go abroad ; and we can't, of course, take those chicks —
dragging a nursery about with us all over the world. Keep still !
you'll frighten that porter.' He had seized and held her arm
tightly, restraining her. ' For goodness sake be reasonable, now,
Nelly. You don't suppose I mean you any harm. How could I ?'
he added, with a harsh laugh, ' you're much too wide awake for
that. Listen to what I say, Nelly.'
' I cannot— I cannot endure this,' she cried.
' We may neither of us like it,' said Fitzroy, with composure,
' but you ought to have thought of that a little sooner. There's
nothing else for it now that I can see. Speak up if you know any
other way. I don't want to ruin you, and you, I suppose, don't
want to ruin me. There's no other way.'
' There is the way — of parting here, and never seeing each
other more ! '
He held her fast, with her arm drawn closely through his.
' That's the most impracticable of all,' he said. ' For one thing,
I don't want to part and never see you more.'
Oh, poor Nelly ! poor Nelly ! She was outraged in every
point of pride and tenderness and feeling, and yet the softness of I
this tone sank into her heart, and carried, like a flood, all her
bulwarks away.
' Well, and then it couldn't be done. You've gone too far,
with your Yicaress, and all that. I don't want to ruin you ; and
neither, I suppose, do you want to ruin me. Look here, Nelly :
I've got a little money at present — by chance, as it happens. I'll
buy a licence — it's all you'll have from me in the shape of wedding
present — and you'll run up to town to-morrow morning, and we'll
be married at the registrar's office. Can't help it, Nelly ; can't do
anything better. It is no fault of mine.'
There was silence for a moment. Nelly was not able to speak.
Her heart was beating as if it would burst ; her whole nature
revolting, resisting, in a horror and conflict indescribable. At
length she burst forth : ' It is a brutal question, indeed, indeed —
a brutal question ! ' she cried, scarcely able with her trembling
lips to form the words.
A WIDOW'S TALE. 325
' Well, didn't I say so ? But we can't help it ; there's nothing
else left to do. I am not an infernal cad — altogether : and you're
not — altogether — a fool. We may have been that — that last —
both of us ; but there's no use going over all that again. Nelly,
compose yourself — compose yourself ! '
' I cannot ! I cannot ! ' she cried, struggling with that burst
and flood of misery which is one of the shames and terrors of a
woman. It had come to such a point that she could not compose
herself, or resist the wild tide of passion that carried her away.
Passion ! ah, not of love — of shame, of horror, of self-disgust, of
humiliation unspeakable. A woman who has had poor Nelly's
experiences seldom retains a girl's dream of superlative woman-
hood, of the crown and the sceptre. But to endure to be spoken
to like this — to feel the question to be not one between two lovers,
but between a man who was not ' an infernal cad ' and a woman
who was not ' a fool : ' to submit to all this because there was
nothing else for it, to be obliged by her reason to acquiesce in
it— was almost more than flesh and blood could bear. She kept
in, by the exertion of all her strength, those heartrending sobs
and cries within her own bosom as much as was possible. Even
in the depth of her misery she was aware that to betray herself,
to collect a crowd round, would be worse still, and must be avoided
at any price. Finally, poor Nelly found herself, all wounded and
bruised with the conflict, exhausted as if she were going to die,
alone in the railway carriage in which Fitzroy had placed her,
kissing her openly in sight of the guard as he left her, and bidding
her remember that he would meet her at eleven o'clock to-morrow.
At eleven o'clock to-morrow ! It seemed to ring in her ears all
the way down, like a bell going on with the same chime. Eleven
o'clock ! Eleven o'clock to-morrow ! — for why ? for why ?
CHAPTEE IX.
THINKING, thinking all the long night through did not seem to do
poor Nelly any good. She had arrived at home so exhausted in
mind and body, so chilled to the heart, that she was good for
nothing but to retire to bed. She was scarcely able to see the
children — the. children, whom perhaps in a day or two . Oh !
should she not secure every moment of them, every look of the
innocent faces that were her own, lay up in her heart every
326 A WIDOW'S TALE.
innocent word, with that dreadful possibility before her ? But the
effect was exactly the reverse. The sight of them seemed to fill
her with a sick horror. She could not meet their eyes, could not
bear their caresses, turned from them with an awful sense that she
had betrayed them. And then all the night through in the dark
she lay awake thinking, thinking, listening to the clock striking —
the vigilant clock, which watched and waited, measuring out the
unhasting time, never forgetting, looking on whatever happened.
It would strike eleven o'clock to-morrow in the calm little un-
alarmed house where nobody would suspect that the young mother,
the smiling and loving guardian of the children, had come to her
hour of doom. For a long time her mind held to this as if it
were a sentence which had to be carried out. Eleven o'clock to-
morrow, eleven o'clock ! a thing which she could not alter, which
had to be done. Then by-and-by, which was worse still, there
flashed into her soul the thought that it was no sentence, but a
thing subject to her own decision, which she might do — or not.
Or not ! She was free ; it was for her to settle, to do it or not to do I
it. I don't know how to explain how much worse this was. To be ]
held fast by a verdict, sentenced at a certain hour to do something U
which perhaps you would rather die than do, but which you must j
do, your dying or not dying being a matter of indifference — is a I
very terrible thing : yet even in this the must gives a certain I
support. But to be cast back again into a sea of doubt from which 1
you have to get out as best you may, in which you must decide for I
yourself, choose — this or that, settle what to do, what not to do ; I
the choice being not between pleasure and pain, between good and ij
evil, as it used to be in the old days — but only of two tortures, |
which was the worst and which the best.
The result of this terrible night was at least to solve the;
question for eleven o'clock to-morrow : for she was to ill to stand,
her limbs aching and her head aching when to-morrow came. It
was dreadful to Nelly to have to call nurse, who already half knew
so much, and to send her with the necessary telegram. ' Too ill to
move — postpone for a day or two ' was, after long labour with her
aching head and perturbed brain, all she could think of to say :
and she had scarcely said it when it flashed upon her that the
very word ' postpone ' was a kind of pledge, and committed her to
an acceptance of everything he had settled upon, though even
this did not hurt like the look which nurse gave her when
she saw Fitzroy's name — a look, not of reproach, but of anxious
A WIDOW'S TALE. 327
curiosity. Before this time poor Nelly had begun to feel to
her very soul the misery of having a confidant. It is a comfort
in some cases : it relieves the full heart to speak, it sometimes
gives support, the support of being understood in a difficult
crisis. But it also gives to the person confided in a right to
follow further developments, to know what happens after, to ask
— to look. ' You did not come as you promised, dear ? ' Mrs.
G-lynn had said to her, ' you did not bring him to see us.' The
Eector's wife doubted, but did not know certainly, that Fitzroy had
not come. ' No,' Nelly had faltered, ' I did not, I — could not.'
' But to-morrow ! promise me, promise me faithfully that you will
bring him to-morrow. Dear, let us have the comfort of seeing you
two together.' Nelly had only nodded her head, she could not
trust her voice to speak. This was before the interview at
Paddington. And Mrs. Grlynn had gone away sorrowing. She
was very anxious about the poor young woman whose life was thus
compromised by what might turn out to be a bad man. She
could not comprehend why all was not settled by this time, and
the lover ready to satisfy her friends. She took Nelly's hands in
both hers, and kissed her, and looked wistfully in her face. Poor
Nelly had felt as if she must sink into the ground. She could not
meet her friend's eyes. She gave no sign of reply, no answering
look : but dropped the kind hands that held hers, and turned back
into the house, which was a refuge at least for the time.
But she was not safe even in her house, for nurse also had
been her confidant, and had a half right to ask, an undoubted
right to look. Her eyes when they flashed upon the name of
Fitzroy in Nelly's telegram were terrible. Well-trained woman as
she was, she raised those eyes instinctively to Nelly's face with a
question in them before which Nelly's, hot with fever yet dim
with tears, fell. Oh, if she had said nothing, if she had but kept
the whole story to herself ! But that had been impossible, he had
made it impossible. When she had confided the telegram to
nurse she gave instructions that she was not to be disturbed, and
lay, with her blinds down, in the darkened room, trembling lest
Mrs. Grlynn should force the consigne, and find the way to her
bedside in spite of all precautions. It was bad enough to be
questioned when she had nothing to reply ; what would it be
when her heart and mind were so full ? Nelly lay there in the
dark the whole day with her troubled thoughts. In an hour or
two nurse came back, bringing the children from their walk, and
328 A WIDOW'S TALE.
told her mistress that they had walked as far as Deanham, a little
neighbouring village, and that she had sent the telegram from
that office, which she hoped would not matter. It mattered only
so far as to send a fiery dart through ]\Irs. Brunton, who divined
at once that this was done to save her — that no local telegraph
clerk might be able to betray the fact of her communication with
Fitzroy. And Mrs. Grlynn called, and was repulsed, not without
difficulty, and left her love, and a promise — which was to Nelly as
a threat — of calling early to-morrow. And once more there came
the night when all was silent, when there was no one even to look
a question, when Nelly was left alone again to battle with her
thoughts.
Alone, to battle with her thoughts. With this addition, that if
she remained here and faced her trouble, and resolved to tread
the stony path, to bear the penalty of her indiscretion, and cling
to her children — she would have Mrs. Grlynn to meet in the morn-
ing, to explain to her that Mr. Fitzroy had not come and was not
coming, that all this stormy episode was over, and to endure her
astonishment, her questions, perhaps her reproaches. And nurse,
too, to nurse there would be due some explanation — nurse, who
had seen everything, who had gone on the river with them, who
had known of all his constant visits, before that last visit which had
brought to a crisis the whole foolish, foolish story. Oh, how well
everything had been before he ever came ; how contented she had
been with her children, how pleased with her little house, how
much approved by everybody ! Nelly believed in all good faith
that she would have been quite contented and happy had Fitzroy
never appeared to disturb her life, alone in her tranquillity with
her children : but it may be doubted whether her confidence would
have been justified. At all events, now, she shivered when she
looked forward upon that life which would lie before her if this
was to be the end. Alone, with the children. Oh, how dear the
children were ! But they were so little, such babies, not com-
panions for a woman in the full tide and height of her life. Mrs.
Glynn would be kind she knew, but a little suspicious of her.
Nurse would watch her as if she were a giddy girl, she would not
dare to open her doors to anyone, to offer a curate a cup of tea !
I don't say that Nelly was guilty of such thoughts as these in her
musing — but they drifted through her desolate, solitary, aban-
doned soul, abandoned of all comfort and counsel. Whereas, on
the other side-— —
A WIDOW'S TALE. 329
In a great many histories of human experience it is taken for
granted — and indeed, perhaps, before the reign of analysis began it
was almost always taken for granted — that when man or woman of
the nobler kind found that a lover was unworthy, their love died
along with their respect. This has simplified matters in many a
story. It is such a good way out of it, and saves so much trouble !
The last great instance I can remember is that of the noble
Eomola and Tito her husband, whom, though he gives her endless
trouble, she is able to drop out of her stronghold of love, as soon
as she knows how little worthy of it is the fascinating delightful
false Greek. My own experience is all the other way. Life, I
think, is not so easy as that comes to. Nelly understood a great
deal more of Mr. Fitzroy now than she might have done in other
circumstances had she been married to him for years. She had
seen him all round in a flash of awful reality and perception, and
hated him — yet loved him all the same. She did not attempt to
put these feelings in their order, to set so much on one side and
so much on the other. She knew now, as she had never done
before, what love could mean in some natures. How it could be
base, and yet not all base, and how a man who was only not
altogether a cad, to use his own description, apprehended that
passion. And yet it did not matter to her, it did not affect the
depth of her heart, any more than it would have affected her had
he lost his good looks or his beautiful voice. Ah yes ! it did
matter ! It turned her very love, herself, her life into things so
different that they were scarcely recognisable. The elements of
hate were in her love, an opposition and distrust ineradicable took
possession of her being : and yet she belonged to him, and he to
her, almost the more for this contradiction. These are mysteries
which I do not attempt to explain.
Yet, notwithstanding all this terrible consciousness, when
Kelly awoke next morning (for she was tired out and slept
notwithstanding everything), and remembered all that lay before
her, and the decision she had to make, the two things which imme-
diately flashed upon her mind, small things of no real importance
— were, the look which nurse would fix upon her, trying to read
her thoughts, and the inevitable call of Mrs. Grlynn. They were
not Mrs. Grundy — oh, how little, how petty, how poor was any-
thing that the frivolous call Mrs. Grrundy ! They were women who
were fond of her, who would stand for her and defend her, women
who, alas ! were her confidants. They had a right to know. Of
330 A WIDOW'S TALE,
all that stood in her way and made the crisis dreadful, there was
nothing at this moment so dreadful as the glance of suppressed
anxiety, the question, that did not venture to put itself into words,
of nurse's . look, and the more open, more unconcealed gaze of
Mrs. Giynn. She felt that she would not, could not, bear these,
whatever she might have to bear.
I do not pretend to say that this was what finally turned the
scale. Was there any doubt from the beginning how it would
turn ? She came downstairs very early on that dreadful morning
and breakfasted with the children, and dressed them with her own
hands for their walk, fastening every little button, putting on each
little glove. She kissed them again and again before she gave
them over to nurse, who was waiting — and stood at the door looking
after them until they had disappeared beyond the garden gate.
Then she, who had seemed so full of leisure, all at once became
nervous and hurried. She called the housemaid to her, who was
busy with her work. ' Mary,' she said, ' I have to runupp to town
by the half-past ten train. I have not a moment to lose ; if Mrs.
Giynn should come you must tell her that I am gone, and I will
slip out by the back door — for if she comes in I know I shall miss my
train.' ' Yes, ma'am,' said Mary, making no remark, but thinking
all the more. Happily, however, Mrs. Grlynn did not come, and
Mrs. Brunton left the house in good time for the train, carrying
her dressing bag. ' It is possible I may not get home again to-
night,' she said. ' Give this to nurse, Mary. I forgot to give it
to her ; and if any one inquires, say I have gone to town for a few
days.' Mary never knew how she could have made so bold. She
cried out : ' Oh, ma'am, I hope as you are not going to leave us.'
' To leave you ! ' said Nelly. ' What nonsense you are speaking !
How could I leave you ? ' But she was not angry ; she gave the
girl a look which made Mary cry, though she could not have
told why.
What was left for nurse was a letter with a cheque enclosed,
imploring her to take the greatest care of the children till she
could send for them. ' I may tell you to satisfy you that I am
going to be married,' Nelly wrote. ' We want to have no fuss.
And I could not take the children ; but as soon as — as we are
settled I shall send for you to bring my little darlings. Oh, take
care of them, take care of them ! ' And that was all ; not an
address, not an indication where she had gone. Nurse did not
say a word to anyone as long as her courage held out. When
A WIDOW'S TALE. 331
Mrs. Grlynn, after receiving her message from the housemaid, asked
to see the more important servant, nurse made her face like a
countenance cut out of wood. She could give no explanation.
Mrs. Brunton had gone to town for a few days. Perhaps she
might be detained a little longer. It was on business she had
gone. ' But it was very sudden ? ' cried Mrs. Grlynn. ' Yes,
ma'am,' said nurse. ' And you don't know what day she will be
back ? ' ' No, ma'am,' replied the faithful servant. There was
nothing more to be learned from her.
She kept this up as long, I have said, as her courage held out ;
and indeed a week strained that courage very much. The
servants all grew frightened left in the house alone. They did
not know how to contain themselves, or to bear up in the unusual
leisure and quiet. I think that nurse held out for ten days.
And then she wrote to Mrs. Brunton's married sister — for Nelly's
mother was an old lady, and not to be disturbed. After this
there ensued a whirl of agitation and trouble, in which the cook
and the housemaid found much satisfaction. The sister came, and
then her husband, and after them a brother and uncle, all in
consternation. Nelly's letter to nurse was read over and over,
and much of what had passed before was elicited by anxious
questioning. ' Depend upon it she has gone off with this man,'
said the uncle solemnly, and nobody contradicted him, the feet
being self-evident. ' Fitzroy — of what Fitzroys I wonder ? ' said
the brother, who thought he knew society. Finally, Nelly's
brother, who was young and impetuous, started off for the
Continent in search of her, and the married sister took the children
home.
Poor little children ! they were so forlorn, and so ignorant,
crying for Mamma, such little things ! Consoled by a box of choco-
late, treated very kindly, oh very kindly ! but not kings and
queens, nurse said with tears, as in their own home. And the
poor mother, poor Nelly — where was she ? She was discussed by
everybody, all her affairs, whether she were really married, or what
dreadful thing had happened to her : how she could go away, for
any man, and leave her children. All that she had kept most
private to herself was raked up and gone over, and her conduct at
Bampton-Leigh, and how all this had begun. Poor Nelly ! all the
world was in her secret now.
332 A WIDOW'S TALE.
CHAPTEK X.
THE children had been but a week at the house of Mrs. Evans,
Nelly's sister, when a letter arrived, first sent to Haven Green,
then by various stages to their present habitation, to nurse, asking
for news of them. It was rather a melancholy letter. ' I cannot
send for my darlings yet, and it is dreadful to be without any news.
Mr. Fitzroy and I are moving about so much that I can scarcely
give you an address ; but write at once, and if we are no longer
here, I will leave word where we are going, and your letter can
follow me ' ; and again a cheque was enclosed, signed with the
name of Helen Fitzroy. ' Say, if anybody inquires, that we may
come back any day,' she added in a postscript. It was evident
that she had over-estimated nurse's courage, that she had calculated
upon her remaining quietly at home, until further orders : and the
assumption made nurse feel exceedingly guilty, as if she had
betrayed her mistress. A short time after, information came from
the family solicitor that he had received Nelly's orders to sell all
the property that Mrs. Brunton had in her own power, and forward
the money to her at another address, different from that given to
nurse. It was not a sum which represented very much in the way
of income, yet it was a large sum to be realised without a word of
explanation, and roused the worst auguries in everybody's breast.
Needless to say that both addresses were telegraphed at once to
the impetuous brother who was raving about Europe, looking
under every table in every hotel for Nelly. Needless also to add
that she was found at last.
But here exact information fails. Her brother Herbert never
described how he found her, or went into any unnecessary details.
The pair, who were henceforward spoken of in the family as the
Fitzroys, were at Monte Carlo when he came up with them, and
it was evident enough that ' my new brother-in-law,' as Herbert-
called him, awakened no enthusiasm in the young man's breast.
He acknowledged that he thought the fellow was in his proper
place among the queer society there, though it was not much like
Nelly ; and there it appeared they meant to remain, on the ground
that Nelly had showed some symptoms of delicate health, and it
was thought expedient that she should winter in the south of
France, which made it impossible for her to have the children with
her, as she had intended. ' So far as that goes, Nelly was silly/
A WIDOW'S TALE. 333
Herbert said ; ' how could she expect a fellow newly married to
have another man's children dragging after him all over the place ?
And she knew they'd be safe with Susan.' Susan Evans took this
very quietly ; but she knew that Nelly had not intended the chil-
dren to be with her, but had meant to send for them, or to come
back to them, leaving the issue to the decision of after events.
Poor Nelly, she looked delicate, Herbert allowed. She was not
like herself. He confessed, when he was alone with his sister, and
had become confidential, walking about the room in the twilight
when the changes of his countenance could not be remarked, that
perhaps Nelly had made a mistake, and he was not sure that she
had not found it out.
' Do you mean that he is unkind to her ? ' cried Susan, all
aflame.
' I should just like,' said Herbert, grimly, ' to have seen any
man unkind to her while I was there.'
' Isn't he fond of her, then ? Then why did he marry her ?
Do you mean that they're unhappy, Herbert ? So soon, so soon ! '
' Now, look here,' said Herbert, ' I won't be cross-examined ; I
say that I think Nelly has made a mistake, and I fear she thinks
so too. I can't go into metaphysical questions why people did
that, or why they did this. I'm not fond myself of Mr. Percy
Fitzroy — and we are not done with him yet,' Herbert said.
' Done with him ? and he Nelly's husband : I should hope not,
indeed ! ' Mrs. Evans cried.
' Then I promise you you'll have your wish,' her brother
replied.
And indeed, for the next year or two there was a great deal
heard of Mr. Percy Fitzroy. One thing that developed itself
in the further history of poor Nelly was a chronic want of money.
She disposed of everything over which she had the least power.
Her little house was, of course, sold and everything in it.
What was the good of keeping it up ? and even the Indian
curiosities, the little stock of plate, all the things of which Nelly
Brunton had been proud. What did all that matter now ? These
trifles served to stop the wolfs mouth for a very short time, and
then Herbert began to receive letters by every post, which he
showed to nobody. He was the head of the family, and he was
the only one who was fully acquainted with the affairs of the
Fitzroys. He gained a prominent line on his forehead, which
might have been called the Fitzroy wrinkle, from this constant
334 A WIDOW'S TALE.
traffic and anxiety, and nobody knew but himself how far these
claims and applications went.
Meanwhile the poor little children remained in the nursery of
Mrs. Evans ; not poor little children at all — much benefited, at
least in Mrs. Evans' opinion, by the superior discipline of a large
family. Susan was of opinion that whoever suffered by Nelly's
second marriage, to little Jack and Maysey all things had worked
together for good. How much better it was for them to be brought
up with a little wholesome neglect among a great number of nice
children, who were very kind to their little cousins, than spoiled
to the top of their bent by Nelly, who gave them everything they
wanted, and kept up no discipline at all ? And, indeed, there could
not be a doubt that it was far better for them to be in the whole-
some English nursery than dragging about through a series of
hotels after their mother and their mother's husband. It was
against her judgment that Mrs. Evans kept nurse devoted to their
special service ; but she did so, for, though she thought a great
deal of her own system, she was a kind woman, and very sorry for
poor Nelly, thus separated from her children, though at the same
time very angry and indignant with her for submitting to it. ' I
should like to see Henry, or any other man, try to keep me from
my children ! ' Susan cried. But then Henry Evans, good man,
had no such desire, nor naturally, in his lifetime, had any other
man the right.
It need scarcely be said that the subject was discussed in all
its aspects at Haven Green, where nobody knew anything, and
there was the widest field for conjecture. Mrs. Grlynn, who never
would allow an unkind word to be said of -Mrs. Brunton, now
Mrs. Fitzroy, in her hearing, blamed herself very much that she
had not watched Nelly more closely and that the Sector had not
interfered. ' For if my husband had married them, even if it had
been by special license in her own drawing-room — though I dis-
approve of that sort of proceeding very much — yet not a word
could have been said.' ' I suppose it was done at a registry-office,'
said some ill-natured person. ' We have none of us any right to
suppose such a thing,' Mrs. Grlynn replied. Well ! there were
dark whispers in corners that it might have been even worse than
that — though, of course, now that the family had taken it up it was
clear that'all must be right ; but these whispers were not uttered
in the presence of the Kector or of Mrs. Grlynn, who avowed boldly
that she had been in Mrs. Brunton's confidence all the time.
A WIDOW'S TALE. 335
You cannot do much harm, it may be proudly asserted, when you
unbosom yourself to your clergyman's wife !
Among all poor Nelly's sympathisers and anxious supporters
there was no one more anxious — no one, it may be said, so com-
punctious— as Julia Bampton. She said that she could never forgive
herself, for it was she who had introduced dear Nelly to Percy Fitzroy.
She it was, all unwitting of evil, who had thrown them together.
Mrs. Spencer- Jackson, indeed, had brought him into the county,
but it was at Bampton-Leigh that he had been taken up most
warmly and made most of. It was because of his voice — such a
beautiful baritone voice ; and Julia herself — Julia, who spoke with
tears in her eyes, had thrown them together, made them sing
together, brought it all on. She could never forgive herself for
this, though she hoped with all her heart that poor Nelly, though
she had been so imprudent, was happier than people said. By
this time May had married Bertie Harcourt, and was the brightest
of young matrons, with a handsome house and an adoring husband,
and nothing but happiness about her. She, too, was very sorry
for Nelly, and said she had always thought there was something
queer, like a man in a book, about Mr. Percy Fitzroy.
And thus it came about that the poor little Brunton children
were a great deal at Bampton-Leigh, where there was no discipline
at all, and which seemed to them the most delightful place in the
world. They called Julia aunt, en attendant the arrival of Har-
court children who would have a right to address her by that
title, and made up to her in such a surprising way for the absence
of May that their visits were the happiest portions of her life.
Julia was seated with them in the drawing-room on an evening in
October about two years after these events, telling them stories,
Maysey's little figure buried in her lap (for the good Julia began
to grow stout), and Jack leaning closely against her knee. It was
growing dark, but the fire was bright and filled the room with
ruddy gleams and fantastic shadows and reflections. She had
come to a very touching point in the story, and Maysey had flung
her arms round aunt Julia's neck in the thrill of the approaching
catastrophe which the children both knew by heart, yet heard over
and over again with undiminished delight and horror. They all
heard the door open, but paid no attention, supposing it was the
tea : and Julia had told the tale all out, and the nervous clasp of
the child's arms had loosened, when, looking up, Miss Bampton
saw — not in actual realitv, but in the great mirror over the mantel-
J ' O
336 A WIDOW'S TALE.
piece — a shadowy figure standing over them, a woman in a tra-
velling cloak, with a great veil like a cloud hanging over her
face. Julia gave a shriek that rang through the house, and the
veiled figure dropped down upon the hearthrug on its knees, and
encircled the whole group with eager arms. ' 0 Nelly, Nelly,
Nelly ! ' Julia cried, thinking at first that it was a ghost.
When the lights came it was visible that both things were
true — that it was Nelly, and that she was little more than the
ghost of herself. It was some time before the frightened children —
who had forgotten her, and who were terrified by her paleness, and
her cloak and her veil, and her sudden arrival — would acknowledge
their mother. Oh, how different from the Nelly who had arrived
there on that summer afternoon, and stopped the singing at the
piano, and diverted (as Julia in the profoundest depths of her heart
was aware) from May's path an evil fate. She bore all the traces of
that evil fate upon her own worn countenance. She was very pale,
worn, and thin : she was not like herself. But when she had rested
from her journey, and recovered the confidence of her children,
then the old house of her kindred became aware of another Nelly,
who was not like the first, yet was a more distinct and remarkable
personage than Nelly Brunton. She was dressed in all the elegance
of the fashion, and she had an air which the country lady did not
understand. Was it natural stateliness and nobility ? Or was it
only the tragedy of her unknown fate ?
Nelly stayed and lingered in the calm of Bampton-Leigh. It
seemed as if she never could separate herself from the children.
It was with reluctance that she allowed them to be put to bed, or
to go out for their play. She could not bear them out of her sight,
and she never spoke of Mr. Percy Fitzroy except when questions
were put to her. When Mrs. Spencer-Jackson came to see her, with
effusive welcome, she received that lady with extreme coldness,
holding her at arm's length. ' My husband is quite well,' was all
she answered to a thousand inquiries. Letters came to her ' from
abroad ' at rare intervals, and she herself wrote very seldom. She
never looked as if she wanted to hear anything except about her
little boy and girl.
And for anything I have heard she is there still, much wondered
at, yet very kindly cherished, good Julia asking no questions, at
Bampton-Leigh .
THE END.
THE
COKNHILL MAGAZINE.
OCTOBEE 1893.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER XIII.
IN BLACK AND WHITE.
A little lurking secret of the blood,
A little serpent secret rankling keen.
THE three men walked up towards the house together. It was a
fair-sized house, with a heavy thatched roof that overhung the
walls like the crown of a mushroom. The walls were only mud,
and the thatching was nothing else than banana leaves ; but there
was evidence of European taste in the garden surrounding the
structure, and in the glazed windows and wooden door.
As they approached the open doorway three little children,
clad in very little more than their native modesty, ran gleefully
out, and proceeded to engage seats on Jack Meredith's boots,
looking upon him as a mere public conveyance. They took
hardly any notice of him, but chattered and quarrelled among
themselves, sometimes in baby English, sometimes in a dialect
unknown to Oscard and Meredith.
' These,' said the latter, when they were seated, and clinging
with their little dusky arms round his legs, ' are the very rummest
little kids I ever came across.'
Durnovo gave an impatient laugh, and went on towards the
house. But Gruy Oscard stopped, and walked more slowly beside
Meredith as he laboured along heavy-footed.
' They are the jolliest little souls imaginable,' continued Jack
Meredith. ' There,' he said to them when they had reached the
doorstep, ' run away to your mother — very fine ride — no ! no more
to-night ! I'm aweary — you understand — aweary ! '
VOL. XXI.— NO, 124, N.S. 16
338 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Aweary — awe-e-e-ary ! ' repeated the little things, standing
before him in infantile nude rotundity, looking up with bright
eyes.
' Aweary — that is it. Good night, Epaminondas — good night,
Xantippe ! Give ye good hap, most stout Nestorius ! *
He stooped and gravely shook hands with each one in turn,
and, after forcing a like ceremonial upon Gruy Oscard, they reluc-
tantly withdrew.
' They have not joined us, I suppose ? ' said Oscard, as he
followed his companion into the house.
' Not yet. They live in this place. Nestorius, I understand,
takes care of his mother, who in her turn takes care of this house.
He is one and a half.'
Gruy Oscard seemed to have inherited the mind inquisitive
from his learned father. He asked another question later on.
' Who is that woman ? ' he said during dinner, with a little nod
towards the doorway, through which the object of his curiosity
had passed with some plates.
' That is the mother of the stout Nestorius/ answered Jack —
' Durnovo's housekeeper.'
He spoke quietly, looking straight in front of him ; and Joseph,
who was drawing a cork at the back of the room, was watching \
his face.
There was a little pause, during which Durnovo drank slowly.
Then Gruy Oscard spoke again.
' If she cooked the dinner,' he said, ' she knows her business.' '
'Yes,' answered Durnovo, 'she is a good cook — if she is
nothing else.'
It did not sound as if further inquiries would be welcome, and
so the subject was dropped with a silent tribute to the culinary '
powers of Durnovo's housekeeper at the Msala Station.
The woman had only appeared for a moment, bringing in
some dishes for Joseph — a tall, stately woman, with great dark
eyes, in which the patience of motherhood had succeeded to the
soft fire of West Indian love and youth. She had the graceful,
slow carriage of the Creole, although her skin was darker than
that of those dangerous sirens. That Spanish blood ran in her
veins could be seen by the intelligence of her eyes ; for there is
an intelligence in Spanish eyes which stands apart. In the men
it seems to refer to the past or the future, for their incorrigible
leisureliness prevents the present rendering of a full justice to
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 339
their powers. In the women it belongs essentially to the
present ; for there is no time like the present for love and other
things.
' They call me,' she had said to Jack Meredith, in her soft,
mumbled English, a fortnight earlier, ' they call me Marie.'
The children he had named after his own phantasy, and when
she had once seen him with them there was a notable change in
her manner. Her eyes rested on him with a sort of wondering
attention, and when she cooked his meals or touched anything
that was his there was something in her attitude that denoted a
special care.
Joseph called her ' Missis,' with a sort of friendliness in
his voice, which never rose to badinage nor descended to fami-
liarity.
' Seems to me, missis,' he said, on the third evening after the
arrival of the advance column, ' that the guv'nor takes uncommon
kindly to them little 'uns of yours.'
They were washing up together after* dinner in that part of
. the garden which was used for a scullery, and Joseph was enjoying
• a post-prandial pipe.
'Yes,' she said, simply, following the direction of Joseph's
glance. Jack Meredith was engaged in teaching Epaminondas
the intellectual game of bowls with a rounded pebble and a beer-
bottle. Nestorius, whose person seemed more distended than
usual, stood gravely by, engaged in dental endeavours on a cork,
'while Xantippe joined noisily in the game. Their lack of dress
jwas essentially native to the country, while their mother affected
a simple European style of costume.
' And,' added Joseph, on politeness bent, ' it don't surprise me.
I'm wonderfully fond of the little nig — nippers already. I am —
straight.'
The truth was that the position of this grave and still comely
jsvoman was ambiguous. Neither Joseph nor his master called her
oy the name she had offered for their use. Joseph compromised
py the universal and elastic ' Missis ; ' his master simply avoided
'ill names.
Ambiguity is one of those intangible nothings that get into the
atmosphere and have a trick of remaining there. Marie seemed
jn some subtle way to pervade the atmosphere of Msala. It
'vould seem that Guy Oscard, in his thick-headed way, was
•-onscious of this mystery in the air ; for he had not been two
16-2
340 WITH EDGED TOOLS,
hours in Msala before he asked ' Who is that woman ? ' and re-
ceived the reply which has been recorded.
After dinner they passed out on to the little terrace over-
looking the river, and it was here that the great Simiacine scheme
was pieced together. It was here, beneath the vast palm-trees
that stood like two beacons towering over the surrounding forest,
that three men deliberately staked their own lives and the lives of
others against a fortune. Nature has a strange way of hiding
her gifts. Many of the most precious have lain unheeded for
hundreds of years in barren plains, on inaccessible mountains, or j
beneath the wave, while others are thrown at the feet of savages
who know no use for them.
The man who had found the Simiacine was eager, restless, full
of suspicion. To the others the scheme obviously presented itself
in a different light. Jack Meredith was dilettante, light-hearted,
and unsatisfactory. It was impossible to arouse any enthusiasm |
in him — to make him take it seriously. Gruy Oscard was gravely
indifferent. He wanted to get rid of a certain space of time, and j
the African forest, containing as it did the only excitement thati
his large heart knew, was as good a place as any. The Simiacine
was, in his mind, relegated to a distant place behind weeks ofi
sport and adventure such as his soul loved. He scarcely took
Victor Durnovo au pied de la lettre. Perhaps he knew too much
about him for that. Certain it is that neither of the two realised,
at that moment the importance of the step that they were taking.
' You men,' said Durnovo eagerly, ' don't seem to take the
thing seriously.'
' I,' answered Meredith, ' intend at all events to take the profits
very seriously. When they begin to come in, J. Meredith will be
at the above address, and trusts by a careful attention to business
to merit a continuance of your kind patronage.'
Durnovo laughed somewhat nervously. Oscard did not seen
to hear.
' It is all very well for you,' said the half-caste in a lower voice
' You have not so much at stake. It is likely that the happines
of my whole life depends upon this venture.'
A curious smile passed across Jack Meredith's face. Withou
turning his head, he glanced sideways into Durnovo's face throug
the gloom. But he said nothing, and it was Oscard who broke th
silence by saying simply *
' The same may possibly apply to me.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 341
There was a little pause, during which he lighted his pipe.
' To a certain extent,' he said in emendation. ' Of course, my
real object, as you no doubt know, is to get away from England
until my father's death has been forgotten. My own conscience
is quite clear, but '
Jack Meredith drew in his legs and leant forward.
' But,' he said, interrupting, and yet not interrupting — ' but
the public mind is an unclean sink. Everything that goes into it
comes out tainted. Therefore it is best only to let the public
mind have the scourings, as it were, of one's existence. If they
get anything better — anything more important — it is better to
skedaddle until it has run through and been swept away by a flow
of social garbage.'
Guy Oscard grunted with his pipe between his teeth, after the
manner of the stoic American-Indian — a grunt that seemed to
say, ' My pale-faced brother has spoken well ; he expresses my
feelings.' Then he gave further vent to the deliberate expansive-
ness which was his.
' What I cannot stand,' he said, ' are the nudges and the nods
and the surreptitious glances of the silly women who think that
one cannot see them looking. I hate being pointed out.'
' Together with the latest skirt-dancing girl and the last female
society-detective, with the blushing honours of the witness-box
thick upon her,' suggested Jack Meredith.
' Yes,' muttered Guy. He turned with a sort of simple wonder
and looked at Meredith curiously. He had never been understood
so quickly before. He had never met man or woman possessing
in so marked a degree that subtle power of going right inside the
mind of another and feeling the things that are there — the
greatest power of all — the power that rules the world ; and it is
; only called Sympathy.
' Well,' said the voice of Durnovo through the darkness, ' I
don't mind admitting that all I want is the money. I want to
get out of this confounded country, but I don't want to leave till
I have made a fortune.'
The subtle influence that Meredith wielded seemed to have
reached him too, warming into expansiveness his hot Spanish
blood. His voice was full of confidence.
' Very right and proper,' said Meredith. ' Got a grudge
against the country ; make the country pay for it, in cash.'
' That's what I intend to do ; and it shall pay heavily. Then,
342 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
when I've got the money, I'll know what to do with it. I know
where to look, and I do not think that I shall look in vain.'
Gruy Oscard shuffled uneasily in his camp-chair. He had an
Englishman's horror of putting into speech those things which we
all think, while only Frenchmen and Italians say them. The
Spaniards are not so bad, and Victor Durnovo had enough of their
blood in him to say no more.
It did not seem to occur to any of them that the only person
whose individuality was still veiled happened to be Jack Meredith.
He alone had said nothing, had imparted no confidence. He it
was who spake first, after a proper period of silence. He was too
much of an adept to betray haste, and thus admit his debt of
mutual confidence.
' It seems to me,' he said, ' that we have all the technicalities
arranged now. So far as the working of the expedition is con-
cerned, we know our places, and the difficulties will be met as they
present themselves. But there is one thing which I think we
should set in order now. I have been thinking about it while I
have been waiting here alone.'
The glow of Victor Durnovo's cigar died away as if in his
attention he was forgetting to smoke; but he said nothing.
' It seems to me,' Jack went on, ' that before we leave here we
should draw up and sign a sort of deed of partnership. Of course, we
trust each other perfectly — there is no question of that. But life
is an uncertain thing, as some earlier philosopher said before me ;
and one never knows what may happen. I have drawn up a paper
in triplicate. If you have a match, I will read it to you.'
Oscard produced a match, and, striking it on his boot, sheltered
it with the hollow of his hand while Jack read :
' We, the undersigned, hereby enter into partnership to search
for and sell, to our mutual profit, the herb known as Simiacine,
the profits to be divided into three equal portions, after the deduc-
tion of one-hundredth part to be handed to the servant, Joseph
Atkinson. Any further expenses that may be incurred to be
borne in the same proportion as the original expense of fitting out
the expedition, namely, two-fifths to be paid by Gruy Cravener
Oscard, two-fifths by John Meredith, one-fifth by Victor Durnovo.
'The sum of fifty pounds per month to be paid to Victor
Durnovo, wherewith he may pay the thirty special men taken from
his estate and headquarters at Msala to cultivate the Simiacine
and such corn and vegetables as may be required for the suste-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 343
nance of the expedition; these men to act as porters until the
plateau be reached.
' The opinion of two of the three leaders against one to be
accepted unconditionally in all questions where controversy may
arise. In case of death each of us undertakes hereby to hand
over to the executor of the dead partner or partners such moneys
as shall belong to him or them.'
At this juncture there was a little pause while Guy Oscard
lighted a second match.
' And,' continued Jack, ' we hereby undertake severally, on
oath, to hold the secret of the whereabouts of the Simiacine a
stri.ct secret, which secret may not be revealed by any one of us
to whomsoever it may be without the sanction, in writing, of the
other two partners.'
' There,' concluded Jack Meredith, ' I am rather pleased with
that literary production : it is forcible and yet devoid of violence. I
feel that in me the commerce of the century has lost an ornament.
Moreover, I am ready to swear to the terms of the agreement.'
There was a little pause. Gruy Oscard took his pipe from
his mouth, and while he knocked the ashes out against the leg of
his chair he mumbled, ' I swear to hold to that agreement.'
Victor Durnovo took off his hat with a sweep and a flourish,
and, raising his bared brow to the stars, he said, ' I swear to hold to
that agreement. If I fail, may (rod strike me dead ! '
CHAPTER XIY.
PANIC-STRICKEN.
Is this reason ? Is this humanity.? Alas ! it is man.
THE next morning Jack Meredith was awakened by his servant
Joseph before it was fully light. It would appear as if Joseph had
taken no means of awakening himx for Meredith awoke quite
quietly to find Joseph standing by his bed.
' Holloa ! ' exclaimed the master, fully awake at once, as towns-
men are.
Joseph stood at attention by the bedside.
' Woke you before yer time, sir,' he said. ' There's something
wrong among these 'ere darkie fellers, sir.'
' Wrong ! what do you mean ? '
344 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
Meredith was already lacing his shoes.
' Not rebellion ? ' he said curtly, looking towards his firearms.
' No, sir, not that. It's some mortual sickness. I don't know
what it is. I've been up half the night with them. It's spreading
too.'
' Sickness ! what does it seem like ? Just give me that jacket.
Not that sleeping sickness ? '
' No, sir. It's not that. Missis Marie was telling me about
that — awful scourge that, sir. No, the poor chaps are wide awake
enough. Grroanin', and off their heads too, mostly.'
' Have you called Mr. Oscard ? '
' No, sir.'
' Call him and Mr. Durnovo.'
' Met Mr. Durnovo, sir, goin' out as I came in.'
In a few moments Jack joined Durnovo and Oscard, who were
talking together on the terrace in front of the house. Gruy Oscard
was still in his pyjamas, which he had tucked into top-boots. He
also wore a sun-helmet, which added a finish to his costume. They
got quite accustomed to this get-up during the next three days,
for he never had time to change it ; and, somehow, it ceased to be
humorous long before the end of that time.
' Oh, it's nothing,' Durnovo was saying, with a singular eager-
ness. ' I know these chaps. They have been paid in advance.
They are probably shamming, and if they are not they are only
suffering from the effects of a farewell glorification. They want to
delay our start. That is their little game. It will give them a
better chance of deserting.'
' At any rate, we had better go and see them,' suggested Jack.
' No, don't ! ' cried Durnovo eagerly, detaining him with both
hands. ' Take my advice, and don't. Just have breakfast in the
ordinary way and pretend there is nothing wrong. Then after-
wards you can lounge casually into the camp.'
' All right,' said Jack, rather unwillingly.
' It has been of some use — this scare,' said Durnovo, turning
and looking towards the river. ' It has reminded me of something.
We have not nearly enough quinine. I will just take a quick
canoe, and run down to Loango to fetch some.'
He turned quite away from them, and stooped to attach the
lace of his boot.
' I can travel night and day, and be back here in three
days,' he added. ' In the meantime you can be getting on with
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 345
the loading of the canoes, and we will start as soon as I get
back.'
He stood upright and looked around with weather-wise, furtive
eyes.
' Seems to me,' he said, ' there's thunder coming. I think I
had better be off at once.'
In the course of his inspection of the lowering clouds which
hung, black as ink, just above the trees, his eyes lighted on Joseph,
standing within the door of the cottage, watching him with a sin-
gular half-suppressed smile.
' Yes,' he said hurriedly, ' I will start at once. I can eat some
sort of a breakfast when we are under way.'
He looked beneath his lashes quickly from Jack to Guy and
back again. Their silent acquiescence was not quite satisfactory.
Then he called his own men, and spoke to them in a tongue
unknown to the Englishmen. He hurried forward their prepara-
tions with a feverish irritability which made Jack Meredith think
of the first time he had ever seen Durnovo — a few miles farther
down the river — all palpitating and trembling with climatic ner-
vousness. His face was quite yellow, and there was a line drawn
diagonally from the nostrils down each cheek, to lose itself ulti-
mately in the heavy black moustache.
Before he stepped into his canoe the thunder was rumbling in
the distance, and the air was still as death. Breathing was an
effort ; the inhaled air did not satisfy the lungs, and seemed
powerless to expand them.
Overhead the clouds, of a blue-black intensity, seemed almost
to touch the trees ; the river was of ink. The rowers said nothing,
but they lingered on the bank and watched Durnovo's face anxiously.
When he took his seat in the canoe they looked protestingly up to
the sky. Durnovo said something to them rapidly, and they laid
their paddles to the water.
Scarcely had the boat disappeared in the bend of the river
before the rain broke. It came with the rush of an express train
— the trees bending before the squall like reeds. The face of
the river was tormented into a white fury by the drops which
splashed up again a foot in height. The lashing of the water on
the bare backs of the negroes was distinctly audible to Victor
Durnovo.
Then the black clouds split up like a rent cloth, and showed
Jpehind them, not Heaven, but the living fire of Hell. The thunder
16-5
346 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
crashed out in sharp reports like file-firing at a review, and with
one accord the men ceased rowing and crouched down in the
canoe.
Durnovo shouted to them, his face livid with fury. But for
some moments his voice was quite lost. The lightning ran over
the face of the river like will-o'-the-wisps ; the whole heaven was
streaked continuously with it.
Suddenly the negroes leaped to their paddles and rowed with bent
backs and wild staring eyes, as if possessed. They were covered
by the muzzle of Durnovo's revolver.
Behind the evil-looking barrel of blue steel the half-caste's drip-
ping face looked forth, peering into the terrific storm. There was
no question of fending off such torrents of rain, nor did he attempt
it. Indeed, he seemed to court its downfall. He held out his arms
and stretched forth his legs, giving free play to the water which
ran off him in a continual stream, washing his thin khaki clothing
on his limbs. He raised his face to the sky, and let the water beat
upon his brow and hair.
The roar of the thunder, which could be felt, so great was the
vibration of the laden air, seemed to have no fear for him. The
lightning, ever shooting athwart the sky, made him blink as if
dazzled, but he looked upon it without emotion.
He knew that behind him he had left a greater danger than
this, and he stretched out his limbs to the cleansing torrent with
an exulting relief to be washed from the dread infection. Small-
pox had laid- its hand on the camp at Msala ; and from the curse
of it Victor Durnovo was flying in a mad chattering panic through
all the anger of the tropic elements, holding Death over his half-
stunned crew, not daring to look behind him or pause in his
coward's flight.
It is still said on the Ogowe river that no man travels like
Victor Durnovo. Certain it is that, in twenty-seven hours from the
time that he left Msala on the morning of the great storm, he pre-
sented himself before Maurice Gordon in his office at the factory at
Loango.
' Ah ! ' cried Gordon, hardly noticing the washed-out, harassed
appearance of his visitor ; ' here you are again. I heard that the
great expedition had started.'
' So it has, but I have come back to get one or two things we
have forgotten. Got any sherry han^y ? '
' Of course,' replied Gordon, with perfect adhesion to the truth.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 347
He laid aside his pen and, turning in his chair, drew a decanter
from a small cupboard which stood on the ground at his side.
' Here you are,' he continued, pouring out a full glass with
practised, but slightly unsteady, hand.
Durnovo drank the wine at one gulp and set the glass down.
' Ah ! ' he said, ' that does a chap good.'
' Does it now ? ' exclaimed Maurice Gordon with mock surprise.
' Well, I'll just try.'
The manner in which he emptied his glass was quite different,
with a long, slow drawing-out of the enjoyment, full of significance
for the initiated.
' Will you be at home to-night ? ' asked Durnovo, gently push-
ing aside the hospitable decanter. ' I have got a lot of work to do
to-day, but I should like to run in and see you this evening.'
' Yes, come and dine.'
Durnovo shook his head, and looked down at his wrinkled and
draggled clothing.
' No, I can't do that, old man. Not in this trim.'
4 Bosh ! What matter ? Jocelyn doesn't mind.'
' No, but I do.'
It was obvious that he wanted to accept the invitation, although
the objection he raised was probably honest. For that taint in
the blood that cometh from the subtle tar-brush brings with it a
vanity that has its equal in no white man's heart.
' Well, I'll lend you a black coat ! Seven o'clock sharp ! '
Durnovo hurried away with a gleam of excitement in his dark
eyes.
Maurice Gordon did not resume his work at once. He sat for
some time idly drumming with his fingers on the desk.
4 If I can only get her to be civil to him,' he reflected aloud,
' I'll get into this business yet.'
At seven o'clock Durnovo appeared at the Gordons' house. He
had managed to borrow a dress-suit, and wore an orchid in his
buttonhole. It was probably the first time that Jocelyn had seen
him in this garb of civilisation, which is at the same time the most
becoming and the most trying variety of costume left to sensible
men in these days. A dress-suit finds a man out sooner than
anything except speech.
Jocelyn was civil in her reception — more so, indeed, than
Maurice Gordon had hoped for. She seemed almost glad to see
Durnovo, and evinced quite a kindly interest in his movement?.
348 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
Durnove attributed this to the dress-suit, while Maurice concluded
that his obvious hints, thrown out before dinner, had fallen on
fruitful ground.
At dinner Victor Durnovo was quite charmed with the interest
that Jocelyn took in the expedition, of which, he gave it to be
understood, he was the chief. So also was Maurice, because Dur-
novo's evident admiration of Jocelyn somewhat overcame his
natural secrecy of character.
' You'll hear of me, Miss Gordon, never fear, before three
months are past,' said Durnovo in reply to a vague suggestion that
his absence might extend to several months. ' I am not the
sort of man to come to grief by a foolish mistake or any unneces-
sary risk.'
To which sentiment two men at Msala bore generous testi-
mony later on.
The simple dinner was almost at an end, and it was at this
time that Jocelyn Gordon began once more to dislike Durnovo.
At first she had felt drawn towards him. Although he wore the
dress-clothes rather awkwardly, there was something in his manner
which reminded her vaguely of a gentleman. It was not that he
was exactly gentlemanly, but there was the reflection of good
breeding in his bearing. Dark-skinned people, be it noted, have
usually the imitative faculty. As the dinner and the wine warmed
his heart, so by degrees he drew on his old self like a glove. He
grew bolder and less guarded. His own opinion of himself rose
momentarily, and with it a certain gleam in his eyes increased as
they rested on Jocelyn.
It was not long before she noted this, and quite suddenly her
ancient dislike of the man was up in arms with a new intensity
gathered she knew Hot whence.
' And,' said Maurice, when Jocelyn had left them, ' I suppose
you'll be a millionaire in about six months ? '
He gently pushed the wine towards him at the same time.
Durnovo had not slept for forty hours. The excitement of his
escape from the plague-ridden camp had scarcely subsided. The
glitter of the silver on the table, the shaded candles, the subtle
sensuality of refinement and daintiness appealed to his hot-blooded
nature. He was a little off his feet perhaps. He took the de-
canter and put it to the worst use he could have selected.
' Not so soon as that,' he said ; ' but in time — in time.'
' Lucky beggar ! ' muttered Maurice Gordon with a little sigh.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 349
' I don't mind telling you,' said Durnovo with a sudden confi-
dence begotten of Madeira, ' that it's Simiacine — that's what it is.
I can't tell you more.'
' Simiacine,' repeated Gordon, fingering the stem of his wine-
glass and looking at him keenly between the candle-shades.
' Yes. You've always been on its track, haven't you ? '
' In six months your go-downs will be full of it — my Simiacine,
my Simiacine.'
' By God, I wish I had a hand in it.'
Maurice Gordon pushed the decanter again — gently, almost
surreptitiously.
' And so you may, some day. You help me and I'll help you —
that is my ticket. ^Reciprocity — reciprocity, my dear Maurice.'
' Yes, but how ? '
' Can't tell you now, but I will in good time — in my own time.
Come, let's join the ladies — eh ? haha ! '
But at this moment the servant brought in coffee, saying in his
master's ear that Miss Jocelyn had gone to bed with a slight
headache.
CHAPTER XV.
A CONFIDENCE.
The spirits
Of coming things stride on before their issues.
THERE is nothing that brings men so close to each other as a
common grievance or a common danger. Men who find pleasure
in the same game or the same pursuit are drawn together by a
common taste ; but in the indulgence of it there is sure to arise,
sooner or later, a spirit of competition. Now, this spirit, which is
in most human affairs, is a new bond of union when men are
fighting side by side against a common foe.
During the three days that followed Durnovo's departure from
Msala, Jack Meredith and Oscard learnt to know each other.
These three days were as severe a test as could well be found ; for
courage, humanity, tenderness, loyalty, were by turns called forth
by circumstance. Small-pox rages in Africa as it rages nowhere
else in these days. The natives fight it or bow before it as before
an ancient and deeply dreaded foe. It was nothing new to them ;
and it would have been easy enough for Jack and Oscard to
350 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
prove to their own satisfaction that the presence of three white
men at Msala was a danger to themselves and no advantage to
the natives. It would have been very simple to abandon the
river station, leaving there such men as were stricken down to
care for each other. But such a thought never seemed to suggest
itself.
The camp was moved across the river, where all who seemed
strong and healthy were placed under canvas, awaiting further
developments.
The infected were carried to a special camp set apart and
guarded, and this work was executed almost entirely by the three
Englishmen, aided by a few natives who had had the disease.
For three days these men went about with their lives literally
in their hands, tending the sick, cheering the despondent,
frightening the cowards into some semblance of self-respect and
dignity. And during these three days, wherein they never took
an organised meal or three consecutive hours of rest, Joseph,
Meredith, and Oscard rose together to that height of manhood
where master and servant, educated man and common soldier,
stand equal before their Maker.
Owing to the promptness with which measures had been taken
for isolating the affected, the terrible sickness did not spread.
In all eleven men were stricken, and of these ten died within
three days. The eleventh recovered, but eventually remained at
Msala.
It was only on the evening of the third day that Jack and
Guy found time to talk of the future. They had never left
Durnovo's house, and on this third day they found time to dine
together.
'Do you think,' Oscard asked bluntly, when they were left
alone to smoke, ' that Durnovo spotted what was the matter ? '
' I am afraid that I have not the slightest doubt of it,' replied
Jack lightly.
' And bolted ? ' suggested Oscard.
' And bolted.'
Guy Oscard gave a contemptuous little laugh, which had a
deeper insult in it than he could have put into words.
' And what is to be done ? ' he inquired.
' Nothing. People in books would mount on a very high
pinnacle of virtue and cast off Mr. Durnovo and all his works;
but it is much more practical to make what use we can of him.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 351
That is a worldly-wise, nineteenth-century way of looking at it ;
we cannot do without him.'
The contemplativeness of nicotine was upon Guy Oscard.
' Umph ! ' he grunted. ' It is rather disgusting,' he said, after
a pause ; ' I hate dealing with cowards.'
' And I with fools. For e very-day use, give me a coward by
preference.'
'Yes, there is something in that. Still, I'd throw up the
whole thing if '
' So would I,' said Jack, turning sharply in his chair, ' if '
Oscard laughed curtly and waited.
' If,' continued Jack, ' I could. But I am more or less bound
to go on now. Such chances as this do not turn up every day ; I
cannot afford to let it go by. Truth is, I told — some one who
shall be nameless — that I would make money to keep her in that
state of life wherein her godfathers, &c., have placed her ; and
make that money I must.'
' That's about my size too,' said Guy Oscard, somewhat
indistinctly, owing to the fact that he habitually smoked a thick-
stemmed pipe.
' Is it ? I'm glad of that. It gives us something in common
to work for.'
' Yes.' Guy paused, and made a huge effort, finally conquer-
ing that taciturnity which was almost an affliction to him. ' The
reason I gave the other night to you and that chap Durnovo was
honest enough, but I have another. I want to He low for a few
months, but I also want to make money. I'm as good as engaged
to be married, and I find that I am not so well off as I thought I
was. People told me that I should have three thousand a year
when the guv'nor died, but I find that people know less of my
affairs than I thought.'
' They invariably do,' put in Jack, encouragingly.
' It is barely two thousand, and — and she has been brought
up to something better than that.'
' Um ! they mostly are. Mine has been brought up to some-
thing better than that too. That is the worst of it.'
Jack Meredith leant back in his folding chair, and gazed
practically up into the heavens.
' Of course,' Guy went on, doggedly expansive now that he
had once plunged, ' two thousand a year sounds pretty good, and
it is not bad to start upon. But there is no chance of its increas-
352 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
ing ; in fact, the lawyer fellows say it may diminish. I know of
no other way to make money — had no sort of training for it. I'm
not of a commercial turn of mind. Fellows go into the City and
brew beer or float companies, whatever that may be.'
1 It means they sink other people's funds,' explained Jack.
' Yes, I suppose it does. The guv'nor, y' know, never taught
me how to make a livelihood ; wouldn't let me be a soldier ; sent
me to college, and all that ; wanted me to be a litterateur.
Now, I'm not literary.'
' No, I shouldn't think you were.'
' Remains Africa. I am not a clever chap like you, Meredith.'
' For which you may thank a gracious Providence,' interposed
Jack. ' Chaps like me are what some people call " fools " in their
uncouth way.'
'But I know a little about Africa, and I know something
about Durnovo. That man has got a mania, and it is called
Simiacine. He is quite straight upon that point, whatever he
may be upon others. He knows this country, and he is not
making any mistake about the Simiacine, whatever '
' His powers of sick-nursing may be,' suggested Jack.
' Yes, that's it. We'll put it that way if you like.'
' Thanks, I do prefer it. Any fool could call a spade a spade.
The natural ambition would be to find something more flowery
and yet equally descriptive.'
Guy Oscard subsided into a monosyllabic sound.
'I believe implicitly in this scheme,' he went on, after a
pause. ' It is a certain fact that the men who can supply pure
Simiacine have only to name their price for it. They will make
a fortune, and I believe that Durnovo knows where it is growing
in quantities.'
'I cannot see how it would pay him to deceive us in the
matter. That is the best way of looking at it,' murmured Jack
reflectively. ' When I first met him the man thought he was
dying, and for the time I really believe that he was honest.
Some men are honest when they feel unwell. There was so little
doubt in my mind that I went into the thing at once.'
' If you will go on with it I will stand by you,' said Oscard
shortly.
' All right ; I think we two together are as good as any half-
bred sharper on this coast, to put it gracefully.'
Jack Meredith lighted a fresh cigarette, and leant back with
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 353
the somewhat exaggerated grace of movement which was in
reality partly attributable to natural litheness. For some time
they smoked in silence, subject to the influence of the dreamy
tropic night. Across the river some belated bird was calling
continuously and cautiously for its mate. At times the splashing
movements of a crocodile broke the smooth silence of the water.
Overhead the air was luminous with that night-glow which never
speaks to the senses in latitudes above the teens.
There is something in man's nature that inclines him sympa-
thetically— almost respectfully — towards a mental inferior. More-
over, the feeling, whatever it may be, is rarely, if ever, found
in women. A man does not openly triumph in victory, as do
women. One sees an easy victor — at lawn tennis, for instance —
go to his vanquished foe, wiping vigorously a brow that is scarcely
damp, and explaining more or less lamely how it came about.
But the same rarely happens in the ' ladies' singles.' What, to
quote another instance, is more profound than the contempt
bestowed by the girl with the good figure upon her who has no
figure at all ? Without claiming the virtue of a greater generosity
for the sex, one may, perhaps, assume that men learn by experience
the danger of despising any man. The girl with the good figure
is sometimes — nay, often — found blooming alone in her superiority,
while the despised competitor is a happy mother of children.
And all this to explain that Jack Meredith felt drawn towards his
great hulking companion by something that was not a mere
respect of mind for matter.
As love is inexplicable, so is friendship. No man can explain
why Saul held Jonathan in such high esteem. Between men it
would appear that admiration is no part of friendship. And such
as have the patience to follow the lives of the two Englishmen
thus brought together by a series of chances will perhaps be able
to discover in this record of a great scheme the reason why Jack
Meredith, the brilliant, the gifted, should bestow upon Guy Oscard
such a wealth of love and esteem as he never received in return.
During the silence Jack was apparently meditating over the
debt of confidence which he still owed to his companion ; for he
spoke first, and spoke seriously, about himself, which was some-
what against his habit.
' I dare say you have heard,' he said, ' that I had a — a dis-
agreement with my father.'
'Yes. Heard something about it,' replied Oscard, in a tone
354: WITH EDGED TOOLS.
which seemed to imply that the ' something ' was quite sufficient
for his requirements.
' It was about my engagement,' Jack went on deliberately.
' I do not know how it was, but they did not hit it off together.
She was too honest to throw herself at his head, I suppose ; for I
imagine a pretty girl can usually do what she likes with an old
man if she takes the trouble.'
' Not with him, I think. Seemed to be rather down on girls
in general,' said Oscard coolly.
' Then you know him ? '
' Yes, a Little. I have met him once or twice, out, you know.
I don't suppose he would know me again if he saw me.'
Which last remark does not redound to the credit of Guy's
powers of observation.
They paused. It is wonderful how near we may stand to the
brink and look far away beyond the chasm. Years afterwards
they remembered this conversation, and it is possible that Jack
Meredith wondered then what instinct it was that made him
change the direction of their thoughts.
' If it is agreeable to you,' he said, ' I think it would be wise
for me to go down to Loango, and gently intimate to Durnovo
that we should be glad of his services.'
' Certainly.'
' He cannot be buying quinine all this time, you know. He
said he would travel night and day.'
Oscard nodded gravely.
' How will you put it ? ' he asked.
' I thought I would simply say that his non-arrival caused us
some anxiety, and that I had come down to see if anything was
wrong.'
Jack rose and threw away the end of his cigarette. It was
quite late, and across the river the gleam of the moonlight on
fixed bayonets told that only the sentries were astir.
' And what about the small-pox ? ' pursued Oscard, more with
the desire to learn than to amend.
' Don't think I shall say anything about that. The man wants
careful handling.'
' You will have to tell him that we have got it under.'
' Yes, I'll do that. Good night, old fellow ; I shall be off by
daylight.'
By seven o'clock the next morning the canoe was ready, with
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 355
its swarthy rowers in their places. The two Englishmen break-
fasted together, and then walked down to the landing-stage side
by side.
It was raining steadily, and the atmosphere had that singular
feeling of total relaxation and limpness which is only to be felt in
the rain-ridden districts of Central Africa.
' Take care of yourself,' said Oscard gruffly, as Jack stepped
into the canoe.
'All right.'
' And bring back Durnovo with you.'
Jack Meredith looked up with a vague smile.
' That man,' he said lightly, ' is going to the Plateau if I
have to drag him there by the scruff of the neck.'
And he believed that he was thinking of the expedition only.
CHAPTER XVI.
WAK.
Who, when they slash and cut to pieces,
Do so with civilest addresses.
THERE is no power so subtle and so strong as that of association.
We have learnt to associate mustard with beef, and therefore mus-
tard shall be eaten with beef until the day wherein the lion shall
lie down with the lamb.
Miss Millicent Chyne became aware, as the year advanced
towards the sere and yellow age, that in opposing her wayward
will in single combat against a simple little association in the
public mind she was undertaking a somewhat herculean task.
Society — itself an association — is the slave of a word, and
society had acquired the habit of coupling the names of Sir John
Meredith and Lady Cantourne. They belonged to the same
generation ; they had similar tastes ; they were both of some con-
siderable power in the world of leisured pleasure ; and, lastly, they
amused each other. The result is not far to seek. Wherever
the one was invited, the other was considered to be in demand ; and
Millicent found herself face to face with a huge difficulty.
Sir John was distinctly in the way. He had a keener eye than
the majority of young men, and occasionally exercised the old
man's privilege of saying outright things which, despite theory, are
356 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
better left unsaid. Moreover, the situation was ill-defined, and an
ill-defined situation does not improve in the keeping. Sir John
said sharp things — too sharp even for Millicent — and, in addition
to the original grudge begotten of his quarrel with Jack and its
result, the girl nourished an ever-present feeling of resentment at
a persistency in misunderstanding her of which she shrewdly sus-
pected the existence.
Perhaps the worst of it was that Sir John never said anything
which could be construed into direct disapproval. He merely
indicated, in passing, the possession of a keen eyesight coupled
with the embarrassing faculty of adding together correctly two
small numerals.
When, therefore, Millicent allowed herself to be assisted from
the carriage at the door of a large midland country house by an
eager and lively little French baron of her acquaintance, she was
disgusted but not surprised to see a well-known figure leaning
gracefully on a billiard-cue in the hall.
'I wish I could think that this pleasure was mutual,' said
Sir John with his courtliest smile, as he bowed over Millicent's
hand.
' It might be,' with a coquettish glance.
'If ?'
' If I were not afraid of you.'
Sir John turned, smiling, to greet Lady Cantourne. He did
not appear to have heard, but in reality the remark had made a
distinct impression on him. It signalised a new departure — the
attack at a fresh quarter. Millicent had tried most methods — and
she possessed many — hitherto in vain. She had attempted to coax
him with a filial playfulness of demeanour, to dazzle him by a
brilliancy which had that effect upon the majority of men in her
train, to win him by respectful affection ; but the result had been
failure. She was now bringing her last reserve up to the front ;
and there are few things more dangerous, even to an old cam-
paigner, than a confession of fear from the lips of a pretty girl.
Sir John Meredith gave himself a little jerk — a throw back of
the shoulders which was habitual — which might have been a tribute
either to Millicent behind, or to Lady Cantourne in front.
The pleasantest part of existence in a large country house full
of visitors is the facility with which one may avoid those among
the guests for whom one has no sympathy. Millicent managed
very well to avoid Sir John Meredith. The baron was her slave —
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 357
at least, lie said so — and she easily kept him at her beck and call
during the first evening.
It would seem that that strange hollow energy of old age had
laid its hand upon Sir John Meredith, for he was the first to
appear in the breakfast room the next morning. He went straight
to the sideboard where the letters and newspapers lay in an
orderly heap. It is a question whether he had not come down
early on purpose to look for a letter. Perhaps he could not stay
in his bed with the knowledge that the postman had called. He
was possibly afraid to ask his old servant to go down and fetch his
letters.
His bent and knotted hands fumbled among the correspondence,
and suddenly his twitching lips were still. A strange stillness
indeed overcame his whole face, turning it to stone. The letter
was there ; it had come, but it was not addressed to him.
Sir John Meredith took up the missive ; he looked at the back,
turned it, and examined the handwriting of his own son. There
was a whole volume — filled with pride, and love, and unquench-
able resolve — written on his face. He threw the letter down
among its fellows, and his hand went fumbling weakly at his lips.
He gazed, blinking his lashless lids, at the heap of letters, and the
corner of another envelope presently arrested his attention. It was
of the same paper, the same shape and hue, as that addressed to
Miss Chyne. Sir John drew a deep breath, and reached out his
hand. The letter had come at last. At last, thank God ! And
how weakly ready he was to grasp at the olive branch held out to
him across a continent !
He took the letter ; he made a step with it towards the door,
seeking solitude ; then, as an afterthought, he looked at the super-
scription. It was addressed to the same person, Miss Chyne, but
in a different handwriting — the handwriting of a man well edu-
cated, but little used to wielding the pen.
' The other,' mumbled Sir John. ' The other man, by God ! '
And, with a smile that sat singularly on his withered face, he
took up a newspaper and went towards the fireplace, where he sat
stiffly in an armchair, taking an enormous interest in the morn-
ing's news. He read a single piece of news three times over, and
a fourth time in a whisper, so as to rivet his attention upon it.
He would not admit that he was worsted — would not humble his
pride even before the ornaments on the mantelpiece.
Before Millicent came down, looking very fresh and pretty in
358 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
her tweed dress, the butler had sorted the letters. There were
only two upon her plate — the twin envelopes addressed by different
hands. Sir John was talking with a certain laboured lightness to
Lady Cantourne, when that lady's niece came into the room. He
was watching keenly. There was a certain amount of interest in
the question of those two envelopes, as to which she would open
first. She looked at each in turn, glanced furtively towards Sir
John, made a suitable reply to some remark addressed to her by
the baron, and tore open Jack's envelope. There was a gravity —
a concentrated gravity — about her lips as she unfolded the thin
paper; and Sir John, who knew the world and the little all-
important trifles thereof, gave an impatient sigh. It is the little
trifle that betrays the man, and not the larger issues of life in
which we usually follow precedent. It was that passing gravity
(of the lips only) that told Sir John more about Millicent Chyne
than she herself knew, and what he had learnt did not seem to be
to his liking.
There is nothing so disquieting as the unknown motive, which
disquietude was Sir John's soon after breakfast. The other men
dispersed to put on gaiters and cartridge-bags, and the old aristo-
crat took his newspaper on to the terrace.
Millicent followed him almost at once.
' Sir John,' she said, ' I have had a letter from Africa.'
Did she take it for granted that he knew this already ? Was
this spontaneous ? Had Jack told her to do it ?
These questions flashed through the old man's mind as his eyes
rested on her pretty face.
He was beginning to be afraid of this girl : which showed his
wisdom. For the maiden beautiful is a stronger power in the
world than the strong man. The proof of which is that she gets
her own way more often than the strong man gets his.
' From Africa ? ' repeated Sir John Meredith with a twitching
lip. ' And from whom is your letter, my dear young lady ? '
His face was quite still, his old eyes steady, as he waited for the
answer.
' From Jack.'
Sir John winced inwardly. Outwardly he smiled and folded
his newspaper upon his knees.
' Ah, from my brilliant son. That is interesting.'
' Have you had one ? ' she asked in prompt payment of his
sarcasm.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 359
Sir John Meredith looked up with a queer little smile. He
admired the girl's spirit. It was the smile of the fencer on touch-
ing worthy steel.
'No, my dear young lady, I have not. Mr. John Meredith
does not find time to write to me — but he draws his allowance
from the bank with a filial regularity.'
Millicent had the letter in her hand. She made it crinkle in
her fingers within a foot of the old gentleman's face. A faint
odour of the scent she used reached his nostrils. He drew back a
little as if he disliked it. His feeling for her almost amounted to
a repugnance.
' I thought you might like to hear that he is well,' she said
gently. She was reading the address on the envelope, and again
he saw that look of concentrated gravity which made him feel
uneasy for reasons of his own.
' It is very kind of you to throw me even that crumb from
your richly stored intellectual table. I am very glad to hear
that he is well. A whole long letter from him must be a treat
indeed.'
She thought of a proverb relating to the grapes that are out of
reach, but said nothing.
It was the fashion that year to wear little flyaway jackets with
a coquettish pocket on each side. Millicent was wearing one of
them, and she now became aware that Sir John had glanced more
than once with a certain significance towards her left hand, which
happened to be in that pocket. It, moreover, happened that
Gruy Oscard's letter was in the same receptacle.
She withdrew the hand and changed colour slightly as she
became conscious that the corner of the envelope was protruding.
' I suppose that by this time,' said Sir John pleasantly, ' you
are quite an authority upon African matters ? '
His manner was so extremely conversational and innocent that
she did not think it necessary to look for an inner meaning. She
was relieved to find that the two men, having actually met, spoke
of each other frankly. It was evident that Guy Oscard could be
trusted to keep his promise, and Jack Meredith was not the man
to force or repose a confidence.
' He does not tell me much about Africa,' she replied, deter-
mined to hold her ground. She was engaged to be married to
Jack Meredith, and, whether Sir John chose to ignore the fact or
not, she did not mean to admit that the subject should be tabooed.
360 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' No — I suppose he has plenty to tell you about himself and
his prospects ? '
' Yes, he has. His prospects are not so hopeless as you think.'
' My dear Miss Chyne,' protested Sir John, ' I know nothing
about his prospects beyond the fact that, when I am removed from
this sphere of activity, he will come into possession of my title,
such as it is, and my means, such as they are.'
' Then you attach no importance to the work he is inaugurating
in Africa ? '
' Not the least. I did not even know that he was endeavour-
ing to work. I only trust it is not manual labour — it is so
injurious to the finger-nails. I have no sympathy with a gentle-
man who imagines that manual labour is compatible with his
position, provided that he does not put his hand to the plough in
England. Is not there something in the Scriptures about a man
putting his hand to the plough and looking back ? If Jack under-
takes any work of that description, I trust that he will recognise
the fact that he forfeits his position by doing so.'
' It is not manual labour — I can assure you of that.'
' I am glad to hear it. He probably sells printed cottons to
the natives, or exchanges wrought metal for ivory — an inteUectual
craft. But he is gaining experience, and I suppose he thinks he
is going to make a fortune.'
It happened that this was precisely the thought expressed by
Jack Meredith in the letter in Millicent's hand.
' He is sanguine,' she admitted.
' Of course. Quite right. Pray do not discourage him — if
you find time to write. But between you and me, my dear Miss
Chyne, fortunes are not made in Africa. I am an old man, and I
have some experience of the world. That part of it which is
called Africa is not the place where fortunes are made. It is as
different from India as chalk is from cheese, if you will permit so
vulgar a simile.'
Millicent's face dropped.
' But some people have made fortunes there.'
' Yes — in slaves ! But that interesting commerce is at an end.
However, so long as my son does not suffer in health, I suppose we
must be thankful that he is creditably employed.'
He rose as he spoke.
' I see,' he went on, ' your amiable friend the baron approach-
ing with lawn-tennis necessaries. It is wonderful that our neigh-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 361
hours never learn to keep their enthusiasm for lawn tennis in
bounds until the afternoon.'
With that he left her, and the baron came to the conclusion,
before very long, that something had ' contraried ' the charming-
Miss Chyne. The truth was that Millicent was bitterly dis-
appointed. The idea of failure had never entered her head since
Jack's letters, full of life and energy, had begun to arrive. Sir
John Meredith was a man whose words commanded respect —
partly because he was an old man whose powers of perception had
as yet apparently retained their full force, and the vast experience
of life which was his could hardly be overrated. Man's prime is
that period when the widest experience and the keenest perception
meet.
Millicent Chyne had lulled herself into a false security. She
had taken it for granted that Jack would succeed, and would
return rich and prosperous within a few months. Upon this
pleasant certainty Sir John had cast a doubt, and she could hardly
treat his words with contempt. She had almost forgotten Gruy
Oscard's letter. Across a hemisphere Jack Meredith was a
stronger influence in her life than Oscard.
While she sat on the terrace and flirted with the baron she
reflected hurriedly over the situation. She was, she argued to
herself, not in any way engaged to Guy Oscard. If he in an un-
guarded moment should dare to mention such a possibility to
Jack, it would be quite easy to contradict the statement with
convincing heat. But in her heart she was sure of Gruy Oscard.
One of the worst traits in the character of an unfaithful woman is
the readiness with which she trades upon the faithfulness of men.
(To be continued.*)
VOL. XXI.— NO. 124, N.S. 17
362
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION.
As a rule it is quite unadvisable to enter a pension drawing-room
at the untimely hour of half past six a.m. in mid- winter. This
may seem especially so in Stockholm. But really I had no alter-
native. I had travelled up from Malmo by the express, and the
express regularly discharges its live freight into the streets of
Sweden's capital at that ghastly hour. I had got into a sledge,
murmured the address with no sense of conviction that my accents
would be understood, pulled the bearskin to my midriff, and given
myself up to circumstances. The stars were still shining brightly.
It was shiveringly keen. And the snow in the highways, ground
to a brownish powder by the traffic, dulled the sound of the sledge
runners. The phantom shapes of tall houses rose on either hand,
and not a light was to be seen in any of them .
My sledgeman, however, was blessed with a wonderful intelli-
gence. He brought me to my prearranged destination, and even
carried my portmanteau for me between the marble columns of
the portal and up the broad white steps to the second floor. It
was on the second floor that the pension existed.
The flat system is much in vogue in Stockholm. Thus, while
a sumptuous tobacconist occupied the ground floor of this house,
a commercial firm with a frightfully long name the first floor, and
the pension the second floor, there were no fewer than four
distinct families over the pension, each supreme on its own level.
There was no lift. The people under the roof suffered badly in
going up and down stairs, and I should think must now and then
have felt qualms about the security of the ponderous sheaf of
telephone wires which hung homicidally above their bedchambers.
Even in the gloom and inertness, however, the pension draw-
ing-room looked alluring. Exotic plants stood in the corners and
by the pi£no ; there were a variety of easy chairs ; nick-nacks
crowded the tables ; the carpet was soft ; and instead of a
smell of stale tobacco (well known in Southern pensions) a
subtle perfume caressed the nostrils. All this I realised ere
the proprietor appeared with a candle and greeted me with polite
cordiality.
Coffee was brought soon afterwards, and over it we settled that
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION. 363
I was to be admitted into the house. The gentleman spoke
capital English. He told me of his guests. Of course the ladies
were in the majority. I was further fully prepared when he said,
with a mild shrug of the shoulders, that they were not all young.
'But they are all,' he hastened to add, 'charming: even the
Baroness J ' (an impossible name), ' who is seventy-five ! '
' And now, Herr P ,' I said, ' I know nothing about
Swedish manners. You must instruct me. What ought I to do
in the first place ? '
' I shall,' said Herr P , ' have great pleasure in making
what I can do for you. You shall begin with a warm bath. I
shall telephone to the Baths in the other street, and my servant
shall be your conductor. Visitors from Malmo require a bath for
the first. It is a long travel, and there is often dust, yet not so
much when there is snow.'
I had that bath, and shall not forget it. I imagine I am an
averagely ingenuous Englishman, and I am certainly not old. I
have seen divers foreign lands, and more or less absorbed the more
congenial of their habits. But I had not for quite twenty-five years
been put in a bath and washed and scrubbed by a young woman.
This, however, is the custom in Stockholm. It is an old custom,
and of course the Stockholmers think nothing of it. I have not a
doubt I blushed confusedly, but if so I hope my young bathing-
woman attributed it to the abundance of steam from the water.
She was all courtesy and smiles, and treated me as if I were a little
child. But I was glad when it was over, and having swathed me in a
dressing-gown and set me on a sofa she brought me coffee, and
signified that I might dress myself. At parting with her I
believe she expressed the wish that I should often need a bath. I
responded with the Swedish for ' yes,' and she smiled approval.
But I never went through the curious ordeal again. I can
entirely sympathise with the stout Northumbrian ironmaster of
whom the tale is told that having asked for a bath, and tried in
vain for several minutes to dismiss the attendant maiden, he fled
incontinently, leaving his overcoat behind him. One ought not
to be unduly prejudiced by one's insularity ; but really one must
draw a line.
The pension looked better when I returned to breakfast
therein. The bright winter's sunlight was just beginning to
I gleam into it. It shone on the faces of seven ladies and two
i gentlemen in the dining-room, which was furnished handsomely
17—2
364 IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION.
in old oak, and upon the neat-capped maidservants who were
handing the coffee cups. I was introduced formally, and attacked
the smoked salmon. There is nothing in Scandinavia to equal
the smoked salmon — unless it is the skating, and the complexions
and blue eyes of its queenly damsels.
My landlord considerately drew my attention quite early in our
acquaintanceship to a printed paper in the hall. He thoughtl might
be a trader. The notice told me that no foreign commercial
traveller may do business in Sweden without a licence, which
costs 100 crowns (51. 11s. 3d.). It might be as well if one of our
own Chancellors of Exchequer promoted the like aid to revenue.
Perhaps it would not abate in any degree the flood of articles
' made in Germany ' and elsewhere, which are tending to break
the hearts and banking accounts of so many of our manufacturers.
But it would be some slight compensation for the injury they
inflict upon us.
Stockholm is a cheap city to live in. I was en pension for
five crowns, or rather more than 5s. Qd. per diem, and this in-
cluded high-class music from a pretty Danish young lady who was
one of the pensionnaires and was anxious to practise her English.
The other pensionnaires were also exceedingly polite (' manners '
are a great feature in Stockholm), including the elderly baroness,
who spent most of her hours on a cosy sofa in the salon, casting
appealing glances at the gentlemen : she generally had a French
novel in her hand, but always so held that she could see over it.
Two of the ladies were of the most conventional pension type.
They were of any age between thirty and fifty ; they spoke every
European language ; seemed quite free from the annoyances of re-
lations ; never, never sat at table to face the daylight ; made
themselves into perfect houris every evening, and regularly went
to the theatre or a music hall with one or other of the more
transitory male pensionnaires. But they were ahuays home to
supper at about ten o'clock. As they told me more than once,
they worshipped the ' convenances ' — whatever they may be.
In mentioning the Stockholm music halls, I must not be mis-
understood. These institutions are in Sweden deemed as fit resorts
for ladies as the churches themselves. Some of them are very
gorgeous, notably Bern's. Mademoiselle Smith (one of the
pensionnaires) loved going to Bern's for two things, she said :
first, the music, which was apt to be 'frill of soul ;' and, secondly,
the costumes, some of which were certainly striking. I rather
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION. 365
fancy also she liked the Swedish punch, with which it behoved her
cavalier to regale her. She did not at all, she declared, object to
the tobacco-smoke which clouded the gilded magnificence of the
hall ; and indeed that could be understood, for she herself enjoyed a
cigarette in the small room at the pension which was consecrated
to cards and nicotine.
I am sorry to say Mademoiselle Smith never went to church,
nor was she devoted to philosophy. I have not the least idea of
her nationality. She told me she was not English as impressively
as an Archduchess of Vienna may be supposed to disclaim the idea
that she is a washerwoman.
In all, we were but thirteen pensionnaires during my stay in
the house. The gentlemen did not interest me very much. The
most singular of them was a stout, middle-aged Spaniard with a
twirled moustache. According to the master of the pension, this
gentleman a year or two ago came to Stockholm on business, and
was instantly so infatuated by the city that he resolved to live in
it for the rest of his life. I did not care to seem inquisitive, else
I should like to have asked how from Sweden he managed his
commercial interests in Barcelona. This eccentricity apart, he was
most conspicuous for the assiduity with which he escorted Made-
moiselle Smith and the other lady to places of amusement. It
was droll to hear him and Mademoiselle Smith talking in Spanish
at the breakfast-table. I have little doubt if a wealthy and pre-
sentable Laplander had come into the pension, Mademoiselle Smith
would have spoken the Lapp tongue without difficulty.
The most significant feature of the pension was its never-ending
telephonic babble. When I awoke in the morning it was to hear
the jingle of these confounded bells in the corridor outside my
room and the iteration of the word ' hvad ? ' (What ?) Every
question had to be repeated about five times before its meaning
was clear. The monosyllables ' yes ' and ' no ' echoed about our
flat in appalling profusion.
Every one knows that the Swedes have lost their hearts to the
telephone. The thing has its conveniences, manifestly; but it
can become an intolerable bore, nevertheless. One morning I grew
very sick of the riot in the passage and asked the landlord, who
was at the machine, what it all meant. His wife, it appeared, was
buying some stores and was telling him about them and their
prices, and he on his part was shouting back to tell her in which
particulars the prices seemed reasonable and in which unreason-
366 IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION.
able. This must be enchanting for the tradesman. Another day
the landlord went a sledge drive into the country. When he had
been gone two hours the telephone began to be annoying, and his
wife stayed at it a long time crying : ' Oh ! ' and ' ah ! ' and ' yes ! '
and ' no ! ' varying her tone in an amazing manner. Mademoiselle
Smith happened to be by to enlighten me on the subject. ' It is
Monsieur,' she said. 'He is resting for dinner at , and is
informing Madame about the incidents of his excursion and the
details of the meal that is being prepared for him. Curioso, non 6
vero ? ' It seemed to me more than curious, almost nightmarish.
The tallest building in Stockholm is the huge iron lattice-
work tower of the central telephone depot. Myriads of wires run
from it : they positively darken the air. A hundred or two girls
work in this place and chatter astonishingly over their work. One
morning I invaded the building to see it throughout. I ascended
its ornate staircase to the level of the large room occupied by these
girls. But I had not the courage to beard the maidens in their
own quarters, and so I descended the staircase and assured myself
that I had seen all that there was to be seen. The telephone is a
tremendous institution in the land.
Before coming to Stockholm I had believed the city to be
most remarkable for the islands of which it may be said to consist.
I dare say in summer this characteristic is brought out brightly
enough. In winter, however, it is not so. Lake Malar was frozen
over, and so were most of the other reaches of water between the
different islands. The city meanwhile continued to discharge its
rubbish from its embankments. The result was not nice to look
upon. Stockholm in winter appears best after dark. Then the
stars and moon, plus the electric light and the long lines of lamps
by the waterside, make it a place of enchantment.
I realised this on the evening of my first day at the pension.
There was to be a great skating concourse on Lake Malar where it
ends between the Riddarholm and the southern part of the city.
Thither I took my skates and joined the thousands of people who
were enjoying the delightful pastime. A huge electric lamp
shone down on us from the heights of the Maria Lift on one hand ;
the moon was up; and the skating club concerned with the
exploitation of this natural rink had hung their domain with
Chinese lanterns. Two bands of music played, and the feet of
the Stockholmers moved to the music. It was most exhilarating.
Stockholm then for the first time drew its fetters about my heart.
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION. 367
When I left the rink I clashed with a long procession of royal
sleighs returning from the railway station, attended by torch-
bearers in cocked hats, and with quite an archaic glamour of
magnificence about it. The royal palace itself gleamed with
lights in scores of windows. I had an icicle at my nose in
common with most people. I felt to the soles of my boots that I
was in a foreign land, and the feeling was deepened by the sweet
civility of my landlord when he met me in the hall of his pension,
and, under the great elk head which adorned its wall, introduced
me to his eldest son. The lad was a naval cadet, and, having
bowed low and welcomed me to Stockholm, he unsheathed his
sword and allowed me to feel its edge. He was only about four-
teen and had used his weapon a good deal for cutting wood. I
asked him if the boys ever drew their swords upon each other in a
quarrel. He smiled as if the Swedish temperament put such an
event quite outside the bounds of possibility.
But to recur. It seems to me that Stockholm's hills are more
notable than Stockholm's water-ways. Some of the city's streets
are nearly as precipitous as the sides of a teacup. This is splendid
for the youngsters in winter. They turn the thoroughfares into
sublime toboggan slopes. But for the less agile and the asth-
matical members of the community it is trying. Still, there can
be no doubt it confers great picturesqueness upon the city.
Certain of the hills are capped with churches, and certain others
with philanthropic institutions. The effect is strong.
Such is the superficial aspect of Stockholm to the very limits
of its suburbs. Here, however, you soon come upon virgin land.
Instead of houses you have undulating granite humps crested with
funereal pines. From any elevation in the city you may mark
this gloomy environment on all sides to the horizon line. In
winter the landscape is jet black and snow white; melancholy
rather than gay. Even under a blue sky it is suggestive of in-
tense loneliness, and this impression deepens at eventide, when
the dark tree-tops stand out' like bosses against the coral-tinted
heavens.
I took the measure of this sensation one afternoon during a
solitary ramble in the Royal Deer Park. Here there is a Lapp
village, with reindeer, eagles, seals, quaint rustic cottages, and
much else to prick a lively imagination. I had the place to
myself. Among the firs and snow I came upon a conical tent of
poles and skins, with a log fire burning inside and reindeer pelts
368 IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION.
for a couch by the side of the fire. An Esquimaux dog was
chained within and seemed weary of his own society. For many
minutes I smoked in company with the dog, warming my numbed
toes at the fire. It was easy to fancy I was twenty degrees north
of Stockholm. A little farther, and the tokens of a graveyard
appeared. But the tower of the Belvidere on a granite knoll soon
cut the heart out of my illusions. I climbed the tower, refreshed
myself modestly at the bar midway up the tower, and then from
the summit gazed upon Stockholm and its frozen waters, the snow-
clad lakes far and wide, and the black forests, until the sunset
glow briefly suffused the scene. There was really nothing for it
but to think of my sins ; the soul-curdling gloom of the north had
got hold upon me.
Of course it would have been quite otherwise had I had
Mademoiselle Smith, for example, with me. Ladies like Made-
moiselle Smith are sagely soaked with an Horatian sense of the
value of enjoying the fleeting moments. They methodically draw
a sponge over the past, and tarry unthinkingly for the future until
it arrives.
However, ere leaving the Deer Park I recovered my lost spirits
by watching a couple of philosophic otters at play. Their domain
was strewn with dead herrings, cast to them by the keepers. It
was pleasant to see the art with which the graceful little creatures
took the dead fish and dandled them about in their unfrozen pools
to give them the semblance of life, only making a meal of them
when they had got the utmost sport possible out of the stiffened
corpses.
In the matter of ' sights,' Stockholm is not overwhelming. It
has two or three museums which, save the National Museum, are
not easy for the stranger to discover. They are subdivided among
several houses and on different flats of the different houses. But
they do not lay fast hold upon one's regard. Their contents are
comparatively trivial. What pleased me most were the models of
domestic interiors, natural size, giving exact presentment of the
cottage life in Dalecarlia, Skane, and the other more primitive
provinces of Sweden. As in these departments of the museum
the attendants are girls dressed in rural costumes, the visitor's fancy
can sport much at its ease. The human figures in the cottage
interiors are life-size and true to life in every detail of their
personal adornment. Some such idea as this, reproducing English
life in mediseval times and later, would surely be an admirable
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION. 369
success in England. If fitly developed it would make the fortunes
of an Exhibition, and be excellently educative into the bargain.
Let the Earl's Court authorities look to it. The Danes and the
Dutch, as well as the Swedes, have exploited the notion. We
ought not to be behind our Northern friends in this particular,
especially with such scope for the picturesque as our baronial
times afford us.
The National Museum must of course be seen, though it is
neither very extensive nor very amazing. To me the visitors were
more interesting than the Museum's contents. I went to it first
on a Sunday, and it was pleasant to mark the looks of happy
expectation on the faces of the crowd that had mustered on the
steps of the facade awaiting the hour for admission. Blue noses
were very prevalent, for the wind was keen and blew right against
the Museum portal. There were a fair number of enthusiastic
young women, shop girls and others, and many country folk with
hard wrinkled faces.
Within, the national characteristic soon declared itself. The
throng was always densest opposite certain modern pictures of the
most gloomy kind. Death, bloodshed, and misadventure captivate
the Swedish temperament. You could' almost see tears in the
stolid eyes of the people, and their interjections were nearly as
doleful to hear as were the canvases to behold. It is all very well
for the Stockholmers to vaunt their vivacity and love of pleasure —
' merry, joyous, jovial Stockholm,' as a native author terms it, is
an exotic capital. The national genius is rather sombre, medi-
tative, and apt to look suspiciously out of the corner of its eye at
Nature and her goings on. The long winter is at the root of the
matter ; and perhaps the old Scandinavian mythology, traces of
which still linger in the minds of the people. The peasant who
in 1893 leaves a bundle of hay on his meadows for ' Odin's horses '
does so no doubt (though perhaps dimly to his own intelligence)
in a propitiatory mood. You may tickle the thoroughbred Stock-
hohner, and people like Mademoiselle Smith, with music-hall
frolics ; but the rural Swede seems made to regard such shows as
profanities — a ribald challenge to his better consciousness.
By the way, what enormous fellows and what leviathan persons
some of these Swedish men and women are ! Nowhere will you
see such noble specimens of adult humanity as in Stockholm's
streets. The feature seems to pervade all classes, though it is
not least striking among the nobility. Six feet is a common
17—5
370 IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION.
height for a man here, and really I do not believe I exaggerate
in saying that men of six feet three or four inches are as abundant
in Stockholm as men of six feet with us. The tallness of the
women is just as noteworthy. You remark it less, however,
because they are so well proportioned. They say it is easy to tell
by the size of the boots outside the doors which rooms of an hotel
are occupied by the Swedish fair. This is a very endurable hit at
the Swedish ladies. Though they do wear sixes or sevens in shoe
leather, no sculptor would find fault with them on professional
grounds. Moreover, they have most winsome complexions, and of
course blue eyes are nowhere more intensely blue than here. It
is comforting to know (I speak on the evidence of one of the
pensionnaires) that Swedish maidens have a great admiration for
English bachelors. They read French novels, but they believe in
English bridegrooms. The blood bond still exists, I suppose,
between them and us.
Stockholm's Grand Hotel is in keeping with the dimensions of
the people. If not the largest in Europe, it is certainly one of
the largest. The dormitory corridors in it are labelled like the
city's streets. The guest occupies No. 9 Gustavus Vasa Corridor
or No. 10 Oscar Corridor. The plan is a good, and by no means
an extravagant one. There is, however, something bewildering,
almost indeed humiliating, in this sort of thing after the intimate
life of a pension. I visited friends at the Grand Hotel, but always
returned gladly to my temporary home on the second floor, with
the huge elk's head in the hall, and the smiles of the ladies.
There is one place in Stockholm you must visit unless you are
determined to be a Philistine of the first water. This is the
Eiddarholm Church. It is the royal burial vault for more than
two hundred years, and contains a vast deal of dust in crimson
velvet-clad coffins which made a stir when it held together in an
animated condition. I paid my regards to the church on the last
day of my sojourn in the capital. Dust and ashes have so little
attraction for me that I put off the interview as long as possible.
As it was, I nearly missed the experience. The church was locked.
A polite Stockholmer, however, suggested that I should go to the
King's palace and get the key from the Lord Chamberlain. This
I did, walking straight into his lordship's apartment under instruc-
tions from the dishevelled charwoman who was polishing chairs
in an antechamber. One does not so easily in England rub
shoulders with a high nobleman. Here, however, I had but to
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION. 371
state my wish, and his lordship issued his order and assured me I
should have no difficulty ! Then he turned anew to his secretary
and resumed his official toils.
A dreary aisle of death, hung with tattered flags and bannerets
wreathed in dust — such is the Eiddarholm Church ! On either
side are mortuary chapels and crypts — some magnificent in gilding
and polished marbles, and some dismal in their darkness and in
the cumber of their once resplendent coffins, amid which the
visitor picks his way as in a labyrinth. Bernadotte lies in a
cheerful chapel with a bright blue vaulting studded with silver
stars ; but Desideria his wife, a far more interesting person, has
been relegated to the crypt below. My cicerone could not
understand why I made such a point of seeing her coffin. We
found it, however, right at the back. A mask of faded red velvet,
with a gilt crown and a dried palm leaf, covered the bones which
moved so romantically during their allotted spell here below.
After Desideria I cared to see only where the Great Grustavus
Adolphus and Charles the Twelfth repose. The latter has an
assuming tomb of black marble cloaked with a brazen lion's pelt ;
and Grustavus Adolphus rests in a green marble sarcophagus. A
crowd of Kussian and other flags hang motionless and decaying
over these effigies of dead grandeur. I soon had enough of the
Biddarholm Church. Eoyal dust cannot enliven, can scarcely
indeed dignify it. There never was a place that more amply
bears out Poet Cfray's elegiac mock at the worth of earthly
greatness. I astonished my cicerone with a ' Thank Grod ' when
the task was over and I could pay him his fee and depart into the
bracing pure outer air.
Grustavus Vasa, as a tenant of the Cathedral at Upsala, may
really be congratulated on his quarters. Sweden's first university
town is a pretty, classical place in which any one might be con-
tented to have a grave. In winter the omnipresent snow serves
as an effective foil to Upsala's blood-red Cathedral and rose-pink
castle. There are several inducements to visit this historic little
town. Two must be noticed : its agreeable hotels, pervaded at
the dinner hour with students elated and hungry, and the quick
train by which you may travel thither. Sweden is deficient in
expresses. She atones for this omission by making her travellers
very comfortable, providing them with really excellent meals en
route, at very moderate charge, and seldom perpetrating a railway
accident .
."72 IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION.
I had scant temptation to run farther afield from my pension
than Upsala. The two or three places on Lake Malar to which I
had proposed (in my innocence) to skate were severed from the
rest of the world by the snow. I was exceedingly unwilling to
spend days over them where I had hoped hours would suffice.
Besides, it was so snug at the pension. When I had been a
pensionnaire for a week, I understood quite as much about the
other pensionnaires as was necessary for their appreciation. I did
not yearn to make them subjects of psychological analysis. The
Danish young lady's cheerful prattle was just cheerful prattle and
nothing more. I esteemed Mademoiselle Smith and the other
lady precisely as they wished to be esteemed. I even found
myself interested in the poor old Baroness and her faded enthu-
siasms. To this lady I owe a special debt of gratitude for the
patience with which she exercised me in the mysteries of Swedish
pronunciation, and for her valuable insistence that the gentleman
in Sweden is to be distinguished from the ' boor ' by the magni-
tude of the curve he describes with his arm in lifting his hat to a
lady in the open. She had no words to tell of the horror it excited
in her to see a person uncover his head just for the fraction of a
moment.
As for my landlord and his Fru, they were kindness itself, and
Lotta the chambermaid was charming. The former, as a special
favour, indulged me with a succession of national dishes at supper,
instead of the monotonous (but nice) herring salad, which blushed
so methodically upon the table for the other guests. I ate hazel
hen and other dainties, some of which had travelled many hundreds
of miles to the capital frozen hard as billets of wood. The same
gentleman was my guide to many of Stockholm's places of amuse-
ment, in which he drank grog and cried, ' Is not that good ? ' as
he clapped his hands with the light-heartedness of a boy. In one
of these music halls five English girls had the audacity to dance
something very like the cancan dressed as Salvation Army lasses.
They were bold (and rather bad) young women, if they might be
judged by the matter of the ballad they sang while they danced.
But, as the words were in English, I hope few of the Stockholmers
understood them. Certainly my landlord did not, for he was
better pleased with them than with anything else we saw together,
and confessed that he approved highly of General Booth's
enterprise,
Lotta, the pension chambermaid, also deserves a word ot
IN A STOCKHOLM PENSION. 373
recognition. She was so tall and shapely, and she wore such a
gentle smile on her pretty lips when she stole upon me at seven
o'clock every morning to light the stove and put coffee and rusks
by my bedside. And she did not report me when, one night, I
fell asleep with my book and burned two long candles into nothing-
ness. Her ' tack s§, mycket ' (many thanks) and curtsey at parting
were as sweet and winning in their way as were the ' farewells ' of
the pensionnaires in theirs.
This was when I had decided to return to the southern lati-
tudes of England, and my luggage was all beneath the elk's head
in the hall. Mademoiselle Smith expressed surprise that I had
not fallen a victim to Sweden's capital's allurements — for life.
That, she avowed, was her condition, even as it was the Spanish
gentleman's. If she does not marry the Spanish gentleman,
however, I quite expect to run across her in Geneva or Nice or
Dresden one of these days.
They were skating in thousands on Lake Malar when the night
express carried me through the city, and the electric light was
again aiding the moon and stars to illumine them. But the train
soon ran off into the forests, and then for long hours I sat in the
corridor of the sleeping-car, watching the moonlight upon the
pines. Is there anything more beautiful ? One silvered forest
succeeded another until at length I wearied even of their beauty
and of the procession of slim black shadows upon the snow.
374
THE BLIGHT ON GUEST WICK HALL.
CHAPTER I.
THE VILLAGE TALK.
* WHAT was that old song which used to be sung when I was a
lad ? How did it go ? Something about the he's and the she's.
I know it meant that, however up and down the men-folks might
be at the Hall, the women-folks were on their feet, so to speak,
from January to December. You ought to know that song, Dave
Brand.'
The speaker was a ruddy-faced man, with a town look about
him, as the simple villagers could not help feeling. His clothes
had a newer cut than the Lundley tailor ever attempted, and he
had various aristocratic ways which exercised a paralysing influence
upon men who adopted no fashions except those of their fore-
fathers ; he used a quill toothpick, and that was awe-inspiring in
a company which found the small blade of a pocket-knife both
handy and efficient. Then he carried a pocket-handkerchief every
day in the week, a luxury which at Lundley was reserved for
Sundays and holiday times. It was difficult to feel quite at home
with Siah Hudson, though he was a native of the village, and he
had spent his boyhood among the people there, just like one of
themselves.
Dave Brand was the blacksmith, a man of considerable im-
portance under ordinary circumstances, but always suffering from
a sense of partial eclipse when in the company of a man who had
gone into the wide world to fight the battle of life. As Dave
said:
* The way of such is to patronise us. They talk as if
they could do more with cold iron than we can do with hot, and
as if they could get a blast without bellows better than we can
with 'em.'
The general opinion was that Dave did not like to play second
fiddle where he usually played a more important part ; but, with
a magnanimity born of compromise, his neighbours called it
public spirit to each other, and thought their own thoughts
about it in secret.
THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL. 375
All eyes were turned on Dave when Siah Hudson asked about
the song. Several old friends had responded to Slab's suggestion
that he would like their opinion about the Marsh Mist ale, and
they were seated in the parlour of the Marsh Mist Arms, drink-
ing at Siah's expense, and, for the most part, taking their cue
from him in reference to the quality of the brew.
'A homely sort of tipple,' said Siah, holding up a glass
against the light, and examining it critically with one eye closed.
' Brewing is a fine art in the big towns, but this is homely, like
blackberry dumpling and 'taters boiled in their jackets. Ay ! '
He breathed deeply, as if prosperity had separated him from
indulgences which unsophisticated people might still enjoy with
impunity. He was in the hay and straw business at Sheffield,
and his friends could understand that social distinctions had their
penalties. There was a local equivalent for noblesse oblige, which
said, ' T' ganger mustn't slink, whoever else does.' Several men
in the parlour would not have thought life worth living if slinking
had been an impossibility. But, for the moment, they were
happy. The social martyr was paying for the ale, and they were
free to keep their boots unlaced, wear their caps with peaks at
the back, and take surreptitious naps whenever chance favoured
them.
Dave's back was up. He was drinking his ale from a pewter
pot, as he usually did, though all the others had glasses. This
might have been expected to mollify him completely, but he felt
that his self-respect demanded some further protest, therefore he
replied in a surly tone :
' Fine-weather songs are right enough in fine-weather times :
but when everything is soft and sloppy, and the rain's coming down
worse and worse, and it seems wetter than you ever knowed it
before, what's the good of singing, " Fair shines the moon to-
night," or, " A song and a cheer for our bonny green stack "-
what's the use ? '
Dave looked round, not because he expected any answer, but
because he wanted to enjoy the sight of a dumfounded company.
Siah Hudson was equal to the occasion.
' Jokes go free till Christmas,' he said, ' and why not songs ?
You know that song, Absalom Enderby, I am sure.'
Absalom was an old man in a smockfrock. He had been
looking despondent because nobody had taken much notice of
him, but this direct appeal cheered him greatly.
376 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.
* Yes, I remember the song,' he replied tremulously ; ' and
before I lost my teeth I could sing it fairly ; but teeth have a
deal to do with both singing and whistling, not to mention eating
your meat.'
' The chorus is what I mean,' Siah interrupted. ' It runs in
and out of my head like a mouse popping into a trap and back
again without touching the bait or loosening the spring. How
does it go ? '
' The chorus is nothing by itself,' said Absalom, becoming sad
again; he was afraid lest a coveted privilege was about to be
wrested from him. * The song says :
' The earl he was a mighty man,
With courage great and high ;
But the lady she was pale and wan,
With sorrow in her eye.
4 Then the chorus goes :
' Oh, the he, and the he, and the he, and the he,
They all was a rampant tribe ;
But the she, and the she, and the she, and the she,
No language can describe.'
( That's it ! ' Siah exclaimed joyously. ' All of us :
' Oh 1 the he, and the he, and the he, and the he.1
The chorus was sung several times, all the company joining
in except Dave Brand, who put his hands in his pockets and
looked up to the ceding, as if his thoughts were far away.
' There's a deal of truth in old songs,' Siah said at length ;
' but they are only true so far. They are not like the Bible or a
ready-reckoner ; they are more like an almanack, which hits the
weather off sometimes, and then misses it altogether. Did any-
body ever hear of the ladies in the olden time giving their
husbands the slip and going nobody knows where? '
Every head was shaken except Dave Brand's, and he emptied
his pot with a long draught, as if that meant more to him than
any scandal which can be mentioned.
* You must have the last verse of the song,' Absalom insisted.
Then, without waiting for permission, he sang :
' The earls may roam the wide world through,
And Guestwick Hall shall stand ;
But if the ladies prove untrue,
It sinks beneath the land.'
' Things of that sort ought to be forgotten,' said a little man
THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL. 377
called Tippet, who had a squeaking, tearful voice. 'It is like
tempting misfortune to mention it. There's nothing near the
Hall but marsh-land. It is on a bit of a hill, that's true, but I
have heard tell that it might as easily be swallowed up as not.'
' A Mr. Fossbrook it was she disappeared with, was it ? ' Siah
asked, ignoring Tippet.
* It was,' replied Absalom. * He was a good-looking gentleman,
bright and laughing in his ways. More so than the Squire, who
was mellower by some twenty years. Ellen Winks, she speaks
up for the Squire ; naturally so, seeing that Ellen is of a con-
tradictory turn. Dave Brand, here, and Ellen, have some big
tussles over it ; and Dave, he does lay it on heavy, having a gift
of words which do as well as swearing without being wicked.'
The cloud began to lift from Dave's forehead, but Tippet
would drag the subject back to the possibility of Gruestwick Hall
being engulfed.
The Hall stood on a slight elevation, but in nearly every
direction was marshland, through which an indefinite kind of
river, called the Sough, crept along. There were many embank-
ments, and, under favourable circumstances, a practised walker
could cros* the marshes on the elevated footways. The chief
danger to be feared arose from what was called marsh-steam — a
white mist which often floated in thin layers over the spongy
ground. The traveller's head might be above it, and his feet
might be plunged in dense white fog, which would prevent him
distinguishing between solid earth and reedy pools.
Lundley village was not more than a mile from the Hall, and
the people had been familiar from their earliest years with the
mysteries and dangers connected with the Marsh. Some of them
believed that the Hall itself might sink out of sight.
i It is bad enough to have the Hall blighted,' said Tippet sor-
rowfully, 'but what should we do if it was swallowed up? It
will be a bad job for the labouring people if the Hall be shut up
at Christmas time.'
'The place has been blighted, that is true,' said Absalom,
' since Mrs. Gruestwick and that young Mr. Fossbrook dis-
appeared.'
' The Squire moping about, nobody knows where,' continued
Tippet, as if the song had done it all. ' Here's Christmas coming.
What are labouring folks to do ? '
The company broke up soon afterwards, and Siah Hudson
378 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.
took his departure, feeling thankful that his happiness and pro-
sperity did not depend upon the village of Lundley or the integrity
of Guestwick Hall.
CHAPTER II.
A YOUNG WIFE AND AN OLD SAYING.
IT was indeed a serious matter for Lundley when Guestwick Hall
was closed, for it was closed, except that one or two servants
remained, and the nurse who had charge of Eosy, the infant
daughter of Squire Guestwick. Absalom Enderby was the Lund-
ley patriarch, and he could not remember the time when any
such calamity had befallen the place.
' My memory is clear since I was that high,' said Absalom,
indicating about three feet from the ground ; * boy and man have
I lived here, as you can testify, and I have never seen the likes.'
Being the patriarch of Lundley was an enviable position ; the
misfortune was that nobody could enjoy the honour long, for a
man or woman was sure to be advanced in years before he or
she became the oldest inhabitant. Absalom thought it was too
bad that, when his turn came, there was nobody from the Hall to
stop him and ask his age, or to listen while he related what he
had seen seventy years before. He said it was just like his luck,
for things had always been a bit awkward with him. If he had a
hen that was a better layer than usual, she was sure to be one
of those contradictory creatures which would rather lay away than
at home.
Lundley people could endure the misfortunes of their neigh-
bours with quite an ordinary amount of equanimity ; but, unfor-
tunately for them, as they sometimes said, what bit one bit all,
and they were ready to render an amount of sympathy with
Absalom which took him by surprise.
Coverwood Guestwick, or the Squire, as he was called, had not
followed the Guestwick custom of marrying young. The villagers
at one time were troubled in their mind lest he should remain a
bachelor all his life. The only Guestwicks whom they had ever
heard about who did not marry were said to have been a ' sorry
lot,' and fear was expressed lest Coverwood should act in the same
manner. To them, sequence meant consequence, and they did
not take pains to disentangle ideas which were unwelcome to
THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL. 379
them and caused them pain. But, at length, all need for nice
distinction of inference was removed by the Squire bringing home
a wife.
' She is not more than half his age,' said the patriarch of the
day, who happened to be Absalom Enderby's uncle, old Saul
Barker, * and there is something about halving ages and doubling
risks, if I could only just put my tongue round it.'
Saul never did put his tongue round it, because he died soon
afterwards, and one of his deepest regrets was that his place of
honour would next be filled by his own nephew, * a lad of
eighty-two ! '
The wife whom the Squire brought home soon won the hearts
of the people, and her husband appeared to love her with that
jealous love which was customary with all the Guestwicks.
' There never was a Guestwick,' said Absalom Enderby, * who
was not jealous. But that is so, just as the Hall is near the
marsh. Things often look worse than they are. I have known
strangers come into these parts, and they thought the Hall was
unhealthy because of the mist ; but that's all fancy. The village
is near the marsh too ; and yet, barring asthma and rheumatics,
and now and then a touch of ague, there is not much to be said
against us.'
Speeches like these promised to make Absalom popular ; and
he knew that something was needed, because it was not usual for
a village patriarch to be nephew of the previous patriarch. There
was no denying his age ; but still, it looked as if something was
wrong when the oldest inhabitant was a person who not long
before had called somebody uncle.
Very little was known about Mrs. Guestwick except that she
was beautiful, and kind to everybody with whom she had dealings.
Her home was said to be in a distant part of the country, neither
in Nottinghamshire, Yorkshire, nor Lincolnshire — those were
the three counties which could be seen from Guestwick Hall — and
all the rest of the land was supposed by Lundley people to be
very remote from them.
' Foreign parts, or nearly so,' said Absalom, who had not been
twenty miles away from home in his life.
When little Rosy was born, the people who believed in omens
were satisfied, because/ as they remarked,
First a girl,
Then an earl,
380 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.1
was the mode of procedure in the old times when the Guestwicks
were noblemen. They preferred that the eldest child should be a
girl, and they hoped the time would come when * Earl ' would
take the place of ' Squire ' as the designation of the head of the
house. It seemed wasteful that a pithy rhymed couplet should
be inappropriate, and as they could not by any alteration of words
make the lines suitable to altered circumstances, they trusted
that something would be done to place the family in its old posi-
tion again.
During Coverwood Guestwick's bachelorship not much company
had been entertained at the Hall.
* Nothing like his father's time,' said the old people.
' And that was nothing like the grandfather's time,' said the
few ancient ones who professed to remember the doings of Stewart
Guestwick, about whom many traditions had been handed down.
The Lundley people admired goodness as a quality, but, to
judge by their remarks, they had special fondness for those Guest-
wicks who had not been very good ; always excepting the bachelor
ones, who were classed by themselves.
After the Squire's marriage the Hall continued to be very
quiet, and it was commonly whispered among the villagers that
jealousy was the real cause of it.
' He is a Guestwick, he is, in some things,' said Absalom
Enderby ; ' too much of a Guestwick in some things, if possible ;
like Bobby Smeaton's chimney. " What do you think of that for
a chimney ? " Bobby asked. " Too much of it," says I ; " too much
of it for the size of your cottage." " That cannot be,:' he says,
" the more chimney, the more room for smoke ; " and so it proved,
but, somehow, the smoke liked the chimney so well that it would
not go out. Then I told Bobby there should not be room enough
in a chimney for the smoke to turn round in. " Don't make it
too comfortable," I says to Bobby.'
Whatever the reason might be, there was not much company
at the Hall. But Elton Fossbrook was a frequent visitor there ;
and there were people who said he would have made a better hus-
band for Mrs. Guestwick than the Squire could possibly become.
Ellen Winks, the village dressmaker, never agreed with that
opinion, and she was wont to express her dissent from the popular
sentiment in language which could be neither mistaken nor enjoyed.
* A man for husband rather than a lad,' she said ; * and only a
parcel of twaddlers would think differently.'
THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL. 381
f Neither man nor lad seems to have fancied you,' "was Dave
Brand's reply. Ellen was a spinster, and in Lundley there was no
tendency to take the edge off a repartee, however unpleasant the
fact might be which the rejoinder contained.
Elton Fossbrook was a kinsman of the Squire ; a bright, hand-
some young fellow, whose sunny ways contrasted in a marked
manner with the quiet and thoughtful humour which was natural
to the master of Gruestwick Hall.
If the Squire was ever jealous, he carefully and successfully
hid it from view, and his young wife was always lively and plea-
sant when Elton was present. Perhaps the Squire knew that he
had a tendency towards jealousy, as all his family had, according
to report, and being a wiser man than most of his ancestors, he
may have set himself to live down any feeling of distrust within
his own nature. He knew that it was like insanity to suspect his
pure and childlike wife, and he could not help regarding it as
dishonour to harbour anything like a distrustful feeling towards
Elton Fossbrook.
But one day he returned from a meeting of county magistrates,
to find that his home had been deserted by his wife and his kins-
man. There was no note, or anything giving an explanation.
The child was left behind, but the nurse was utterly bewildered,
and unable to throw any light on the mystery. Alice Eayner,
Mrs. Ghiestwick's maid, had also disappeared ; and, as might be
expected, Jim Travis, Mr. Fossbrook's man, was nowhere to be
found.
CHAPTER III.
HOW HOPE DIED OUT.
.
MEN who are wise enough to have discovered that they are not
perfect, and who have learned to distrust their first impulse, are
often perplexed when disagreeable circumstances arise. They
seem to hear two voices within themselves calling loudly for them
to act in opposite and contradictory directions ; and they know by
experience that they cannot obey both voices at once, and they
are afraid lest they should do what is not only unwise, but what
will render a better plan for ever impossible.
Terrible thoughts passed through the mind of Coverwood
Gruestwick when he discovered that his wife was missing, and
382 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.
that Elton Fossbrook was missing also, but he controlled himself
sufficiently to betray nothing by word or look which would rankle
in his memory after the mystery was explained, as he hoped would
be the case.
It was almost midnight when the Squire returned from East-
ford. Mrs. G-uestwick and Mr. Fossbrook, he learnt, had gone
out for a walk at about two o'clock. Then Jim Travis had come
to the Hall, saying that his master had met a messenger from
Eastford, which was the nearest telegraph station ; the messenger
had a telegram for him, which compelled him to start for London
at once.
1 1 was just coming from Lundley at the time,' said Jim, * and
he told me he would ride with the messenger, as there was no
time to lose, for he must catch the fast train at Eastford, and I
am to follow with his things to-night. Mrs. Guestwick has gone
to Newton Lodge, and Woods is to take the carriage for her. I
will take the dogcart to Eastford, and leave it at the Dog and
Partridge.'
All was hurry and confusion. Jim packed his master's things
and put them in the dogcart. The butler wanted to send some-
body with Jim, to bring the trap back, but there was not room,
for Alice Eayner said she had to go as far as Four Lane Ends,
which was on the way to Eastford, and she could not walk the
distance, because she had to take a parcel which her mistress was
sending to Miss Percival.
* It will be all right,' said Jim ; ' the horse will be well looked
after at the Dog and Partridge, and I must be off.' So, before
any further objections could be raised, he cracked his whip and
started.
Woods, the coachman, had taken the carriage to Newton
Lodge, according to instruction, but had learnt there that Mrs.
Guestwick had not called. That was not the only puzzling cir-
cumstance, for the Squire always rode from Eastford when he
happened to be alone, and, as usual, his horse was stabled at the
Dog and Partridge. When he started from Eastford, some hours
later than Jim Travis ought to have reached the town, nothing
was said about the dogcart being there. The Squire knew there
was only one explanation of that : Jim had not done what he said
was his intention ; either he had not gone to Eastford, or he had
taken the horse and trap to another house.
Alice Kayner did not return, and when a messenger was sent
THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL, 383
to Four Lane Ends, the next day, nobody was much surprised to
learn that Alice had not been near, and that Miss Percival had
expected no parcel from Mrs. Guestwick.
The discovery, however, which caused the Squire most agony,
was that Mrs. Guestwick's jewels had all been taken away, and
various other valuables, besides a considerable sum of money,
which was kept in a small safe in the bedroom, which also usually
contained the jewels.
It caused no surprise when a note was received from Doncaster
to say that a horse and dogcart which had been left at the
Swan was recognised by a visitor as the property of Mr. Guest-
wick. . The landlord humbly waited Mr. Guestwick's instructions
in the matter.
The Squire started for Doncaster at once. When he reached
the Swan he saw his own horse there and his own dogcart,
but nobody could give any explanation which afforded either clue
or satisfaction. A boy had led the horse into the stable-yard and
had ordered it to be put up, saying ' the gent himself ' would be
there in a short time. But the 'gent himself had not made his
appearance. Nobody knew who the boy was, or anything about him.
There had never been such a scandal in the district within the
memory of man. It was said by some people that they had long
expected something of the kind, but it is a weakness of human
nature which makes many persons try to purchase the prophet's
reputation at the cost of truth and consistency.
The story which Jim Travis had told the butler at Guestwick
Hall: was soon proved to be false. No telegram for Elton Foss-
brook had been received at Eastford, and therefore no messenger
had been sent.
The opinion was often expressed that Coverwood Guestwick
did not act in the best possible manner when he set out to live a
quieter and more seemly life than his forefathers. The logical
conclusion was that, if people do not seem to be tolerably bad,
they are at heart very bad indeed.
The Squire went to Fossbrook's home, but his friends had
heard nothing about him, and they were as angry at what had
happened as the aggrieved husband himself.
Guestwick Hall and its surroundings became hateful to the
Squire ; he could not endure the sight of people who knew him ;
so nearly all the servants were paid off, the Hall was closed, and
he went away, nobody knew whither,
384 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.
* It will be a bad job for somebody if the Squire finds those
runaways,' the people of Lundley said to each other in a whisper.
' I have heard it said by those who were old when I was
young,' remarked Absalom Enderby, 'that some of the Guest-
wicks were terrible to beat when duels were fought, and I never
heard of any among them who was served quite as bad as the
Squire.'
* I wouldn't be in somebody's shoes for a trifle,' was an expres-
sion which showed what the prevailing opinion was about the
fate of Fossbrook should the infuriated husband discover his
hiding-place.
In some of the newspapers there were occasional paragraphs
which stated that the couple who disappeared from a quiet
retreat not a thousand miles from Eastford had made their home
across the Atlantic ; then it was a statement to the effect that a
certain deserted husband, whose estate was within a moderate
distance from Eastford, had also proceeded to America on an
interesting quest.
The Squire did go to America, but he found no clue to the
persons whom he was anxious to discover. He returned to
England, and arrived in Liverpool the day before Christmas. It
was eight months after his peace was destroyed, and during that
short period he had changed more than most men change in ten
years. Christmas had always been a happy time at Guestwick
Hall, and it was the season which was associated in his mind with
charity and goodwill. He knew that in Lundley there would be
disappointment and perhaps destitution among the poor, and the
customary benefactions from the Hall would be missed by those
who had reckoned upon them as regular holiday cheer. But his
heart had been hardened by what he had passed through, and he
resolved that he would not go home again until the Christmas
season was over.
He remained at the hotel, which was almost deserted, and he
felt like a man who was utterly friendless in the world.
* What a Christmas Eve,' he said bitterly, ' after the Christ-
mas Eves which I can remember ! And to-morrow will be
Christmas Day ! '
Then he gazed into the fire, and longed for the time when
Christmas would be past, for he felt as if he hated everything
connected with it.
THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL. 385
CHAPTER IV.
DISCOVERING THE TRUTH.
CHRISTMAS DAY was cold but not frosty, the air was thick, and
the ground was black. It was just the kind of day which makes
people glad to stay within doors. The Squire tried to read, but
he could not fix his thoughts upon anything but the one grim
subject. He had trusted — trusted with all his heart — and the
result was base and cruel deception. If his mind turned to
Rosy, his child, who was almost alone in the desolate Hall, he
found nothing to cheer or comfort him. He had never spent
such a miserable day, and was ready to hope that he would not
live to see another Christmas. The dim light failed at last, and
he knew that it was night ; but he paid no heed to the hours,
his thoughts were far away, and he could not feel sorry that the
weather was so wretched. But at length he was unable to endure
the hotel any longer, so he put on his thick overcoat and went
out into the streets. He turned his footsteps towards the river,
and seemed almost the only person in that part of the town.
There was a church lighted up, and he could hear the strains of
music. He knew what the people were singing; though the
words were not distinct, yet the tune was very familiar, and his
memory supplied all that was lacking. Only the previous
Christmas that hymn was sung in Lundley Church. But for
that recollection he might possibly have entered the sacred
edifice ; but fierce passions entered his soul, and he hurried on.
He reached the landing-stage at last, and paced backward and
forward there. A mist had settled upon the water, and the fog-
horns on the ferry steamers kept up their unearthly sound.
There were some chairs under one of the sheds, and the Squire
sat down and gazed upon the dreary scene. Dim lights, moving
slowly, showed where the boats were working their way from side
to side. The dull plash of the water could be heard, washing
against the pontoons which supported the stage. People who
arrived by the boats hurried away at once, and the stage became
nearly deserted, time after time. The Squire noticed a wretched-
looking woman, with a shabby shawl held tightly about her lean
body, and he knew that she intended to beg from him.
' She may save herself the trouble,' he muttered.
VOL, XXI,— NO. 124, N,S, 18
386 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.
The woman seemed undecided, and passed the shed several
times. At length she approached him, and said :
* For the love of God, help a poor woman who is starving,
have not tasted food this day, and I have not a farthing in the
world.'
What made the Squire start and seize the poor forlorn
creature by the shoulder, as if he would crush her in his grasp ?
He recognised the voice of Alice Kayner, his wife's maid.
Alice was terrified when she discovered that Squire Guestwick
was the man from whom she had sought assistance. If he had
not held her securely, she would have rushed away and flung
herself into the sullen waters which made the stage throb with
their unceasing movement.
* Where is your mistress ? ' the Squire asked, rising to his
feet.
Alice was spell-bound and could not speak.
* If you do not tell me,' he hissed, ' I will throw you into the
sea.'
* My dear mistress,' Alice sobbed, when she had recovered her
powers of speech, 4 why did I ever leave her ? '
* Where did you leave her ? '
( At the Hall,' replied Alice, with amazement. She began
to suspect that the Squire was mad.
The story she had to tell was long and painful, and the Squire
listened like a man entranced. That every word was true he
never doubted for a moment, and though he heard and under-
stood everything which Alice said, yet his thoughts seemed to be
rushing to and fro, and he was all the time confronting the
dreadful suggestion which her statement placed before him.
Jim Travis, Mr. Fossbrook's man, had made love to her, and
had persuaded her to consent to a plan which promised to furnish
them with abundant means for starting their married life
together.
* We were to have everything ready,' said Alice, * and while you
were at Eastford we were to watch for a time when Mrs. Guest-
wick and Mr. Fossbrook were paying a visit to the Eectory, or to
Newton Lodge, and then Jim was to say he had met them, and
Mr. Fossbrook had started for London, and he was to follow him.
Then Jim would pack the gentleman's things and start for East-
ford in the dogcart. I was to get Mrs. Guestwick's jewels, and
the money in her safe, and make an excuse that I had a parcel to
THk BLIGHT ON GUESTVVICK HALL. 387
take somewhere. Then Jim was to drive us to Doncaster, and we
were to go somewhere and get married. But it was not until the
day you were expected back from Eastford that we had a chance.
Mrs. Guestwick told me that she and Mr. Fossbrook intended to
walk across the marsh, as it was very fine, and there was no sign
of mist. I knew very well that it would take them longer than
they thought, and I let Jim know about it. When they had been
gone half an hour, Jim came with his tale. We had some
trouble to get off together, but we managed it at last, and Jim
drove us to Doncaster. From there we took the train to Man-
chester, where we stayed some time, under assumed names.
Then we thought it would be safe to cross the water and go to
America, so we came to Liverpool. But Jim was in no hurry to
go, but kept saying it was not safe. He got in with a bad lot
here. One night he must have drugged my drink, for I slept
very soundly, and when I awoke he was gone. He had taken
everything with him and left me without a penny. I have not
seen him since. If anybody ever suffered for sin, I have suffered
since then.'
' Do you know that they never came back again ? ' the Squire
asked, pale and trembling. 'Do you know that your mistress
and Mr. Fossbrook never returned to the Hall ? '
'Don't say that, sir,' Alice sobbed. ' Oh, don't say that ! As
we drove past the seven poplars we could see them by the deep
cut, just past Stenby Corner. Then, when we reached the Old
Close, I saw the mists beginning to drift over from the river. I
told Jim, and he said, " All the better for us." But I have seen
the mist in my dreams every night, and that is what made me
drink. When I dream I hear screams, and I know the voice, I
know the voice.'
Squire Guestwick asked a few questions about the exact place
where Alice had seen her mistress and Elton Fossbrook ; then
without another word he hurried back to the hotel.
He could reach Eastford that night, he discovered, and there-
fore he started, though he knew well that it was impossible to do
anything until the morrow. At three o'clock in the morning he
awoke the few inmates of the Hall, and his first demand was to
be taken to little Kosy. The child was fast asleep, and he sur-
prised the nurse by kissing the infant until she awoke with a
terrified scream ; then he hugged her, and used again the pet
names which he had lavished upon her before the trouble came.
18—2
388 THE BLIGHT ON GUESTWICK HALL.
It was a long and dangerous task to examine the marsh near
Stenby Corner, but there were many helpers, and on the third
day two bodies were discovered. In the clenched hand of Mrs.
Guestwick was an open locket which contained the portraits of her
husband and child. The wanderers had evidently strayed from
the safe path and had slowly sunk to their death ; the mist had
prevented them being seen, and nobody had heard their cries.
Nothing was ever heard of Jim Travis again, and only a
paragraph in the Liverpool papers, about an inquest on a woman
unknown, who was found dead near the docks, with the name
Alice Rayner on her tattered linen, gave any information about
the fate of one who had sacrificed honour and comfort at the
suggestion of the tempter.
The Squire looked an old man, and could not endure to have
Rosy out of his sight. Though the Hall remained quiet, yet
Lundley people had no reason to complain, for all the traditions I
about Guestwick generosity were put to shame by the benefactions |
of him upon whom the terrible bereavement had come. He called
them thankofferings for God's mercy in keeping from him a dread-
ful shame.
The next time Siah Hudson paid a visit to Lundley he was
regaled with the story of wrongful suspicion which for a time had
clung to the names of two innocent people.
' It shows,' he said, in an oracular manner, * that we never
know till we know.'
Dave Brand felt a strong desire to object, but he could not
see an opening, so he attacked Tippet as a diversion.
* Tippet knows the Hall is on its feet again. Eh, Tippet ? '
* All the labouring people in Lundley know,' was the reply.
* When Tippet mentions labouring people,' said Dave, * he
means those fellows who ought to labour and don't like it,
so they tell neat little tales to the Rector, and manage to meet
the Squire when he is out for a walk.'
CHARACTER NOTE.
THE BAD PENNY.
On pardonne tant que Ton aime.
His parents, denizens of pompous and prosperous Bloomsbury,
decree him for Eton from his cradle. Merchant Taylors' was good
enough for his father, who has been a business man all his life,
is still redolent of the City from which he has retired, honest,
sober, and in middle life. But Dick must go to Eton. Of course,
says the mother. What is the use of having money if one doesn't
spend it on Dick ? So he goes through a course of governesses,
tutors, and preparatory schools — a varied course, because none of
them will keep him more than three months at the most. It is
not so much that he is idle, though he is very idle ; it is not so
much that he is stupid, for he has some cunning amid his dulness;
but he is bad — that is what one of his masters says of him.
Bloomsbury Square has never liked that master — always knew there
was something fishy about that man. When Mrs. Bloomsbury
hears that he has eloped with a housemaid, that is just exactly
what she would have expected of him — so unjust, and so preju-
diced against Dick. The Penny is one of those infmitely-to-be-
pitied people who are always exciting prejudice in others. There
is a prejudice against him at Eton — a dreadful prejudice, which
finally grows so strong that the authorities decide that the only
way to remove it is to remove him. He is therefore removed.
He comes back to Bloomsbury Square with a bluster. Eton,
he says, is a beastly hole — not fit for a gentleman. His mother
tries to be fair, to hear both sides of the case, to believe that Dick
has — in some very minor degree, of course — erred as well as the
masters ; but she cannot. It is to be thought that she is as just
as most women, but to believe anything against her boy is not to
be expected of her — it is impossible.
Dick is removed to a private tutor's. His father says that
private coaching is the very thing for a young man — beats Eton
hollow. When Dick's letters arrive — they are letters which, in
point of spelling and composition, would disgrace a kitchen-maid
— his face reddens with pride. He puts them all away together,
in a desk where he keeps other sacred possessions.
390 CHARACTER NOTE.
One fine morning Dick turns up again unexpectedly in Blooms-
bury Square. The tutor, he finds, is such a beastly cad ; he has,
therefore, renounced him. From a letter which arrives next
morning from the tutor it appears that the renunciation is mutual.
There is a garbled story of a flirtation with a housemaid ; but it is
very garbled, and, of course, entirely incorrect. Dick says that
he never saw such a liar as that coach — enough to corrupt any
fellow's morals. Therefore, of course, it is only right and proper
that Dick should leave him. Some young men do not mind to
what influences they subject themselves — not so the Penny. Mr.
and Mrs. Bloomsbury are quite hurt and annoyed when their son-
in-law, an outspoken person, condoles with them, and is sorry to
hear the young cub has been up to his tricks again.
The Penny manages to scrape through an Entrance Examina-
tion, and goes to Cambridge.
' Not every young man, mind you, can pass those Entrance
Exams, nowadays,' says Papa, sipping his glass of port with
honest pride in the Penny's extraordinary prowess. ' They tell
me, Dick says himself, that it's a very different thing to what it
was twenty years ago. The competition is enormous — by Gad !
sir, enormous ! '
Mr. Jones, also of Bloomsbury Square, quite believes you.
Neither he nor the proud father has ever been to the University
themselves ; but they send their sons, and know as much about it,
mind you, as any one. The mother colours with pleasure at the
other end of the table. It is indeed a privilege, knowing how
dreadfully idle some young men are, to have a son like Dick.
Bloomsbury Square discovers, by degrees, that the privilege is
a very expensive one. It is so expensive, in fact, that they find
out it is very much more healthy, as well as a great deal more
enjoyable, to walk instead of driving everywhere ; so they put
down the carriage. ' Only don't tell Dick,' says the mother. ' It
would hurt his feelings so dreadfully to think we were going
without any little comfort on his account.'
So Dick's feelings are not harrowed, and when he comes down
for the first vacation a carriage is jobbed. A young man finds a
carriage so useful, and Dick would naturally not like to be without
one. Very likely he will not notice the difference between this
one and our own. Perhaps he does not notice the difference, or
perhaps his tact is so divine and beautiful that he does notice the
difference and says nothing. In appearance he has grown larger,
CHARACTER NOTE. 391
stouter, and redder — in fact, has become so fine-looking. ' I dare
say you remember, cook,' says the mother to that elderly domestic,
' what a beautiful baby he was ! — such a dear sturdy little fellow !
I must confess I should have been a little disappointed if he had
grown up pale and puny and weakly-looking, as one sees so many
young men nowadays.'
In this contingency cook would have been disappointed also.
Now Jane says Mr. Dick is too red-like for her, but cook always
did hold with a good fresh colour. Cook has a good fresh colour
herself — not unlike Mr. Dick's, in fact, only plebeian, of course,
very plebeian.
Mr. Bloomsbury is anxious to know what books Dick has been
studying ; but, naturally, after a hard term's work, the Penny
does not wish to be very communicative on the subject.
' Oh, Herodotus, and Livy, and all those chaps,' he says, in a
voice which might sound to persons who do not know his idiosyn-
crasies a trifle surly.
Papa stretches up, with great inconvenience to himself, for the
Livy. He cuts the leaves with a sort of reverence. He cannot
read a word of it himself. Education was not so much thought of
in his day. But it's a fine thing, my boy, a fine thing, and I wish
I had had your advantages. The Penny expresses a wish that the
advantages may be blowed — only he uses a word much more
emphatic than ' blowed.' Papa replaces the Livy, with the same
inconvenience to himself with which he got it down, and with
something which, if he had not everything to be thankful for,
might almost be taken for a sigh.
In due time Dick returns to Cambridge. His bills are heavier
j than ever next term ; they are so heavy that the mother begins to
be afraid that the butler must be dull without any companion of
his own sex, now that the coachman has gone. Mr. Bloomsbury
; therefore tells the butler that he cannot justify himself in keeping
him — the situation must be such a terribly lonely one.
' Lor' ! sir,' says Thomson, with a tear and a twinkle in his
' old eye at the same time, ' don't you be a troublin' yourself to
j find no reasons for givin' me notice. Thim colleges has ruined
' many of us afore now ' — with which remark Thomson retires to
; the pantry and wipes his eyes on the plate-leather.
Six months later the Penny turns up at Bloomsbury Square
i unexpectedly, in the middle of a term and a hansom. The very
small amount of gilding with which he was gilt when he left the
392 CHARACTER NOTE.
family mint is nearly all worn off. He looks as if he drank — only
looks, of course. Many other perfectly innocent people do the
same, and very awkward it is for them. He has, he says, ' come
down ; ' this is, indeed, perfectly obvious. It presently becomes
obvious that he has been compelled to ' come down.' To the old
man there is a horror in the very idea of such a thing. It takes
a great deal of explaining — and explaining things is Dick's forte —
to make him feel easy again. Lots of fellows do it — it's nothing.
There's Lord Noodle and the Marquis of Foolington who have —
well, left with me. They were up to larks, if you like ; but in my
case it's been a most beastly swindle— that's what it is, a beastly
swindle. (The Penny's language has long been noted for its rich-
ness and elegance.) Why, any of the chaps '11 tell you it's a
swindle. None of the ' chaps ' step forward to do this, however.
Fortunately, Bloomsbury Square does not need them. Dick is
believed on his own assertion, by two people only.
The Penny now thinks he would like to farm in Canada. He
says very frequently that he is blowed if he can't make something
out of that. So he has a fine outfit — flannel underclothing sewed
with tears, love, and devotion — and a fine sum of money to put
into the business he has heard of out there.
After he has gone — only just after — Cambridge bills and, alas !
promissory notes of very extensive promise indeed begin to come
in to Bloomsbury Square ; and when they once begin it is a long
time before they stop. It is about this period that the mother
discovers that the air of Bloomsbury is very relaxing — is not sure,
indeed, that it is a wholesome place to live in ; hears that many
doctors consider the neighbourhood of Peckham excellent for the
rheumatism from which she suffers — when convenient. And then
this house is so large. Two old people like you and me feel quite
lost in a wilderness of a place like this. Now, in a dear comfort-
able little box So they go to the dear comfortable little box
in the refreshing neighbourhood of Albert Road, Peckham — just
cook and themselves — so nice and homely. But the old man can
look the world in the face. Dick's Cambridge expenses — he speaks
of them thus — have been quite comfortably settled.
Dick does not write very often — indeed, has not written at all.
He is busy with his farm. Farming is a very fine thing for young
men ; an active, open-air life makes something better of a young
fellow than your stuffy offices and your ledgers and your account-
books. Make your boy a farmer sir, as I have made mine.
CHARACTER NOTE. 393
And the farmer turns up in a year at Albert Eoad, Peckham,
in a condition which the brother-in-law, full of uncharitableness,
characterises as disgraceful. The Penny looks more as if he drank
than ever — which is unfortunate, but of course unavoidable. He
is ill-dressed ; he is more surly in manner. If he were not her
son — her only son — the mother, who has gentle blood in her
perhaps, and that refinement which comes of a pure mind and a
tender heart, might shudder to touch anything so coarse and
unclean. But she kisses and cries over him like a fool, before she
has heard his story, which may be forgiven her, and afterwards,
which cannot. The farm was a beastly swindle, of course ; the
money which was sunk in it was lost, equally of course ; but if his
father can get him — say some post of responsibility in a bank, or
something like that — he is blowed (again) if he doesn't make a
success. He is also blowed when his father tells him something —
not all, not half, for, fear of hurting his feelings — of his Cambridge
debts. He is of opinion His father has been swindled ; a beastly
swindle, indeed, as usual. His father looks in the fire meditatively.
He says nothing ; there is, in fact, nothing to be said. The Penny
thinks that upon his soul, you've got wretched diggings here.
The father says quietly they are the best he can now afford. It is
his only reproach, and that does not penetrate the target, the
target being remarkably thick, tough and invulnerable.
The position of trust is, through influence, procured. For
three weeks Albert Eoad, Peckham, is supremely happy. Every-
thing is going on so well. And then a story is whispered in the
father's ear, which, if it gets abroad, means Dick's ruin. It is not
a pretty story. The mother does not know it. It is not kept
from her so much because it would wound her, for she would not
believe it, but because it is not fit, as a story, for her hearing.
The old man denies it furiously. His son ! Dick ! It is proved
to him beyond reasonable doubt ; and he denies it again, like
Peter, with an oath. The evidence is damning ; and he turns and
damns his informant. The scandal is, however, hushed up. Dick
mentions it in a note to his father. It was another fellow with an
unfortunate resemblance to himself. An old story ; but not so old
that the father will not believe it from the lips of the son. After
this, Dick's letters come fairly regularly ; such nice letters — not,
perhaps, very educated in style or very correct in spelling, nor
even very filial in expression ; but all saying the same thing, that
he is getting on famously, and asking for the loan of five or ten
18—5
394 CHARACTER NOTE.
pounds in the postscript. The mother thinks that Dick has really
found his vocation. As the weeks go by, she becomes sure of it ;
gets more sure, and feels sometimes a little angry that her husband
is so quiet, moody and unresponsive. He does not believe that
ugly story. Grod help him ! no, but it haunts him ; or perhaps
the shadow of an evil to come hangs over him. He looks
back on this time, long after, wondering which it was, and cannot
determine.
Then Dick turns up again — at night this time, and without a
bluster. He looks sober ; and looks, too, as if he were haunted by
a ghost. It is the old story, but with a new and engaging sequel.
Everything a beastly swindle, as usual. The manager a cad, and
Dick accused of forgery. The mother goes white to her lips,
then a flaming scarlet. Her boy accused of that ! Her boy — the
soul of honour ! The soul of honour has something in his appear-
ance to-night suggestive of a cur expecting a whipping. This
appearance is not lessened when he says that he must get out of
this damned country before to-morrow.
' Gret out of the country ! ' shouts the old man, with a heavy
fist on the table which makes the glasses ring. ' My God ! if
you're an honest man you shall face the world and give it the lie.'
The son falls back a little, scared at his father's gleaming eyes
and ashen face ; and the mother, in that old, fond, foolish way,
puts her arms round her boy and says he must fight it out because
it will all come right. Grod takes care of such things ; and the
guilty are found out and punished.
' That's it' says her boy, thrusting her away ; ' that is ivhy
I am going ! '
The Penny does not turn up any more — at least, not in
England. It is to be presumed that abroad he turns up pretty
constantly anywhere where there is foolishness and money.
Albert Koad, Peckham, has its tragedy, though it will be
allowed that the locality is sordid rather than tragic. His son-in-
law thinks that his misfortunes have made the old man very much
more of a gentleman than he used to be. Very likely it is true.
Misfortunes often have a refining effect. The self-satisfaction of
respectability must be considerably damped when one reflects that
one is the father of a forger. The pride and pomposity of Blooms-
bury must be extinguished for ever, when one knows of one's son
that forgery is not the most dishonourable of his failings. As for
the mother, when her belief in her boy went, so went hope also.
CHARACTER NOTE. 395
Father and mother have both been fools, but she has been the
greater fool of the two. Both, every one says so, have done their
best to ruin the boy — have ruined him. They might have seen
what he was years before, but they shut their eyes. They might
have learnt from their friends, long ago, that he was a scamp, but
they would not hear. It is very sad for them, of course, and
every one has the very greatest sympathy with them ; but it is
their own fault — entirely their own fault. It may be ; but if it
is, then surely the tragedies we make for ourselves are grimmer
than any which fate makes for us.
39G
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT.
1 THE slut again, you say, Ticklepenny ? '
' The slut again, sir ; and, what's more, she's got two of our
dogs away with her.'
The run-holder paced the room for some time in silence,
brooding angrily over the information he had just received ;
for anything but a pleasant welcome home after a week's holi-
day in Dunedin was the disturbing news, brought in by one of the
bank shepherds, that there were dogs among the sheep.
' How long have they been at it ? ' he asked presently, pausing
in his stride.
' Five days, sir.'
' Have you got any idea what the loss '11 be ? '
« Well—
' Come ; let's have it.'
' I'm afraid, sir, 'twon't fall far short of eight 'undred.'
' Phew ! ' and with lowering look the run-holder recommenced
tramping up and down.
After a while he stopped abruptly and said impatiently, ' But,
Ticklepenny, this is ridiculous ! Hang it all ; if I'd been you I
think I'd have managed to get a shot at her somehow.'
'Might as well try and get a shot at the devil, sir, while
you're about it.'
With his hands locked behind him, his head bent low on his
breast, his lips tightly compressed, the run-holder remained for a
time deep in thought.
Suddenly a happy light flashed into his eyes as, looking up
quickly, he said, ' I'll tell you what I'll do, Ticklepenny. There
are four gentlemen here who came back with me to have some
trout-fishing. They're harum-scarum young beggars, and nothing
in the world would give them greater pleasure than a midnight
scamper over the run. You get away back now, and we'll be up
at your hut some time this evening. You two and we five '11 make
seven, and we'll see if we can't put a stop once and for all to this
slut's little game.'
It is doubtful if in times of peace the ear of man can be
startled with any cry which carries with it an uglier significance
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT. 397
than ' There are dogs among the sheep ! ' Inquire of those who
have ridden among a big mob of sheep after it has suffered a
week's worrying by dogs, and you will find how few of them will
have the hardihood to say that the impression created on their
minds by viewing the attendant horrors is likely ever to fade
entirely from their memories. Indeed, they will probably tell
you that once having looked upon the sickening sight, nothing,
unless their duties compel them to do so, could induce them to
repeat the experience. The number of sheep killed outright, or
bitten and left to die in misery, in no wise sums up the havoc
wrought. The state of utter rout and restlessness into which they
are thrown has also to be taken into account ; and therein Lies the
greatest mischief. What devilish subtlety, what hellish malignity
prompts the action passes our understanding, but the dogs invari-
ably make their fiercest onsets at lambing time. The damage
thereby done is multiplied two — nay twenty — fold ; for think of the
injury done to a lot of ewes heavy with lambs (even though they
be not actually bitten) by being harried in wild confusion for
nights together over the rugged surface of those stony ridges !
Adept killers round up a mob, and, passing swiftly from one victim
to another, give each a clean sharp bite in some vital place ; and
although there are some dogs that will destroy in this manner as
many as sixty or eighty sheep in a single night, the loss incurred
is not, after all, so very serious, It is the dogs that are enticed
away from their legitimate shepherding pursuits, and inveigled
into joining these nocturnal depredations, which play the very
mischief with the sheep. These, having no previous experi-
ence, do not go to work in the business-like way of the skilled
killers, but aimlessly chase the sheep hither and thither through
the darkness, biting and gnawing, till the whole mob is scattered
about the run in huddled, panic-stricken little lots.
Then how plaintive is the cry of lambs seeking mothers which
hours before were dragged down and left to die in agony, or
escaped that death only to meet another by leaping headlong over
some precipice in their blind flight for life ! For days the
wretched little mites, pitifully bleating, will wander about till
starvation or the ever-present hawk releases them from their
misery. This may seem strange to the Northern reader, but it
must be understood that, with such large flocks as depasture on
Austral grazing-lands, rearing lambs by hand is out of the question.
Occasionally a pet is kept about the homestead as a plaything for
398 WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT.
the children, but out on the run, when anything happens to the
ewe, life does not long abide with her offspring.
As an immediate result of the dog's work the picture is sad
enough to contemplate ; but think of the scene when the mother,
though sorely bitten, still lives and continues to give to her young
what sustenance and protection she is able !
With the dawning the dogs betake themselves off to a safe
hiding-place till night shall again favour a renewal of their
work; but the dying sheep is relieved of their presence only
to be placed at the mercy of another enemy, more cruel, if pos-
sible, than they. A screech high in heaven causes the startled
ewe to look quickly into the sky. A second later she runs a
few paces forward, stamps her foot, and, turning, calls her lamb
fearfully to her side. At first the brave mother is able to repel
the attacks of her feathered foe, but as the minutes creep slowly
by, and her strength rapidly diminishes, the kea comes nearer
and nearer with every swoop till at length it alights upon
the woolly back. For a time the ewe has sufficient strength to
drive it off, but each moment she becomes more dazed and
exhausted with suffering ; each moment the contest becomes more
unequal and the certainty of some further horror being added to
her approaching death more sure. Closer sounds the rustle of
the vermilion and golden-hued pinions, closer the exultant screech
of ghastly anticipation, till at length the helpless and beaten
sheep makes one last effort to scare off her assailant, fails, and
sinks to the earth as sinks a stone. In an instant the kea darts
upon its prey, drags apart the wool with its talons, cuts open the
twitching flesh with its sharp beak, and, diving its head into
the body, tears forth the reeking kidney fat it has learned to
love so well, and devours it before the breath has left its victim's
body.
The foregoing should explain to the reader in some measure
the ugly significance of the cry, ' There are dogs among the
sheep ! '
To go back to the black collie of which the shepherd, Tickle-
penny, spoke.
Since the time of her going wild some months before she had
created a reign of terror throughout the district by her repeated
attacks upon sheep. There was no mistaking her work for that
of another dog, for she bit once only, and always in the same spot.
It was a strange habit, and how she learnt it it is impossible to
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT. 399
say ; but in one clean sharp bite she tore out the fat from beneath
the sheep's tail, invariably with fatal results. All attempts to get
rid of her had so far proved futile. Indeed, so artfully did she
elude pursuit, so craftily avoid all manner of traps set to take her,
that the shepherds had begun to look upon her as being super-
naturally cunning. At different times bands of angry men set out,
resolved not to return to their homes till they had sought her out
and slain her ; though subsequently they learned that at the time
they were riding about among the worried sheep, expecting each
moment to unearth their quarry, the slut had recommenced her
work of wanton destruction a hundred miles away.
As the lingering flecks of daylight were quickly fading out of
the sky to westward, the run-holder and his friends left the home-
stead and set out for the shepherd's hut. As they rode along, the
surrounding objects rapidly became more indefinite, till at length
the bleak and silent world around was wrapped in the obscurity
of night. For a time the sky was clear and no cloud hid the
stars, but before the horsemen had made much progress up the
shelterless spurs a dark pall came leaping out of the south.
Soaring swiftly up, shaking from its folds its white burden as it
came, the snow cloud soon veiled the vault of heaven in densest
gloom. The high winds which prevail in those elevated regions
sent the feathery flakes whirling through the air with such force
that the five riders with one accord struck deep their spurs, nor
slackened rein till they pulled up their horses before the door of
the shepherd's hut. It was early summer, in October, and, as
frequently happens at that season of the year in the uplands of
the south, the snow fell for hours without cessation, keeping the
run-holder and his friends fast prisoners beneath the sheltering
roof. About 3 A.M. one of the impatient watchers, going for the
hundredth time to the door, saw the stars away to the southward
peeping from beneath the skirts of the overhanging mantle, which,
now that the force of the storm was spent, rapidly rolled itself up
and disappeared in the north, leaving the sky glistening with its
wealth of jewellery and burnished by the light of the moon that
meanwhile had risen and soared into silver. Thereupon the little
band, seven in number, took up their guns and went out into the
night. Brushing off the white powder which had settled on their
saddles, they bestrode their half-benumbed horses and rode away
beneath the cold stars, listening.
The air was keen and the snow remained upon the ground,
400 WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT.
bringing out the ridges of the hills, which spread away in wild
variety of form into distant mountain chains, in silvery pro-
minence, as they shone up beneath the gleaming moonlight a
vivid contrast to the black mystery which crouched in the gullies
between.
As the horsemen went about, listening attentively, a faint
sound rose to the surface of the stillness which lay over the earth
— a sound so low and distant that to a stranger it might have
seemed nothing but the sighing of the mountain breezes or the
rustling of the wings of some wild-fowl passing overhead at an
invisible height. But the practised ear did not mistake it. It
knew full well the sound of scurrying feet among the tussocks —
of hunted sheep speeding through the long grass in wild affright.
A moment later a succession of short gasping barks caused
every man's hand to tighten on his gun, as, bending forward on
his horse's neck, he strained his eyes to the utmost to pierce the
uncertain light.
Suddenly the edge of a vast shadow beneath seemed to move,
became agitated, broke asunder and shot forth a sinuous tongue
which, moving quickly forward, detached itself from the parent
darkness and rushed up from the moonlit hillside like a black
serpent trailing over the white surface of the ground. It was a
straggling mob of sheep fleeing before the pursuing dogs.
A few terse, strident words of command from the run-holder
and the men were off, each vying with his neighbour in the
attempt to be the first to send a charge of shot into the slut's
carcass.
Away they went at a dare-devil pace, rudely startling the early
morning air, which but a brief while before had seemed fearsome
in its weird silence, with the instinctive shouts of sportsmen, each
moment in danger of being hurled, man and horse together, from
the pinnacle of life and action into the abyss of stillness and
manifold darkness. Danger? Who thought of danger? \Vith
the frenzied excitement of the chase stirring every soul to its
foundation and sending the hot blood dancing through every vein,
there was no time for such a thought ! The pure mountain air
rushed against their faces, and stimulated their spirits to such a
pitch of exhilaration that they seemed to skim bird-like, rather
than ride, over the broken ground. Now they tore along the
winding sheep-tracks which skirted the flanks of some precipitous
spur ; now charged headlong at a breakneck pace straight down
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT. 401
the trackless steep ; now stumbled and almost came to grief over
a ' Spaniard ' l or a fragment of granite concealed by dry grass
growing thickly around, as they twisted and turned in pursuit of
the fleeing dogs. The wind snatched the hats from their heads
and whirled them far away into some ravine hundreds of feet
below, but, save thinking that it was better so, as the breeze was
cooling to their heated brains, the wearers took no note of the
loss. The scrub brushed against their legs and wrenched off their
leggings ; but they were never missed. Their spurs were torn
from their feet ; but until they found no answering rally from the
horse to the appeal of their digging heels they did not know that
they were gone. From time to time a horse put his foot into a
rabbit-hole and went swooping to the earth ; but a second later
the rider had regained his saddle and was racing along after the
others more frantically than ever to make up for lost time.
At eight o'clock the first reckless gallop of that fast and furious
ride was over. The two dogs that had been enticed away were
shot ; but not the slut. So far she had dodged all attempts to
bring her within range of a gun. For five hours the killing pace
had lasted, and now the riders got together to talk over the next
best move and to ease their pumped horses for a while of their
weight. Sorry spectacles the poor brutes looked as they stood
there sweltering in sweat, their flanks heaving, their heads
drooped, their nostrils widespread, clutching at each gasping
breath, as if with the final effort of a dying force which could
bring another one to the surface — never.
After a spell, the horses meanwhile having got their wind, the
men tightened girths and set off to go carefully over every bit
of ground in the hope of coming upon the slut in her hiding-
place. Several times during the morning she was sighted as she
broke cover to make for some new place of concealment ; but it
was not until the sun had climbed the heavens, reached its zenith,
and was hurrying towards the restful West, that they finally ran
her down. Through the forenoon she had been chased from point
to point and beaten back from the lower outlets of the run, till at
length, being sorely pressed, she doubled and made a great dash
to reach her one remaining loophole of escape. She sped as fast
as her tired limbs would carry her towards the entrance of a
heavily timbered gully at the back of the run, which came stretch-
1 Spear grass.
402 WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT.
ing down, like a great river of trees, from the mountain fast-
nesses of the interior to the grazing-land below. If once she
reached that, she would be free and could make off to the ranges
at her leisure, as no horse could penetrate the tangled mass of
undergrowth or work his way between the thickly growing trees.
Her pursuers were quick to realise this, and, fearing all their
precious labour might be lost, strained every nerve to cut her off
before she gained the spot. They knew she had a long start and
was running for her life, but they saw that she was footsore and
weary, and felt hopeful of yet winning the race.
Nearer and nearer the slut drew towards the gate of deliver-
ance; less and less became the distance between her and the
horsemen. At length the hunted animal, still well beyond range
of the guns, reached to within 500 yards of the first tree.
Down sat the riders in their saddles, and, striking deep their spurs,
forced their jaded horses, whose legs now tottered at every stride,
to make a supreme effort to beat her at the finish. Every instant
she drew nearer the haven of trees, every instant the clatter of
iron shoes became more distinct in her ears. Fearing she would
escape them after all, two of the men fired upon her in the hope
of a random shot taking effect; but their guns did no further
execution than scaring a few small birds from the neighbouring
bushes. It was impossible to shoot straight at the pace they were
going, and there was no time to pull up and take aim.
Suddenly a noise to the right caused the hunted brute to
glance swiftly in that direction. In that glance she saw that one
of the men (it was Ticklepenny, who, knowing the country better
than the others, had made for .the bush by a more direct way) had
flung himself from the saddle, and, leaving his horse on the ridge
above, was leaping from rock to rock down a rugged slope by a
short cut which, if she kept on her present course, would assuredly
bring her well within range of his gun before she could gain the
bush. Hesitating a moment, she was quickly made aware of her
perilous position between two fires by the ever-nearing thunder of
the galloping hoofs behind her. She eyed Ticklepenny fearfully
for a few moments, dared not risk the shot from his gun, and
then, though on the very threshold of safety, lost courage and
turned into a clump of manuka growing in the hollow of a small
gully on the left.
With a wild shout of triumph the horsemen hastened up and
surrounded her, declaring, in congratulating themselves on their
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT. 403
success, that she could not have run to cover in a surer trap ; for
between the big gully and the scrub stretched a broad valley of
clear tussock land about 250 yards in width. If she attempted to
make for the brush across this open space, she must inevitably be
shot.
I should mention here that through this valley there ran a
bridle-track leading over the hills to the homestead of the adjoin-
ing station, and that on account of a spring causing a boggy spot
in the hollow at the foot of the small gully the track made a detour
at that place, and climbing to higher ground passed through the
scrub in which the slut had taken refuge.
Having looked well to their guns, four of the men took up
such advantageous positions round the clump of manuka as to
preclude the possibility of the entrapped animal being able to
break cover at any point with safety ; for they had had too much
warm work to get her into a corner to risk even the remotest
hazard of letting her slip out of their clutches. To make assu-
rance doubly sure, the run-holder and Ticklepenny crossed the
valley and stationed themselves near the edge of the big bush to
shoot her down should she by any strange chance escape the
others' fire. Then the seventh man started forward to turn her
out.
As he neared the spot all were surprised to see the head and
shoulders of a ' swagger ' rise out of the identical clump of manuka.
This fellow had wandered that morning thus far from the adjoin-
ing station, and, as is the wont of the New Zealand tramp, had
laid down for a snooze until such time as it behoved him to be
moving on in order to reach about sundown the next place of call.
There he knew a substantial meat supper and comfortable shake-
down awaited him — unless the run-holder wished to enjoy the
sight of gazing upon the ashes of his wool-shed the following
morning.
Disturbed by the shouting of the horsemen, and seeing by the
sun it was time to be jogging on his way, the lazy vagabond
shouldered his swag and trudged along the track in the direction
of the big bush, his dog following close at his heels. When "he
had traversed the 250 yards of open and was nearing the foremost
tree, his dog left him and ran into the undergrowth.
The run-holder, who was standing by, gun in hand, noticed
this and said, ' I say, you'd better call that dog of yours into heel
if you don't want him shot ! '
404
WHAT MEN CALL INSTINCT.
But the man apparently did not hear, as he passed on without
answering.
' I say,' again cried the run-holder, in a louder tone, ' are you
deaf ? Your dog's gone into the bush after a rabbit or something,
and you'd better call him out if you don't want him shot by mis-
take. "We're out after a slut, just like him, that's been worrying
the sheep.'
Then the man stopped and, looking round, said in a surprised
way, ' Dog ? Wot dog ? I ain't got no dog ! '
Under the pretence of belonging to the swagger, the slut had
safely crossed the 250 yards of open, and got clear away under the
very muzzles of the enemy's guns.
And this is what men call instinct !
405
HAPPY PAIRS AT DUN MOW.
WHEN we said we would go to Dunmow and see the flitch given
away, we forgot we should be travelling on the Saturday before
the Bank Holiday. It is at such times that my celibacy weighs
lightest on me, when I have to fight only for myself and the com-
fort of my own seat. So, after a brief battle, I sat luxuriously in
my favourite corner and watched the husbands carrying babies
and the wives pushing perambulators full of brown paper parcels,
phrenetically endeavouring to find room. One little genteel,
middle-aged lady, dressed in silk, came to the window and, in a
small voice, begged very hard for accommodation. She was so meek
and lonely we let her in and pushed up one of the arms for her, and
there she sat crumpled up against me and talked the whole way.
You change at Bishop's Stortford for Dunmow, whence it is
distant nine miles down a bye-line. We refused the omnibus and
walked up, carrying our bags, for I believe in prospecting before
settling on your inn ; the exterior aspect is so generally an indica-
tion of the colour of the table-cloth and the character of the
sheets. In the village there are many neat old houses, splashed
with purple bunches of the clematis and bright with brass rods for
the blinds ; they have trim gardens of geranium and the variegated
maple, and at the open window of one of them two girls were
sitting at work ; and almost opposite were two young men smoking
pipes, who looked as if they might be undergraduates come over
from Cambridge to do a little quiet reading.
After dinner we went and sat in the bar, and heard the land-
lord give it as his deliberate opinion that on Monday not less than
ten thousand people would come to Dunmow. There is nothing
pleasanter than an evening in an inn-bar, with its brick-red paper,
its auctioneers' advertisements, its ' Swearing and profane language
strictly prohibited.' What can be more soothing, after some few
months of London, than to sit still and hear talk of the Salvation
Army and the Stores ? — than to drink in the unconscious humour,
the grotesque scandal, the pleasant ignorance ? I should like to
have a cottage down in these Essex parts, and at the end of the
day come into the bar and sit smoking. You need never say
anything unless you like. There were two old men opposite each
other beside the empty grate who did nothing whatever for an
406 HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW.
hour but puff resonantly until one remarked soberly ' That ten ? '
and they parted silently till Monday,
The morning of Sunday was grey, but later it broke sweetly
into blue and sunshine. I strolled the peaceful village street
before breakfast, and saw the same tall lady standing knitting at
the head of her flight of steps I had marked there the evening
before — a most gracious, graceful tricoteuse. I wondered why she
stood there. Has she French blood in her that dimly recalk the
Convention and the guillotine ? Is there some slumbering heredity
that still mutters, obscurely dictating she shall take her knitting
out into the open air ? I thought of breaking into ' Qa ira,' to see
if the old revolutionary blood would light ; but she looked so calm
and stately I forbore, and, humming ' Oil peut-on £tre mieux
qu'au sein de sa famille ? ' went in to breakfast.
Here we were in Essex, expecting only long dun fields and
marshes — something of Northern France, without the charm of
the poplar — and, behold, we were wandering, after breakfast, over
a high upland common and down a dappled lane, past sunflowered
cottages and soft white farms of hay and early harvest, and the
Dunmow bells clashing to us, ever fainter, to return and pray.
We stood at the end of the village and watched the people stream-
ing down the sloping road to the church. Behind us were the
high brittle iron gates in front of the old Hall with its cupola that
looked like an illustration by Caldecott. A pretty girl in white
looked back at us as much as to say, ' Come, come to church.' It is
amazing how much of rural beauty you see everywhere in England.
At Thaxted we found a fine old church and a capital inn. At
the edge of the churchyard was a row of tiny almshouses like bee-
hives, and, trained over the doors, just like the entrance to the
hive, a close-cut, tight-fitting oval frame of privet. In the
common garden an old crone was wandering, with a yellow face
carved into wrinkles and a deep-set, lurking black eye. At the
sound of my voice out came another old body, and, from the little
dormer window above, the head of a voluble, merry, toothless,
graceless, ancient Dame Burden. Yes, that was the water-butt
on to which her sweetheart climbed when he came to pay her a
visit, she cackled. But she wished she had the end house, and
then he wouldn't have to pass the other cottages. And the two
old women laughed, and the old crone looked at them with
malignant sternness, as though for two pins she'd put vermin-
powder in their drink.
When we came back we climbed a bit of a hill off the main
HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW. 407
road, and went up into Great Easton to try and get some tea.
They spread us a meal of jam and lettuce and sliced cucumber in
a large room with a Bloomsbury Square sideboard, a piano and an
harmonium, both open and furnished with hymn-books. The
landlady came in and offered to pour out the tea for us; the
handsome young landlord brought us in the new baby to see —
' Takes to strangers wonderful ! ' And the baby clutched at us
with dimpled wrinkled fists and laughed a toothless chuckle.
I don't know that I have ever had a very marked coincidence
in my life — few people have, absolutely unmanufactured — but this
seemed to me a strange one. "We went up into the churchyard,
and one of the party asked me where I would like to be buried.
I was standing with my hand on an old flat tomb, half covered
with ivy and wholly worn and at first sight quite undecipherable.
' Here,' I said, and then, bending over the tomb and feeling for
the letters with my hand, I found my name on it. The name is
an uncommon one ; I don't ever remember seeing it on a grave
before, except of mine own people ; and I certainly could not have
seen it without bending and taking the trouble to make it out. I
wonder if it will be so. There is many a true word spoken in earnest.
Enfinle grand jour ! And as the Bank Holiday sports were
not to begin till one, we walked over to Little Dumnow to see the
remains of the priory where the celibate monks first established
this their perennial jest against matrimony. Now, in the matter
of awarding the flitch, there is a tendency at Little Dunmow, and
not altogether an improper one, to sneer at the pretensions of
Great Dunmow. The sexton who shows us over all that is left of
the priory, describes the ceremony scornfully as ' all a made-up
affair,' and points to the stones on which the candidates used to
kneel while taking the oath, and the ancient chair in which they
were afterwards triumphantly carried, as proof that the function
cannot be properly performed elsewhere. These interesting relics,
which were being sketched by an elderly enthusiast in grey
whiskers, are still preserved in the south aisle of the original
priory, now forming the Little Dunmow parish church, and in the
aisle are still to be seen the tombs of the founder and his wife ;
that Robert Fitzwalter who revivified the priory at the beginning
of the thirteenth century ; and of the Fair Matilda, daughter of
the second Fitzwalter and wife to that famous Robin of the Wood,
that gentilhomme dechu who is best known in his abbreviated
form of Robin Hood. She lies on her back, a thin-faced young
person cut in alabaster, with a broken nose that does not much
4K)8 HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW.
suggest the beauty that provoked the unlawful advances of King
John and drove him incontinently to poison her because she
rejected them.
The rival villages are two miles or so apart, and while Great
Dunmow hangs out its banners and erects tents, Little Dunmow
sternly goes on with its work of early harvesting. Little Dunmow
is well out of earshot of the raucous steam-organ that accompanies
the swings and merry-go-rounds, and thereby is Little Dunmow's
state the more gracious ; for all day long we are tortured at Great
Dunmow by the trumpeting of ' The Eowdy-dowdy Boys ' and
' The Royal Fusiliers.' It penetrates into the tent where the
solemn awards of the flitch are being made, and so confuses the
energetic and learned counsel for the donors that he refers to it
angrily as a ' burly-hurly.' But it only adds a louder majesty to
the tones of the counsel for the claimants, who is happily gifted
by nature with a diapason to which a neighbouring steam-organ
or two need make very little difference. ' Invaluable for selling
sprats in November,' as I once heard a basso maliciously charac-
terise the voice and method of a rival.
We paid a shilling to go on to the ground where the sports
were held, and found a little racecourse round which the farmers
and their ponies had to go so often to complete a mile and a half
that I imagine they must most of them have been giddy. Along
the hedge-side nearest the winning-post was stretched a substantial
row of farm wagons with their owners' names chalked on them,
as you see cards written on the carriages for the Eton and Harrow
match. Thence came stentorian and encouraging roars of ' Tom'
or ' George,' as the little horses raced round, looking very like the
little lead horses of the Casino game at the bains-de-mer in Nor-
mandy. The riders sometimes wore ' blazers ' and sometimes were
in veritable silk, but they fell off rather in the legs, which were for
the most part trousered. It all reminded me of a country race
meeting drawn and coloured by Eowlandson ; and perhaps the
earliest Derby was just as simple and enjoyable.
At three o'clock we were all sitting in the tent, gaping at the
platform and the judges' seat under the royal escutcheon. The
gentlemen of the press were busily engaged at a long sloping
desk in extracting the plums from the addresses of the counsel
for and against the claimants, which, got up to look very like
briefs, had been thoughtfully handed them for the purpose.
Against the tent-pole were hanging the flitches, adorned with red,
blue, and white ribbons, with, a card to let us know they are pre-
HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW. 409
sented by the local brewers. Formerly, they were hung high and
had to be climbed for by the successful male candidate ; for, once
upon a time, there was a husband who begged that some one else
would do it for him, as if he got a grease spot on his Sunday
clothes his wife would scold him terribly. Whereupon the gate-
keeper told him to be off, seeing that he who fears is certainly not
master at home and can have no claim to the bacon. Nowadays,
it is one of the conditions of the game that the flitch is delivered free
of charge, and not required either to be cut down or carried away.
Two or three years ago a couple, on the award being made them,
had a desperate quarrel because the wife had not brought anything
big enough to fetch it home in ; which being overheard by the
authorities, the prize was promptly stopped in transitu.
Though the sides of the tent were down, it was very hot ; yet
we all grew still hotter with suppressed excitement as a hand clad
in a large white glove, mystic, wonderful, comes through the par-
tition at the back and pushes on to the platform a small cane-
bottomed chair. Then we count the seats on the right and dis-
cover it is meant for the jury of bachelors and maidens.
Nor is that interesting body long in following, for six young
ladies in white and six young gentlemen in tweed suits ascend the
stage and sit in various stages of uneasy self-consciousness facing
us. They look for all the world like a suburban choral society in
a state of repose. The young ladies are for the most part adorned
with flowers and silk gloves, and so sit as entirely to obscure the
young gentlemen behind them, to whom they occasionally turn
and address coquettish remarks.
We are just considering and disputing which we admire the
most, whether the one on the extreme right or number two from
the left, when the judge, in a very large wig and loose red gown
hung with black velvet, marches solemnly in from the other side,
followed by the counsel for the claimants and the counsel for the
donors in wig and gown, the clerk of the court, and finally the two
pair of claimants themselves ; who modestly constitute themselves
the two pair back by sitting in two tight little pews on the judge's
right. The clerk, befrogged as a chief constable, proclaims
silence, opens the court in legal form, swears in the jury, and
amidst a breathless pause and the trumpeting of the steam-organ
the counsel for the claimants rises and begins his speech. As for
the claimants, they sit very close to each other, and there is a
touching tendency on the husband's part to get his arm as much
VOL. XXI.— NO. 124, N.S. 19
410 HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW.
round his wife's waist as the dignity of the proceedings will ad-
mit ; or it may be altogether to prevent her falling out of the pew.
The first claim is that made by Mr. and Mrs. Francis Webb, of
Wednesbury. Counsel says with much dramatic emphasis and
hitching of his gown that Mr. Webb met the lady who is now so
fortunate as to be his wife at Stafford in 1886. At once he
became in-ter-es-ted in her. Hurray ! from the free seats at the
back. He met her the next year again and became still more
in-ter-es-ted. Brayvo and genteel murmurs of admiration from the
reserved half-crowns. Then ensued an engagement and a period
of pro-bation, and finally they were wed at St. Paul's, Stafford.
General applause, and ' I wish the man'd speak up ' from a deaf
old lady behind, who, if only she had brought her trumpet, might
have silenced the steam-organ which the counsel is doing his
best, to outbray. On silence being restored by the clerk, counsel
waves two papers over his head and says he holds in his hand two
certificates from neighbours of Mr. Webb's, bearing testimony to
the terms of complete affection : — Counsel for the donors jumps up
and appeals to my lord to have the letters proved in legal form.
The judge says certainly that must be done, and they are con-
sidered proved in sufficient legal form by being shown to Mr. Webb,
who says they're all right and in his friend's handwriting ; and
the counsel for the claimants reads them with withering emphasis
directed at his learned friend, and, throwing them dramatically on
the table amid loud and general cheering, proceeds to examine
Mr. Webb in chief. The prime point to be made is that, if they
were unwed, Mr. Webb would go through it all again, term of
pro-bation included, and to that Mr. Webb swears with the readiest
cheerfulness and packs himself back into the pew amid enthusi-
astic cries of ' Give un the bacon ! ' Mrs. Webb is also examined,
but beyond whispering that Mr. Webb is one of the most amiable
and good-tempered of men (which, indeed, he looks) and that they
have never so much as had a word, nothing of fresh importance is
elicited, and up goes Mr. Webb's arm round her back and
shoulders with renewed confidence. It's clearly a galloping
verdict for them, notwithstanding the fiendish — really, I must
say it — the fiendish efforts made by the counsel for the donors to
get Mr. Webb to admit that they disputed whether the little boy
should be called Cyril or Samuel, that he catches it from Mrs.
Webb if he is late for dinner, and that they have had words when
he has been unwell and Mrs. Webb has been laid up with neural-
HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW 411
gia. No such, thing. Nor can he get Mr. Webb to admit any
latent defect in the lady's temper to account for his being so long
in making up his mind. ' Two years, you know ' counsel persists
with a very good imitation of the insinuating Old Bailey manner ;
' come now, Mr. Webb, wasn't it because you weren't quite sure
of her temper ? ' ' Not in the least, sir,' says Mr. Webb, sturdily ;
while the lady is understood to whisper she considered herself too
young. So down sits the counsel for the donors baffled ; the only
point made being the length of Mr. Webb's probation ; at which,
in fact, there were a few murmurs of ' No bacon ! ' possibly ema-
nating from some one who has a reversionary interest in the flitch
in the event of Mr. Webb's failure. Then the judge sums up, and
the clerk says, ' Consider your verdict, ladies and gentlemen,' and
the young ladies and young gentlemen, just for form's sake (or,
possibly, flirtation's), ask through their foreman for leave to retire,
which is granted them by the judge with a benevolent smile, as
much as to say that he himself was once young, though now he
may be, perhaps, thirty at the most. When the jury return —
' Are you all agreed upon your verdict ? ' ' We are.' ' How say
you, do you find for the claimants or for the donors ? ' ' We find
for the claimants.' ' And that is the verdict of you all ? '
' Ya'as.' And the young gentleman foreman, who, having been
selected by the young ladies, is naturally the best-looking, twirls
an incipient moustache and sits down again out of sight amidst
enthusiastic applause. The counsel for the claimants jumps up
radiant and shakes hands heartily with Mr. and Mrs. Webb ; the
judge, who is above any such display of feeling, lost in legal
thought, regards the pole sternly at the top of the tent.
The case of Mr. and Mrs. Philip Garner, of West Moulsey,
presents a similar picture of unbroken conjugal felicity ; more
highly coloured, perhaps, from the fact that he is a horse
slaughterer, whereas Mr. Webb pursues the gentler avocation of
a railway clerk. Mr. Grarner, too, is so fortunate as to have an
active sympathiser at the door of the tent in the person of a
gentleman who (on hearing of West Moulsey) proclaims aloud
that he comes from Hampton Court; which, coupled with the
fact that he is considerably excited with beer, gives him, as he
believes, the right to make an effort to swarm on to the platform,
either to get at the jury, or, generally, to see fair play for his
fellow riverside countryman. But the judge, who is fortunately
also an auctioneer, proves equal to the emergency, and the man
19—2
412 HAPPY PAIRS AT DUNMOW.
from Hampton Court is limited to taking his hat off at each of
Mr. Garner's more pointed replies and hurraying vivaciously.
Mr. Garner, who has had it in his mind for the last five years to
apply for the flitch, but has been stopped by one thing and
another, produces similar certificates from neighbours who are
daily witnesses of their happiness and content ; one even being
from the cottage next door5 to the effect that for five years they
have never heard a cross word come through the partition.
' 'Urray, Philip ! ' from the man from Hampton Court, who, for
fear he should be suspected of undue partiality, explains he never
saw the man before in's life. The foreman emerges from his
obscurity to say the jury would like to know the thickness of the
partition, and Mr. Garner pronounces it nine and 'alf inches.
Delight of the man from Hampton Court, who kisses his hand to
Mrs. Garner ; so strong is still the old tribal feeling in England.
The counsel for the donors, still pursuing his unhallowed course of
advocatus diaboli, insinuates he desires information as to how
Mr. Garner kills his horses, and Mr. Garner says he 'its them on
the 'ead ; but any attempt to show that he has ever treated Mrs.
Garner in a similar fashion fails disastrously. Nor does he ever
bring dirt into the house, seeing that he keeps another pair of
boots at the slaughter-house. So Mr. and Mrs. Garner very
properly get the second flitch awarded to them, without the jury
even taking the trouble to retire, and Mr. Garner's dimple which has
come and gone becomes permanent, and Mrs. Garner's nice counte-
nance Hushes to a livelier pink. As for the man from Hampton
Court, in his delight he embraces a complete stranger under the
impression it is Philip, and only makes it right by carrying him
off to the refreshment tent and treating him and self to more beer.
To end the proceedings, Mr. and Mrs. Garner are driven in
state round the ground in an open landau, followed by the judge
and counsel in a small wagonnette, and the jury of bachelors and
maidens very tightly packed in a larger one. At the head of
all rides the clerk-constable, stretching out his hand as though
pardoning everybody, followed by the Dunmow brass band in
uniform of yellow braid, playing the air proper to such occasions ;
and in their wake follow Mr. and Mrs. Webb, uproariously and
unsteadily chaired, and behind them the flitch they have so nobly
won, swung on a pole ; whereof the bearer is constantly falling, but
will surrender it to no one else, so completely is he overcome by his
feelings and the sunshine of this most bright and auspicious day.
413
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
I.
THE START.
WE set out in August, my brother and myself, from a small hill
station in the north of the Piinjaub. The journey to Cashmere
from most places in India is not absolutely easy, as must be the
case without railways, though these are easily dispensed with, their
substitutes giving one much more fun for one's money — at least
this was my experience.
The preliminary to our start was an exciting hot afternoon
spent in superintending the loading of the baggage mules. We
sat on a bank in the garden, while our whole establishment gave
assistance to the mule drivers, all talking and arguing at the top
of their voices, and each objecting to the other's arrangements ;
the mules at intervals objecting altogether, and manifesting it
forcibly by kicking, our hearts meanwhile sinking into our
boots at the numberless things, without which each servant
declared it was impossible to start. As things approached com-
pletion the cook came flying up from the back regions waving a
large board in one hand and a small stove in the other, assuring
us solemnly we should die without them. Then a large tin tub
was added, and we recklessly gave up any idea of neat luggage,
and consoled ourselves by hoping we had ensured future comfort.
Fifteen mules in all move off with our future homes, in the shape
of tents, and everything else that seems needful for the next two
months, and we watch the procession wind slowly down the hill.
First walks the cook, in flowing white garments, serenely radiant,
feeling that lie, has had his way as to what in his special depart-
ment should or should not be taken. Then come the other
servants, carefully attired in travelling costume — that is, for the
most part, in very tight knickerbockers, which show to the worst
advantage their skinny brown legs. The dogs bring up the rear,
a small fox terrier ' in arms,' by name ' Phos ' (or ' Phosphadine '
in full, so called after a popular but innocent ' drink '), and a
large dignified Gordon setter, ' Dell,' whose travelling raiment
consists merely of a chain and collar, and who goes off looking the
414 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
very emblem of woe, evidently firmly convinced it is for some evil
purpose.
We ourselves followed the next day, meanwhile living on the
bounty of friends, after the manner of hospitable India. The first
five miles we accomplished in a dogcart before seven o'clock in
the morning, the only excitement being a swollen river across our
road. Here I had to get out and be carried over by a stalwart
villager, while several more men, with my brother's help, care-
fully lifted the cart into the stream and up the opposite bank.
At the first stop we found our ponies, sent on the day before ;
mine a kind loan from a friend, who begged me to adhere strictly
to its name of ' Allus,' and never let it degenerate into the
common form of Alice.
The first night, after a leisurely ride of some twenty miles, we
spent at a ' dak bungalow,' or rest-house. These are shelters,
provided at intervals of about ten miles, along most much-
travelled roads in India. They contain, usually, some four to
eight rooms, furnished (!) with a bedstead and washstand each,
and a table and cupboard, with some ancient tinned eat-
ables, distinguishing the dining-room. The antique individual
frequently in charge seems at first sight closely to resemble a
shaggy old goat, but in reality he is not at all to be despised, as
he will rapidly convert one of the long-legged, skinny chickens,
which you hear so noisily giving up the ghost on your arrival, into
a very passable curry, and may even be prevailed on to supply
good hot baths.
The next day brought us, by a road of mixed red mud and
stones up to our horses' knees, to the hill station of Murree, where
with great difficulty we persuaded the native in charge of the
road and conveyances to let us have a strong sort of carriage called
a ' tonga.' This he finally did, with the doubtful permission to
drive it where we liked, the road being considered bad and
dangerous after recent rain ; but we had no time to lose, and off
we went for our goal, the town of Barmulla.
The arrangement is usually for the tonga conductor to drive
at a good easy gallop, blowing a painfully discordant horn at any
very sharp corners, and changing the two horses and their
attendant groom at every ten miles. The latter, often a veritable
study of rags and dirt, with fine dark eyes and gleaming teeth,
supports himself on the step, his services being chiefly required
in urging his charges to start. For this every plan is resorted to,
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 415
from a mere lavish expenditure of the whip and a volley of bad
language, to the proverbial lighting of a small fire beneath the
animals. They continue gaily, when once off with a tremendous
bound, until some obstacle brings them to a standstill, and the game
of surprising them into a start recommences with renewed vigour.
We, unluckily, were preceded by a Eajah, who took all "the
good ponies and left us poor little beasts, who kicked and jibbed
at every precipitous corner, with the Eiver Jhelum rushing
beneath us, and heavy rocks, hanging threateningly ready to fall,
overhead. However, we drove all day in our rickety, jolting
conveyance, feeling like jellies, in spite of all the pillows we had
provided ourselves with, and at eleven at night arrived at another
rest-house, having got over some seventy miles of the journey,
our luggage and servants following in still more primitive convey-
ances called ' ekkas.'
To our dismay, we found the house already quite full of
Englishmen. They were, however, most kind and good-humoured
over our sudden inroad. The dining-room was vacated for me,
and I soon slept the sleep of the weary, lulled by the rush of the
river into dreamless rest, though surrounded by tins of jams and
potted meats, chiefly standing on their heads, so familiar to all
Indian travellers, and which might well have formed themselves
into a substantial nightmare.
My brother found a ' shakedown ' in the verandah outside my
door, and all too soon the morning was upon us, and, leaving
Grharri, we proceeded on our way. The next piece of road had
been truly described as bad, very bad ; for a quarter of a mile
there would be no road, merely a mass of lately fallen rock, slippery
and slimy with mud, where we had to dismount and have our
ponies carefully led, while we scrambled along, transferring a
liberal amount of the surrounding yellow mud on to our clothes
and boots.
The evening brought us to Chicoti, where we dined in the
open, under a radiant starlit sky, retiring to our tents, which had
been pitched for the night, full of hope for the morrow, only to
awake to a heavy downpour, which reduced everything to a most
discouraging swamp. The only thing to do was to push on, and
a few soppy hours in a tonga brought us to the town of Barmulla,
which stands at the entrance of that part of the River Jhelum
which seems to constitute Cashmere proper ; for here the river
changes from a wild rushing stream into the broad calm expanse
41G CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
which has charmed the heart of so many seekers of repose and
beauty.
All we could see on arrival was a pile of warm-coloured
wooden houses, clustered round a long timber bridge, which was
supported on log piles, the whole backed up by mountains more
or less obliterated in mist. Unfortunately for us, the rain still
continued, and we dabbled about very wet and discouraged, as
well as hungry; for here the rest-house failed us, there being
neither stores nor chickens to be got there.
The river looked grey and sullen, though calm enough, even
for the unseaworthy boats we found ready for us. These boats
are picturesque and very fairly roomy, quite flat and shallow,
three parts tented in with matting. One was my brother's bed-
room and our sitting-room ; the two rooms we afterwards divided
by a gorgeous yellow and black tablecloth, which flapped with
primitive simplicity in every passing breeze. Another boat was
for myself and ayah, and a third for kitchen and servants. The
boatmen, three to each boat, with their wives, children, chickens,
and puppies, luckily take up very little room, living in the tail-
end of the boat, which, at its broadest part, just takes one's little
camp-bed, leaving room to turn round very circumspectly be-
tween it and the slight outer wall of hanging matting. We
found the men very talkative and amusing, though a little irritat-
ing, from a habit of always preferring to tell you anything, rather
than that which you ask about, and the womenkind do most of
the work. They row with short oars, heart-shaped at the end,
which they use with no sort of rowlock, merely making a kind of
lever with their left hands.
Early the next morning we were afloat — servants and dogs and
all our goods and chattels — the three boats keeping well together.
It ceased not to rain, and we felt very despondent at having come
so far, to sit shivering in such chilly, moist surroundings.
Fortunately this state of things did not last, and towards
evening it cleared, when we seemed suddenly transferred from a
land of mist and shadows to the golden gates of the setting sun.
Everything was bathed in colour, as over the moist sky there crept
a mantle of daffodil and gold. The glowing rays touched the tiny
fluffy clouds till they blushed and lay repeated in their rosy soft-
ness in the clear water beneath.
Deep shades of violet and blue lay across the river, checking
the stream of golden light ; and far above the banks of heavy
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 417
cloud gleamed out, clear and startling, the icy tops of mountains
clothed in fresh fallen snow. We sat rapt in wonder and solemn
admiration, till purple, crimson, and gold had melted alike into
the calm blueness of night.
The next day all the charm of the life came to us. Eowed
gently up the placid, shining river, a panorama of snowy moun-
tains all round, standing clear and sparkling against a cloudless
sky ; rustling through beds of bright yellow water-lilies and bril-
liant pink lotus flowers, with the sun softly shaded by the awnings
of matting, and the boat seeming little more than a sure footing
for the comfortable camp-chairs in which we sat, with the water
rippling so close at our sides.
We moored for breakfast under the shade of an overhanging
tree, enjoying the hot rolls and coffee, which emerged from the
kitchen boat, in our beautiful surroundings. This meal consisted
also in part of an immense fish, which we had previously met in
the water, towed by two small boys in a boat, and which for a
trifling sum, equivalent to 3d., was transferred to our larder.
This was our first experience of the renownedly inexpensive
manner of living which is certainly possible in Cashmere, when
once you have got there.
On our onward way we passed a place called Sopur, very
favourable for the capture of that big fish the ' marsea,' to judge
by the decorations on the white walls of the rest-house. Here it
was the custom for the fortunate captor of a forty- or fifty-pound
fish to note up this occurrence, together with life-size portrait of
the big prize, its weight, length of time before bite, and other
particulars ; and several noble samples had thus left their mark.
Alongside of these was one tiny specimen, of possibly half a
pound, endeavouring to swallow a huge spoon-bait, and over its
head the pathetic note, ' After five days' hard fishing ! ' The fol-
lowing day we reached the great town of Cashmere, Srinager.
II.
SRINAGER,
IT was nearly eleven in the morning before we came in sight of
the town. There being much water in the river, it made coming
up stream no easy matter. For this reason it was useless to
attempt the main street of the place — the Jhelum itself; and we
had to turn off into a more humble canal, just as the city, with
19—5
418 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
the sunlight dancing on its gilded domes and minarets, came
most attractively in sight. We, however, appreciated the wisdom
of our course, when we found what really exciting work it was,
having our heavy boats punted up against stream, especially
through bridges and round corners ; and very soon we were all
absorbed in what there was to be seen on the way.
Eickety wooden houses, many stories high, seemed to lean all
round us in every possible direction ; each unlike its neighbour
in colour and height, though nearly all with beautiful carved
shutters, hanging in picturesque angles from windows, innocent of
all other protection. In the warm sunlight, the brown and white
tones ripened into rich shades of yellow and red ; and here and
there a pale pink house, with emerald-green window frames,
threw in a strong dash of colour ; and over its neighbour's dark
carved shutters would hang strings of red tomatoes drying in the
hot sun.
Most of the houses seemed full of people, who looked out
listlessly from behind their many-coloured draperies as we passed.
Others, more curious, crowded together on overhanging verandahs,
which had absolutely 'no visible means of support,' but whose
insecurity seemed in no way to affect the laughing, chattering
group of people upon them. Every here and there the irregular
line of houses was broken by a narrow street, winding away into
almost black darkness, so sharp was the contrast between it and
its sunny surroundings.
The town seemed full of life and animation as the canal merged
into the centre street of the river. Women with great dark
wondering eyes came down flights of steep steps to fill their
earthen pitchers at the water's edge ; men passed to and fro,
rowing in gaily painted boats ; and our country men and women
mingled with the crowd, under the great poplar avenue, by the
riverside. We pitched our tents in a garden about four miles
up the stream, and the next day prepared to visit the city in a
small boat.
Srinager has six bridges crossing the Jhelum at various
intervals, and between two of these all fishing is prohibited by
the Maharajah, who nominally governs the land ; the reason given
being that the soul of a late Maharajah has passed into a fish, who
resides in this part of the river ! It seems most fortunate for
every one that his soul has been so accurately located, and it is to
be hoped, if some future Maharajah is condemned to pass into a
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 419
sheep, it will be equally cleverly individualised, as, beef being
already unattainable, owing to the cow being a sacred animal, it
would complicate existence were mutton also debarred.
Our small boat was only about four inches out of the water,
and quite flat, with a thatch of rushes overhead and no seats ; so
we reclined on cushions, after the Eastern manner, that looks so
luxurious and is so uncomfortable. The gold and silver domes,
as the city came in sight, looked very effective, and even being
told that some are covered with old kerosine-oil tins does not
detract from their glitter ; though, like many an effect in the
East, they must not be too nearly inspected if the charm is to
remain. We passed the Maharajah's palace on our way, a gaudy
unfinished building ; in exterior rather like his boats — a mixture
of red and green paint and dirt, very different from the snug,
substantially comfortable house-boats being built here by a few
enterprising Englishmen. We passed too the gates of the Dhal
lake, and saw its wonderful clear reflections, and were told of the
beautiful floating gardens upon its surface, and then came on into
the heart of the town.
Here we left our boats, and, following a guide, plunged boldly
into the confusion and crowd of one of the picturesque dirty
streets. Our way to a copper shop we wished to visit led us
through dark, evil-smelling little alleys, filled with people anxious
to press then1 goods upon us, and it was with some relief we at
last reached the house and stumbled up the obscure breakneck
staircase, which led us into the ' show-room.' A wonderful change
* O
awaited us here, as we came suddenly on masses of brilliant glow-
ing copper works, lit up by the golden rays of the setting sun.
The light streamed in through the narrow windows, and burnished
the whole room into a scene which quite dazzled our eyes after
the gloomy entrance. We were delighted with the bowls, trays,
candlesticks, and other things we found here. When we had made
our purchases, which were by no means expensive, we were offered
tea by the old bearded owner of the shop. It was quickly brought
on a copper tray of fine workmanship, quaintly out of keeping
with the very coarse, common English teacups. The sugar was
in the form of small sweetmeats, on a slender copper imitation of
a leaf, and some unwholesome-looking little cakes made up the
repast. We found the tea — known as Ladak or caravan tea —
most excellent and refreshing, and were glad of it before embark-
ing on our return journey. The setting sun had given place to
420 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
the twilight, that deepens so quickly into darkness, before we
reached our boats, and ere long the moon held gentle sway.
On our way back, we asked our boatmen to sing to us, and
while we were rowed slowly up the broad river, silvered in the
moonlight, the men broke into a wild, rugged kind of air, that
rose and fell, in measured cadence, to the sound of the heart-shaped
oars. So on we came, until the heavy shadows of the tall trees
told our camp was near, and we stepped out, leaving the gilded
domes, the placid stream, and the weird music to melt alike into
one of those scenes which yet remain with us when again in the
commonplaces of life.
Another day we went into the town to visit a manufactory of
Cashmere shawls. After a terribly unattractive approach, we
again clambered up some stairs and emerged into a large room,
full of looms, with about forty men all hard at work. One we
especially watched. He had in front of him nearly a thousand
shuttles of different shades, and out of these he would select one
and thread it through as many of the fine strands stretched
tightly before him, as his pattern directed, and after so doing he
pulled towards him a heavy bar, which pushed the last little cross
thread quite tight, before putting in the next. In old days one
man used to read out the pattern to all the rest, but now each
has his own. design on a slip of paper in front of him. It is said
that the wavy line, so often seen in these shawls, was originally
taken from the curves of the Jhelum. It took four months, we
were told, for two men to do seven inches of this work, one yard
wide, working from five in the morning till five in the evening
every' day, so it was hardly to be wondered at that two yards
should cost nearly 100£.
As we left the workroom, so glad to exchange its heated
atmosphere for a cooler breath of air, it was impossible to check
the obvious thought of the contrast such lives are to our own.
We mingled with the gaily dressed crowd gathered to see a polo
tournament, and our thoughts strayed back to that stifling room,
with its ceaseless monotony and perpetual grind, where men, more
like machines, wove hour after hour varying hues of colour into
one harmonious whole. And yet the old simile would also assert
itself, that we too, in one sense, are hour by hour working in the
tiny threads that go to make up the pattern and colour of our
lives. The whole design, however, does not lie open before us,
but is mercifully withheld by an all-wise Master-hand.
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 421
A few more days of Srinager ; a little taste of its gaieties, its
picnics and dinners, rides, and merry lounging by the riverside,
and we resolve to tear ourselves away from its ensnaring toils and
strike off into more untrodden country, there to make trial for
ourselves of those rural delights which truly make up the en-
chantment of this playground of India.
in.
THE LIDAR VALLEY.
LEAVING Srinager, we came up the river until within one day's
journey of the town of Islamabad. Here we turned abruptly
inland, and consigning our tents and belongings to the backs of
some twelve men, who also acted as guides, we mounted our
ponies and struck off in the direction of the special valley recom-
mended to us.
Once away from the river banks, we plunged into fields like
English meadows, with little running streams, gurgling and splash-
ing through them, over sunny stones. At every turn familiar simple
flowers, here luxuriantly at home, delighted our eyes. The bright
purple vetch hung like a mantle over ripening blackberries, mixed
with the fluffy whiteness and twining tendrils of the soft ' travellers'
joy.' The air was laden with sweet scents and the humming of
bees, while underfoot bright pink clover nestled deeply in the
rich grass. We pushed our way over little green bridges, through
the scented, many-coloured tangle, reining our ponies up under
the most tempting blackberries, and often dismounting to join '
the dogs in their revels in the fresh grass, drawing great breaths
of the delicious air, so cool and so balmy, until, as the shadows on
the hills melted into quiet grey, we reached our camping-ground.
We pitched our tents under thick walnut-trees, by the side of
a little stream, which the next morning's light touched with
flashes of opal and emerald, while the deeper pools yet lay in
their purple robe of night. A delicious sense of calm came to us
as we sat writing and resting all day outside our tents. The falling
of the ripe walnuts and the soft lowing of cows in the distance were
the only sounds, that ' make the silence here, which they disturb
not, more complete.'
Pleasant as this is to us, not long from home, picture for an
instant what it is to those who have but lately left the stifling
office in the plain ! There, where the long hot day drags out its
422 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
weary hours ; where, perhaps, the monotonous voice of the native
reader murmurs through pages of cases, while crowds of waiting
turbaned witnesses sit round on the floor, adding to the heated
atmosphere, which the punkah does little more than agitate.
Round the table sit the greater natives, who aspire to the dignity
of a chair, which dignity they often find it impossible to sustain,
and as they grow weary tuck up their feet on the chair tailor-
fashion, and take a fresh start. The Indian civilian sits at his
table, in shirt-sleeves perhaps, striving to think clearly, in this
suffocating atmosphere, with the thermometer at 90°, the drowsy
reading, the subdued glare, and the buzzing of flies. From
outside the voice of the brain-fever bird, shrieking in merciless
discordance, always a note or two higher than the last, till he
begins his scale again, penetrates through the tightly closed and
shaded windows.
All round stretches the parched land, brown and barren, as far
as the eye can reach. Avenues of trees, some with great glaring
flowers, covered with dust, mark out the hot white roads. Here,
in the brief interval between the long-delayed setting of their
enemy, the sun, and the darkness that so quickly follows, the pale
dwellers in the plain seek refreshment and change ; but the whole
earth appears exhausted with what it has endured, and there
is no life nor freshness for mind or eye. Then comes the hot
night, which every possible means still fails to render endurable,
and which only serves to usher in another day.
Think what it is to leave surroundings such as these, and
after three or four days' journey to be able, at any time in the day,
to canter your horse over green meadows, with a fresh wind
blowing straight from the snow ; to exchange flaunting blossoms
in dusty coats of red and yellow for the delicate-scented clover
and daisies underfoot ; the brown unwatered plain for deep rich
grass and babbling streams ; and the shrieks of the ' hot-weather
birds ' for the soft lowing of cows !
Towards evening my brother went off shooting, and found this
peaceful spot a very happy hunting-ground for that wily and
excellent bird the ' chikor,' and early next morning we had to tear
ourselves away from this abode of peace and plenty and proceed
on our journey.
Our path led on by the side of a most refreshing mountain
stream, that dashed and splashed over rocks and boulders, making
great waterfalls on its way, playfully throwing the bright spray
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 423
into the sunlight, and flashing shades of turquoise and green, like
a necklace of many-coloured gems.
About lunch-time we came in sight of one icy peak of per-
petual snow, and, after doing ample justice to the contents of the
large luncheon-basket, from which we found it deepest wisdom
never to be separated, we rode slowly on to our halting-place, the
village of Pailgaum. Here we made a change, as the road ahead
was little more than a track ; so, leaving our heavy luggage, we
reduced ourselves to two tents, beds, and bedding (with an extra
garment or two concealed in their folds), one washing apparatus,
consisting of indiarubber basin and bath, and our cooking utensils,
and, leaving the ponies and my ayah, proceeded on our way with
the cook and two men-servants and a very thinned following of
carriers.
The large lunch-basket, with eatables and sketching materials,
occupied a prominent position on the head of one man, who had
strict orders never to leave us.
Almost the best part of our trip was this walk, doing about
ten miles a day in easy stages ; the secret of success being, I am
certain, never to get tired or faint for want of food. I found great
comfort in wearing the boot of the country, called ' chuplies,' a
neat leather covering like a glove, lacing very high and quite
soft-fitting, and over this leather sock sandals fastened firmly on
by straps. They were not only so easy to walk in, but also a real
cause of safety, when crossing the many slippery trees doing duty
for bridges and the rocky edges that we often came to. Our plan
of action was to be up at six and have our early breakfast of tea
and eggs in the open, while our tents were being struck. The
dogs at this hour were always well to the front, and soon acquired
a taste for hot tea and eggs too. Then we all started off, feeling
very fresh and vigorous, the terrier often suspended to poor patient
Dell's ear for the first half-mile in the exuberance of its spirits.
About nine o'clock we would begin to look out for a pretty and
suitable place to breakfast in. Here we boiled the kettle and had
a really substantial meal of cold game and eggs and sardines,
with plenty of home-made bread and jam. It is always easy to
get good milk in Cashmere, and one's servants make excellent
fresh butter by shaking it in a bottle. One day, by merely letting
a mule carry a large tin of milk over a very rough road, we found
we had a plentiful supply of impromptu butter on arrival !
We very often stopped in the course of our morning's walk for
424 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
shooting or sketching, and so sometimes lunched on the way, at
others arriving at our destined camping-ground before two o'clock.
Our first march landed us in a high valley or ' Merg,' as these
plateaux are called, where smooth stretches of grass run up between
steep cliffs and rocks much like English downs. It was distinctly
cold, as we had come up some hundreds of feet ; and the next day
— fortunately, before the sun rose — we ascended to the height of
13,000 feet, by what was called ' The Jump of the Fleas,' a steep,
almost sheer ascent.
Here all was changed, and we sat down to breakfast face to
face, as it seemed, with the great snow mountains, which appeared
so near that they almost took our breath away. We strolled
on to the great lake which lies hidden away up here, and were
thrilled into silence by the strange unearthliness of the whole
scene. All round there was no sign of vegetation or life of any
sort, only the great snow mountains in their solemn grandeur
towering one above the other, and the still, unruffled lake of
milky blue, some distance beneath our feet. We were aroused
from our contemplation of these snowy guards, with one peak
17,000 feet high, reaching the water's edge in one unbroken line
of glacier, by the sudden apparition of a wild-looking Cashmere
man. He was dressed in an old leather coat, from which the
natural hair lining hung in shreds and tags, only matched by his
own unkempt locks. He was leading a small unwilling sheep,
which he was anxious we should make our own for the sum of one
rupee, and which we accordingly added to our moving larder.
As soon as the sun showed signs of retiring, we followed its
example, and buttoned up our tents as tight as possible, all except
a small hole, through which the steaming dishes were passed when
the hour of dinner came. We feared it would be a work of diffi-
culty to keep warm during the night, and my brother generously
proposed to ' swop dogs ' — that is, that I should have the soft, long-
haired setter on my bed, instead of my usual small companion,
Phos — the result of the arrangement being that I had both dogs.
The next morning at six o'clock, we were all very actively super-
intending the cooking of our breakfast, in reality trying to obtain
a little warmth from the fire, as it was bitterly cold.
Our way led at once over a natural ^snow bridge, with running
water underneath, which had cut the snow into sharp outlines, so
that a side view looked like the purest marble. The surface was
brown and rough, and had no appearance of being solid snow, but
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 425
took several minutes to cross. We soon came in sight of the
famous place of pilgrimage called Amarnauth. Here hundreds of
pilgrims, at one time of year, flock to visit a holy man, said to
be living in a cave at this awful elevation. The track of the
pilgrims is distinctly marked by the miniature ' Stonehenges ' they
build along the way.
The peak of Amarnauth stands well, closing, as it were, a
double range of snow-clad mountains, with one jagged peak rising
clear against the sky.
As we walked on, all seemed to become more appallingly black
and barren, the rocks looking as if upheaved, and left with their
sharp rough edges, which pricked and hurt if one rested one's
hand upon them, and appeared all in keeping with the cruel,
lifeless country. We grew weary, in spite of the refreshment of
snow and apricot jam, as one corner after another only disclosed
the same black hardness, thrown into intense relief, here and
there, by the drifts of untrodden snow.
Suddenly, as we clambered wearily round yet another point,
we found it was the last that shut out the glorious valley beneath,
and with infinite joy and exultation saw we had only a long
descent to be once more in that glowing prospect of life and
beauty. All the near hills below us were clothed in juniper and
fir, and over the distant ones the warm shades of brown and purple
rested our tired eyes. We had still a descent of some thousands
of feet before us, which was anything but pleasant. Sliding and
sinking down the steep incline, we often found ourselves slipping
with the shifting shale, and thankful to reach the bottom at last
and rest in the fresh green grass. Lovely little flowers were
springing up all round — edelweiss, gentians, and anemones, and
many others unknown to us, set in a warm reddish moss, that
seemed the first to dispute the place with the snow.
While the day was yet young we set our camp in the peaceful
valley of Astonmerg, on the banks of a gurgling little brook.
After enjoying the luxury of a leisurely readjustment of garments
and prolonged interview with the wobbly indiarubber tub, we
emerged from our respective tents for tea, feeling much refreshed.
For the rest of the day, however, we were content to admire very
gently the rushing little stream and bask in the restful warmth.
We then made our way back through fir forests, with occa-
sional glimpses of snowy heights, which seemed familiar old friends
to us ; and distant visions of sharp jagged peaks, which had not
426 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
left such pleasant recollections in our minds, and very soon we
reached Pailgaum. Here we found our men and animals all safe,
and, with the exception of a detour to see the ancient ruins of the
temple at Martund, came back by the same route, only finding
our boats at Islamabad. We arrived just in time, as a heavy
thunderstorm and pouring rain at once set in ; and draughty and
disconsolate though the boats seemed, banging wearily one against
the other in the wind, we were thankful to have reached their
friendly shelter before this outburst of the elements.
IV.
THE EETURN.
OUR stay at Islamabad was short, as the fishing was not pro-
pitious, owing to the many good, but unsatisfactory, reasons
furnished at the shortest notice by the inhabitants of the place.
The other delights consisted chiefly in trying the many sorts of
apples growing on the trees under which our camp was pitched,
but of these we soon tired, and my brother resolved to accept the
invitation of a Rajah to go and shoot bears on our return journey.
Pretty soon we were drifting lazily down the river to Srinager
again. After a little dip of its gaieties, we once more floated away,
getting many a sketch and pleasant little expedition after snipe on
our onward course. At Barmulla we bade a sad farewell to the
river and our attendant boatmen, who, in the manner that came
to them so easily, loaded us with pretty speeches and desires that
we might meet again. My only attempt at some suitable rejoinder
was not quite successful, as on their hoping fervently that I might
once more return and command their faithful services, I remarked
that such things were in the hands of 'Kismet' — Fate; but I
unfortunately said ' Kishmish ' instead, which signifies ' almonds
and raisins,' and wondered a little why the point of my neatly
turned sentence seemed lost to them.
My pony — the beautiful ' Allus' — was now found to have slightly
injured her foot, and an ' understudy ' had to be found. A small
creature was speedily brought on hire, the owner assuring me that
it was an especially good animal. It wore a small piece of the
Koran in a little boxlike locket round its neck, and we were told
that it had been dangerously ill, but a wise man had given it this
charm for two rupees, and it had never been sick or sorry since.
Whether due to the influence of the Koran or not, it carried me
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 427
very safely and well, and the next day we reached the place near
which our Rajah host lived.
Here we found a friend, who told us that, though not there
himself, the Rajah had sent his brother-in-law to entertain us, and
he would have lunch ready for us on our arrival. This was about
twelve o'clock, and one of the servants from the house assured us
it was a very short ride from where we were, and we set off under
his guidance. Very soon we found it impossible to ride our
animals up the sides of the rock, which called itself the road, and
every time we asked how much more, it was always a little, only
a very little further. It was nearly four o'clock before we arrived !
We found it was a long five miles, all uphill, and by this time we
were very hungry, and hoping that the promised lunch would
prove no myth.
The brother-in-law, a thin, good-looking man, received us, and
pointed out the two large tents pitched for us, on magnificent
Persian carpets, a little below the Rajah's own house. A table,
on a striped carpet under the trees, with a neat white cloth on it,
cheered our drooping spirits, and we began to hope for some food
at last, though luckily our cook and ' cuisine ' were following.
We sat down to the table, and a servant appeared with some apples
and walnuts on a tray, which rather alarmed us in our present
state of hunger ; then came some flat brown cakes, known as
] ' chapatties,' only these were of a superior — that is, extra greasy —
• description ; and then followed some small sugary biscuits and
some tea. And this was the lunch ! It was not all we had hoped
for, but the tea was excellent, and the cups pretty china with no
j handles. After making the best of our meal, the Rajah's little
son was brought to see us. He was a very handsome child, of
about seven, with a small cousin by way of companion. Both
boys were very dirty, with gorgeous gold-and-red embroidered
coats, evidently hastily put on, regardless of the state of things
underneath. They had brilliant flame-coloured puggarees, which
suited their sombre colouring to perfection, and the face of the
little son was a perfect picture in its round dark contour, with
a well-shaped mouth and soft large eyes. He brought some
money, which we had to touch, being part of their ceremony of
- welcome. Then, seizing their attendants' hands, they galloped off,
evidently very anxious to be relieved of their grand clothing.
Our host did not appear very much" at ease in our presence,
though we tried to seem pleased with everything, but hung about
428 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
in a melancholy way, until he woke into sudden animation on the
subject of guns, and thawed completely after the present of some
cartridges.
The next day I did not go to the bear hunt with my brother
and his friend, who started off with our host, but I asked instead
if I might visit the ladies in the Eajah's house. After some
demur I was granted permission, and two chairs having been
fetched from our camp, the little boys escorted me up. They had
previously made great friends with me, by the help of a coloured
puzzle, which I finally presented to them, to their great delight.
We did not go to the big house itself, but turned into a smaller one
standing quite near. Here I found myself in a long dark room,
with heavy carvings all round and a carpet at one end. The Eani,
and mother of the small boy, advanced to meet me, and taking me
by the hand led me to one of the two chairs planted on the carpet,
and we sat down. She was a pretty, graceful-looking woman,
with almond-shaped eyes, dressed in soft clinging white-and-gold
draperies, with very few jewels. There were other women in the
room, and many more kept crowding to the door, which led
further into the house, and I think to many of them it was their
first sight of a white lady ; but our conversation was very limited,
as the Rani's dialect was unlike even the little Hindustani I knew.
I was very grateful to the small boys during this rather try-
ing interview, as they were not at all shy, but leant on my lap
and showed me off to the Eani, quite as their friend. We then
had tea in the little cups with no handles, and it was some time
before I gathered that until I turned my cup upside down an
attendant continued to fill it. I then sang a little to my guitar,
which I had brought with me, and delighted both the mother
and the boys by letting them touch it, and after this, finding I
could converse so little with her, I took my departure, not at all
sure if the lady was pleased or otherwise with my visit. The
boys escorted me to our camp, and all the little cakes and sultanas,
which had been left from the tea, were brought down as a gift to
me. I was showing the children some sketches a few minutes after
my return, when a message was brought from the Eani, to say she
had so enjoyed my visit, would I return at once ? I pictured to
myself what would happen if we conducted our calls in this
fashion at home, but, being decidedly more at leisure than one is
usually when ' calling,' I went back, taking my sketches and
feeling very sure of my welcome this time.
CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE. 429
I was again escorted across the carpet and introduced to two new
comers — daughters, I think, of the Kajah — pretty girls of sixteen
or seventeen, but so painfully shy that if I even looked in their
direction, as they sat on the floor, they at once covered their faces
with their white muslin draperies. The Kani looked at the sketches,
but I was very uncertain what they conveyed to her, knowing
that the native mind has frequent difficulties in deciding whether
the subject is a man or a horse ; but she was thoroughly delighted
with a photograph of myself I gave her. Altogether my visit
was a much longer one on this occasion, and as I went back to the
O *
camp, the sportsmen returned, carrying with them an immense
black bear, which they had hung by his paws to a pole, that I
might see him before he was taken off to be skinned and prepared.
It was amusing to watch the fury of the dogs at their first sight
of this monster, whose big paws looked like huge hairy hands.
Since the arrival of our cook and kitchen pots, we had fared
exceedingly well here, the Kajah's people bringing us sheep and
fruit and cakes and milk, and presenting us with a large goose,
which must have belonged to a succession of Eajahs, so hope-
lessly tough did we find it.
The next day of our stay I went out to 'assist' (only in the
French sense of the word) at the next bear hunt. Our host, my
brother, his friend, and I, all started out single file, up a little
path, followed by a mass of men-servants and retainers of every
sort. News had been brought, early in the morning, that some
bears had been discovered, and a kind of rough beat had been
formed. When we reached the place we found it was a beautiful
one in every respect. The small dry bed of a river lay between
us and the sloping side of a hill, partly covered with trees and
undergrowth. My brother and party took up their positions on
the path on our side of the river, and I went a little above them,
surrounded by the Eajah's followers.
It was rather exciting waiting, as we could hear the shouts of
the men as they pushed through the wood and the shrill barking
of the dogs employed, and every now and then a gruff, deep sort
of bark told us some bear was objecting to all this disturb-
ance. After waiting about an hour, with many false alarms,
which always proved to be men or small dogs, suddenly a great
big black bear hurriedly broke through the wood and came
shuffling down the bank, facing towards us and the dry river bed.
The excitement round me was terrific, the men dancing and
430 CAMP LIFE IN CASHMERE.
shouting and patting me on the arm, begging me to look and see
the bear, which would have been hard to miss indeed. Before
the poor old fellow had time to reach the bottom of the slope, my
brother's rifle had knocked him over, and he fell heavily into the
broad ditch at the bottom, lying on his back with his big paws in
the air, showing a fine white collar under his neck. Very soon
after the excitement of this one had subsided, and we were
beginning to think of lunch, a much larger one suddenly dis-
closed itself, and we all ran some distance to where it was, arriving
quite breathless, just in time to see a huge black mass pushing
rapidly in and out of the trees, only appearing at intervals. This
one, unfortunately, got away altogether, in spite of a succession of
shots from trembling hands, for a long run, and the wild excite-
ment of the natives, is not calculated to make any one very calm.
It was most disappointing not to get this bear at all, though
it was pursued a long way, and, as is always the case with the un-
attainable, it was considered the only bear worth mentioning, and
had reached gigantic proportions by the time we returned to camp.
We had our lunch at the scene of this disappointment, on the
crest of a hill, looking down a beautiful valley, over which soft
mists came rolling up, 'And Autumn laying, here and there,
a fiery finger on the leaves,' threw a bright dash of colour
into the trees, while on every point feathery tall grasses swayed
and bowed in the breeze. But to most of those present it was
merely the valley where we lost the bear.
The next day we said good-bye to our host, and I made my
farewell visit to the ladies, and we started off with our big bear-
skin. A week's slow marching, at about ten miles a day, brought
us back, with few incidents, to the little station we had left only
two months before, and very soon we were deep in the delights of
returning to home comforts.
As we looked back on our successful trip, we realised what a
land of variety we had just left. What contrasts we had seen !
Smiling valleys and barren mountains. Srinager, with its regattas
and races, smart frocks and merry meetings, and the wilds, un-
trodden by the foot of man or beast ; the ' Dolce far niente ' of life in
the boats, and the hard marching and possible pursuit of big game.
Whatever may be the need or desire, Cashmere can satisfy it.
Whether gaieties or solitude, nature or ancient art, idleness or the
satisfaction of hard endeavour, all can be gratified to the full in
the land that literally ' floweth with milk and honey.'
431
THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
CHAPTER I.
* To be content,' said the carrier, * that is half the battle. If I
have said it to one, I have said it to a hundred. " You be content,"
says I, "and you will be all right."'
For the first time, though they had plodded on a full mile
together, the tall gentleman turned his eyes from the sombre
moorland which stretched away on either side of the road, and
looked sharply at his companion. In the preoccupation of his
gaze hitherto there had been something strange, though the
carrier, lapped in his own loquacity, had not felt it ; and there
had been, to tell the truth, something still more strange in the
tall gentleman's behaviour before his meeting with Master Nick-
eon. He had now raced along the road and now loitered ; some-
times he had stood stock still, letting his eyes stray over the dark
masses of heather, which here and there lay islanded in a sea of
brown marsh grass ; and again he had sauntered onwards, his hat
in his hand and his face turned up to the grey sky, which hung
low over the waste, and had yet the breadth of a fen cloudscape.
Whatever the eccentricity of his lonely movements, his tall hat
and fluttering frock-coat had seemed to exaggerate it.
At length on the summit of one of the ridges over which the
road ran he had made a more decided halt, and begun to look
nervously about him to right and left, seeking, or so it seemed,
for a track across the moss. At this point he had caught sight
of the carrier plodding up the next ridge at the tail of his cart.
Thereupon he had done what was natural enough ; he had started
hurriedly down the hill after the carrier. But it was not so
natural that, having almost overtaken him, he should slacken his
pace and loiter as if his desire for human company had died
suddenly away. He had even paused once as though to return.
But a glance at the desolate waste had determined him. He had
moved forward again, and in the end he had overtaken and fallen
to talking with the carrier. The latter on his part had been
nothing loth to bear the burden of conversation, and had readily
432 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
set down everything that was odd in the stranger's bearing to the
cause which satisfactorily accounted for his costume. The tall
gentleman was a Londoner.
* " You be content," says I,' quoth the old fellow again, his com-
panion's tardy attention encouraging him to repeat his statement,
* " and you will be all right." I have told that to hundreds in my
time.'
'And you practise it ypurself?' The tall gentleman's voice
was rather hoarse. His eyes, now that they had found their way
to the other's face, continued to dwell on it with a hungry gleam
in their depths which matched the pallor of his features. His
forehead was high, his face long and thin, and yet again abnormally
lengthened by a dark brown beard which hid the working of his
lips. A nervous man meeting his gaze might have had strange
thoughts, but the carrier's were country nerves, and proof against
anything short of electricity.
' Oh, yes, I am pretty well content,' Nickson answered sturdily.
' I have twenty acres of land from the duke, and I turn a penny
with the carrying, going into Sheffield twice a week, rain and
shine. Then I have as good a wife as ever kissed her man, and
neither chick nor child, and no more than three barren ewes this
lambing.'
' My Grod ! ' said the stranger.
The words seemed wrung from him by the violence of a sudden
emotion, but whether the feeling was intense envy of the man's
innocent joys, or the deepest disgust at his simplicity, did not
appear. Whatever the feeling, the tall gentleman showed an
immediate consciousness that he had excited his companion's
astonishment. He began to talk rapidly, even gesticulating a
little. * But is there no drawback ? ' he said — * no bitter in your
life, man? This long journey — ten — eleven miles, is it? — and
the same journey home again ? Do you never find it cold, hot,
dreary, intolerable ?'
( It is cold enough sometimes, and hot enough sometimes,' the
carrier replied heartily. * But dreary ? — never I And cold and heat
are but skin deep, you know.'
The tall gentleman let his head fall again on his breast, and
for some distance walked on in silence. The carrier whistled to
his horse, the monotonous cry of a peewit came shrilling across
the moor, one wheel of the cart squeaked loudly for grease. The
evening was grey and still, and rain impended.
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 433
f It is all downhill after this,' said Nickson presently, point-
ing to the sky-line, now less than a hundred yards ahead. * You
see that stone there, sir?' he continued, stopping short, and
pointing with his whip to a stone lying a little off the road.
His companion stopped too. * There was a man died in the snow
just there. Three years back it would be. I went by him myself
for a whole month and more, and took him for a dead sheep. At
last a keeper passing that way turned him over with his foot, and
—well, he was a sad sight, poor chap, by that time.'
The carrier should have been pleased with the effect his story
produced, for the stranger shuddered. His face even seemed a
shade paler, but this might be the effect of the evening light.
He did not make any comment, however, and the two stepped out
again, and soon overtook the horse which had stopped on the
summit of the ridge. Here the moor fell away on every side — a
dark sweep of waste bounded by uncouth elephant-backs of hills,
that rose shapeless and monotonously grey, with never a graceful
outline or soaring peak to break the horizon.
* You will take a lift down the hill, sir? 'the carrier asked,
gathering up his reins and preparing to mount. ' I am light
to-day.'
' No, I think not, I thank you,' the stranger answered jerkily.
* You are very welcome, if you will,' persisted the carrier.
* No, I think not. I think I will walk,' the tall gentleman
answered. But he still stood, and still watched the other's pre-
parations with strange intentness. Even when Nickson, having
wished him good day, drove briskly off, he continued to gaze after
the cart until a dip in the descent — no long way below — swallowed
it up. Then he heaved a deep sigh, and looked round him at the
grey sky and darkening heath. He took off his hat.
' Hold up ! what is the matter with the mare ? ' cried the
carrier violently, coming to a full stop the moment, as it chanced ,
that the dip in the road concealed him from the other's eyes-.
* She has picked up a stone, drat it ! '
He got down stiffly, and taking his knife from his pocket went
to the mare's head. Removing the stone he dropped the hoof,
and stood a second while he closed the knife. In this momentary
pause and silence there came to his ear a sharp report like that
of a gun, but brisker and less loud. It was difficult to suppose
it the sound of a snapping stick, or of one stone struck against
another. Whatever it was, Master Nickson climbed hastily to his
VOL. XXI. — NO. 124, N.S. 20
434 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
seat again and drove on until he was clear of the dip. Then he
palled up, and, swearing at himself for an old fool, looked anxiously
back at the top of the ridge, which had now come into view again.
He was looking for the tall gentleman. But the latter was
nowhere to be seen, either standing black against the sky-line
or moving on the intervening road. ( Lord's sakes ! ' the carrier
muttered uneasily, ' what has become of him ? He cannot have
gone back!'
He continued to stare for a full minute at the place where the
stranger should have been. Then, giving way to a sudden con-
viction borne in upon his mind, he jumped nimbly from his cart,
and, leaving it standing, hurried back on foot through the dip, and
so to the top of the ridge. The ascent was steep, and he was
breathing heavily when he reached the summit and cast his eyes
round. No, the tall gentleman was nowhere to be seen. The
marsh grass and heather stretched away on this side and that,
broken by no human figure. Not even a rabbit was visible on the
long white strip of road that in the far distance was growing hazy
with the fall of night.
* The devil ! ' said the carrier, shuddering, and feeling more
lonely than he had ever felt in his life. * Then he has gone,
and '
He stopped. His eyes had lit on a dark bundle of clothes
lying a little aside from the road between two clumps of heather.
Just a bundle of clothes it seemed, but Master Nickson drew in
his breath sharply at sight of it. The peewits and curlews had
gone to rest. There was not a sound to be heard on the whole
wide moor, save the beating of his own heart.
He would have given pounds to drive on with a clear con-
science, and yet he forced himself to go up to the huddled form,
and to turn it over so that the face was exposed, There was a
pistol lying near the right hand, and behind the right ear there
was a small, a very small hole, from which the blood was welling
sluggishly. Kound this the skin was singed and blackened. The
eyes were closed, and the pale face, thoughtful and almost placid,
was scarcely disfigured.
Suddenly Master Nickson fell on his knees. * Dang me, if I
do not think he is alive !' he whispered. ' Ay, he breathes !'
Convinced of it, the carrier sprang to his feet a different man.
He lost not a moment in bringing up his cart to the spot and
lifting the insensible form into it. Then he led the horse back
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 435
to the road, and started gingerly down the hill again. * It is a
mercy it happened right at the doctor's door,' he muttered pre-
sently, as he turned off the road into a track or ride which seemed
to lead through the heather to nowhere in particular. * If he lives
five minutes longer he will be in good hands.'
A stranger would have wondered where the doctor lived, for
there was no sign of a house to be seen. But when the wheels
had rolled noiselessly over the sward a hundred yards or so a faint
curl of smoke became visible, rising apparently from the ground
in front. A few more paces brought the tops of trees to view, and
then nestling among them the gables of an old stone house,
standing below the surface of the moss in a gully or ravine, that
here began to run down from the watershed towards Bradfield
and the Loxley. The track Nickson was following led to a
white gate, which seemed to be the entrance to this upland
demesne.
The carrier found assistance sooner than he had expected.
Leaning against the inner side of the gate, with her back to him,
was a tall girl. She was bending over a fiddle, drawing from it
wailing sounds that suited well with the waste behind her and
the fading light. Her head swayed in time, her elbow moved
swiftly. She did not hear the wheels, and he had to call, ' Whisht !
Miss Pleasance, whisht ! ' before she heard and turned.
He could see little of her face, for in the hollow the light was
almost gone, but her voice as she cried, l Is that you, Nickson ?
Have you something for us ? ' rang out so cheerily that it strung
his nerves anew.
* Yes, miss,' he answered. * But it is your father I want. I
have got a man who has been hurt here '
4 What ? In the cart ? ' she cried. She stepped forward and
would have looked in. But he was before her.
1 Ne, miss, you fetch your father ! ' he said sharply. * It is
just a matter of minutes, maybe. You fetch him here, please.'
She understood now, and turned and sped away through the
shrubbery, and across the little rivulet and the lawn. In five
minutes the grey house, standing gaunt and lifeless in the gloam-
ing, was aroused. Lights were flitting from window to window,
and servants calling to one another. Tae surgeon, a tall, florid,
elderly man, with drooping white moustaches, came out, having
snatched up one or two necessary things. The groom hastened
after him with a candle. Only Pleasance, the messenger of ill
20—2
436 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
news, whom her father had bidden stay in the house, seemed to
have nothing to do in the confusion. She laid down her violin
and bow, and stood in the darkness of the outer room — it was half
hall, half parlour — listening and wondering.
The sound of slow footsteps crunching the gravel outside pre-
sently warned her that the man was to be brought into the house.
She heard her father direct the other bearers to make for his
room, which was on the left of the hall, and her face grew a shade
paler as the men stumbled with their burden through the doorway.
There is something monstrous to the unaccustomed in limbs which
fall lifeless and inert, or stick out stiff and stark and white in
ghastly prominence. She half averted her face as the group
passed her, and yet managed to touch the groom's sleeve. ' What
is it, Daniel ? ' she whispered.
'He has been shot, miss,' the servant answered. He was
enjoying himself immensely, if the truth be told.
She had no time to ask more. The door was shut upon her,
and she was left alone with her curiosity. She wondered how it
had happened, for this was not the shooting season, and Nickson
had spoken of the man as a stranger. Therefore he was not one
of the keepers. She pondered over the problem until the maids,
who were too strongly excited to stay in their own quarters, came
into the room with lights. Then she stepped outside, and stood
on the gravel listening to the murmur of the brook, and looking
at the old sundial which gleamed white on the lawn.
She had been there no more than a minute when the doctor,
as every one in those parts called him, came out with Nickson,
and carefully pulling the door close behind him — an extraordinary
precaution for one who was usually the most easy-going of men —
laid his hand on his companion's shoulder. * Why did he do it,
my man ? ' he asked in a low, impressive voice, which was not free
from tremor. * Can you tell me ? Have you no idea ? He is
dressed as a gentleman, and he has a gold watch and money in his
pockets.'
Their eyes were unaccustomed to the darkness, and they did
not see her, though she was well within earshot, and at this
moment was listening with growing apprehension. * It beats me
to say, sir,' was Nickson's answer — 'that it does. If you will
believe me, sir, he was talking to me, just before he did it, as
reasonably as ever man in my life.'
' Then what the devil was it ? '
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 437
* That is what I think, sir,' the carrier answered, nodding in
the darkness.
« What ? '
' It was just the devil, sir.'
6 Pshaw ! ' the doctor returned pettishly. * Are you sure he
did it himself at all, man ? '
* Ay, as sure as I could be of anything ! ' the carrier answered
positively. * There was not a human creature barring myself
within half a mile of him when the pistol went off — no, nor could
have been ! '
* Well,' said the doctor, after a pause and in a tone of vexa-
tion, 'it is no good bringing in the police unless he dies, and
I do not think he will. He has had a wonderful escape. I sup-
pose you will not go blabbing it about, Nickson ? *
* Heaven forbid ! ' the carrier replied, and after a few more
words took his leave.
They went without discovering the listener, and she slipped
back into the lighted hall and stood there shivering. The dark-
ness without frightened her. It seemed to hold some secret of
despair. Even in the familiar old-fashioned room, in which every
faded rug and dusty folio and mouldering specimen had its word
of everyday life for her, she found an object of fear in the closed
door which led to her father's room. She shrank from turning
her back upon it. She kept glancing askance at it. She could
not meet her father's eye when he came to supper, and he must
have noticed her strangeness had he not been deeply absorbed
himself in the riddle presented to him, in thoughts of his
patient's case, and perhaps in some painful train of meditation
induced by it. Such questions as his daughter put he answered
absently, and he ate in the same manner, breaking off once to
visit his charge. It was only when the preparations for the night
were complete, when the maids had retired, and Pleasance was
waiting candlestick in hand to say good night, that he spoke out.
' When is Woolley coming back ? ' he asked with a groan.
' The twenty-eighth, father,' she answered quietly. She be-
trayed no surprise at the question, though it was one he could
have answered for himself. Woolley was his assistant, and was
absent now on a holiday tour.
He stood silent a moment. His tone was querulous, his eye
wandering when he spoke next. *I thought — I did think that
we might have had this little bit to ourselves, Pleasance,' he
438 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
complained. He seemed shrunken. His fierce moustaches and his
florid colour failed now to hide his weakness of fibre — moral fibre.
He looked years older than when he had bent with professional
alertness over his patient. Something in the latter's strange case
had come home to him and unmanned him. l This little bit,' he
continued, looking at her wistfully, ( though it be the last, girl.'
1 It will not be the last, father,' she answered, shutting her
lips firmly and meeting his look without flinching. ' We shall
stay together whatever happens.'
' Ay, but where, child ? ' he cried with sudden passion, throw-
ing out his hands as though he were appealing to the dumb
things around him — * where ? Can you transplant me, do you
think ? I am too old. I have lived here too long — I and my
fathers before me for six generations, though I am but a broken
country apothecary — for me to take root elsewhere ! Why, girl '-
his voice rose higher — * there is not a stone of this old place,
not a tree, that I do not know, that I do not love, that I would
not rather own than a mile of streets ! ' ,
To her surprise he broke down and turned away to hide the
tears in his eyes — tears which it pained her deeply to see. She
knew how weak he was, and what cause she had to blame him in
this matter. But his tears disarmed her, and she laid her hand
on his and stroked it tenderly. ' How much do you owe Mr.
Woolley, father ? ' she said presently, when he seemed to have
recovered himself.
* Three thousand pounds,' he answered, almost sullenly.
He had never told her before, and she was appalled. ' It is a
large sum,' she said, slowly looking at the faded cushions on the
deep window-seats, the fly-blown prints, the well-worn furniture,
which made the room picturesque indeed, but shabby. 'What
can have become of it all ? '
He made a reckless gesture with his hand — he had still his
back towards her — as though he were flinging something from
him.
She sighed. She had not meant to reproach him, for economy
was not one of her own strong points ; and she remembered bills
owing as well as bills paid, and many a good intention falsified.
No, she could not reproach him, and she chose to look at the
matter from another side. ' It is a great deal of money,' she said
again. ' Would he really let all that go if— just to marry me ? '
' To be sure ! ' her father said briskly. ' That is,' he con-
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 439
tinned, his conscience pricking him, < it would be the same thing
then, you see. The place would come to him anyway.'
4 1 see,' she answered dryly. She was always pale — though it
was a warm paleness — but there were dark shadows under her
eyes now. They were grey eyes, generally frank and resolute,
now sad and scornful also. As she sat upright in a high-backed
chair, with the forgotten candle in her hand and her gaze fixed on
vacancy, she seemed to be gazing at the Skeleton of the House.
It was a skeleton which she and her father kept for the most part
locked up. Possibly it had never been brought so completely to
view before.
* You will think of it ? ' the doctor ventured presently, stealing
a glance at her.
' I may think till Doomsday,' she answered wearily. * I shall
never do it.'
' Why not ? ' he persisted. * What have you against him ? '
* Only one thing.'
* What is that ? ' He drew himself up, and a gleam of hope
sparkled in his eyes as he pressed the question. A definite accu-
sation he might combat and refute ; even a prejudice he might
overcome. He prepared himself for the effort. * What is that ? '
he repeated.
* I do not love him, father,' she said. * I almost think I hate him.
* So do I ! ' sighed the doctor, sinking suddenly into himself
again. Alas for his preparations !
CHAPTER II.
IT was characteristic of both Pleasance and her father — par-
ticularly characteristic of the latter — that when they met at
the breakfast table next morning they ignored without an effort
the trouble which had seemed so overwhelming at midnight. The
•doctor was constitutionally careless. It was his nature to live
from day^to day plucking the flowers alongside his path, without
giving a thought to the direction in which the path was leading
him. Pleasance was careless too, but with a difference. She
d'id not shut her eyes to the prospect, but she was young and
sanguine, and she looked forward confidently — of a morning at
•any rate — to a way of escape being found. So the doctor gazed
through the window as cheerfully as if his title-deeds had been his
440 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
very own, and if Pleasance felt any misgivings, they related
rather to the man lying in the next room than to her own case.
* How is he, father ? ' she asked, when the usual greetings
had passed between them. * Have you been kept awake much ? '
The doctor had spent the night on a sofa in order to be near the
stranger.
* He is not conscious,' Doctor Partridge answered, ' but I think
the brain is recovering from the shock, and if all goes well he
should come to himself in a few hours.' Pleasance shuddered.
Her father, however, did not notice it, and went on : * He ought not
to be left alone though, and I must see my patients. It is use-
less to ask the servants to stay with him — they are as nervous as
hares. So you must sit with him for an hour or two after break-
fast, Pleasance. There is no help for it.'
* I ? ' she said with a start.
' Yes, to be sure ; why not ? ' he answered lightly. * You are
not afraid, I suppose ? There is really nothing to be done, and
Daniel can be within call.'
She gulped down her fears and assented quietly. She was a
good girl, though she could not keep the housekeeping bills —
nor her own bills, for the matter of that — within bounds. She
was used to a somewhat lonely life — Sheffield lay nine miles away,
and there were few neighbours on the moorland — and her nerves
had been braced by many a long ramble over the ling and
bracken, where the hill sheep were her only companions.
Yet she might have answered otherwise had she known that,
even while the words were on her father's lips, he was question-
ing the wisdom of his proposal. The man might on coming to
his senses — the doctor did not think he would — but he might
repeat in some shape or form his attempt. And then
Her ready answer, however, clenched the matter. When they
rose from breakfast the doctor said briskly, ' Now, my dear, come
along, and I will put you in charge.'
She followed him. It was a relief to her to discover when
she was on the threshold of the room that the bed had been
moved, in order that the light might not fall on the patient's-
face. In its new position a curtain hid him from her. The
doctor set a chair for her behind this, and she sat down outwardly
calm, but inwardly trembling. He went himself to the bedside,
and stood for a moment gazing with a critical eye. Then he-
nodded to her and went out softly.
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 441
He left the door open, and she heard him in the distance ride
away. She heard too Daniel's clumsy footsteps as he came back
through the house, and the clatter of the china as Mary washed
it in the kitchen. But theee homely sounds served only to
heighten her repugnance to the task before her. She was not
afraid. She trembled no longer. But she shrank with a feeling
akin to loathing from any contact with her wretched companion.
She conjured up a dreadful picture of him — ghastly and dis-
figured— defiant and hopeless — self-doomed.
He lay perfectly still. The curtain too on which her eyes
were fixed hung motionless. And presently there began to grow
upon her a feeling and a fear that he was dead. She fought with
it, and shook it off more than once. But it returned. At length
she could remain still no longer, and she rose up in the silence,
her breath coming quickly. She took a step towards the bed,
paused, stepped on, and stood where her father had been.
'Water!'
The faintly whispered word had barely died away before she
was halfway to the carafe. Where was the loathing now ? She
brought a little water in the tumbler, and gently held it to his
lips. * Do not speak again,' she said softly. ( You are in good
hands. The doctor will return in a few minutes.'
She watched the dazed puzzled eyes close wearily, and then
she went back to her chair as though she had been a trained
nurse and this the most ordinary case in the world. But she was
immensely puzzled. The picture of the patient as he really was
remained with her, causing her wonder the most excessive how
such a man had come to attempt his life. The face handsome
despite its bandages and pallor, the eyes gentle even in stupor —
these were features the very opposite of those which she had
ascribed to the dark creature of her fancy.
When her father returned she flew to tell him what had
happened. He entered and saw the patient, and came out again.
* Yes,' he said in his professional tone, * if he can be kept quiet for
forty-eight hours he will do well. Fever is the only thing to be
feared. But he must not be left alone, and I have to go over to
Ashopton. Do you mind being with him ? '
'Not at all.'
The easy-going doctor did not hesitate this time. He mut-
tered something to himself about Daniel being within call, and,
snatching a hasty meal, got to horse again.
442 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
So it happened that that day, and the next, and the next, the
case at Ashopton being a serious one leading to complications, and
even to a consultation with a London physician, Pleasance was
left in charge at home. The stranger, as his senses gradually
returned to him — and with them Heaven knows what thoughts
of the past and the future, what thankfulness or remorse — grew
accustomed to look to her hands for tendance. A woman can
scarcely perform such offices without feeling pity for the object of
them, and Pleasance after the first morning came to wait upon
the stranger's call and minister to his wants without the disturb-
ing remembrance that his own act had brought him to this.
Away from the bedside she shuddered ; beside it she forgot.
And in the meantime the tall gentleman, who at first lay gazing
upwards taciturn and still, came more and more to follow her with
his eyes as she moved to and fro in his service. None the less he
remained grave and smileless, speaking little even when he began
to sit up, and saying nothing at all from which the current of his
thoughts could be judged.
* Father,' she said at breakfast one morning, when they had
gone on in this way for several days, * do you think he is quite sane ? '
* Sane ? yes, as sane as any of us,' was the uncompromising
answer. i Indeed,' the doctor continued, looking at her sharply,
' more sane than you will be if you stop in the house so much,
my girl. Leave him to himself this morning and go out. Walk
till lunch.'
She assented readily, and, the weather being soft and bright,
started in excellent spirits. As she climbed upwards she thought
the moorland had never looked more beautiful, the distance more
full of colour. But her mood proved less lasting than the May
weather. Eeaching the brow of the hill, she turned to look down
on the Old Hall, and the sudden reflection that it must soon pass
to strangers fell on her like a cold shadow. The tears rushed to
her eyes. The walk was spoiled. She came back early, wonder-
ing at her own depression.
As she emerged from the shrubbery she was surprised to see
two figures standing together on the lawn. One was her father.
The other — could it be Edgar Woolley come back before his time ?
No ; this man was taller and paler, with an air of distinction the
surgeon lacked. As she drew near, her father, not seeing her,
went into the house, and the other sank into an armchair which
had been brought out for him, and turned and saw her. He rose
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 443
with an effort, and raised his hat as she approached. It was the
tall gentleman.
The latter action, or perhaps both, annoyed the girl. It was
one thing, she thought, to nurse him when he lay helpless, another
to associate with him now. She made up her mind to pass him
with a frigid bow. But at the last moment the sight of his weak-
ness melted her, and she paused on the threshold to tell him she
was glad to see him out.
* Thank you,' he answered. He spoke very quietly, but a
slight flush came and went on his brow. Probably he had marked
her hesitation.
Within doors a fresh surprise awaited her. She found the
table laid for lunch, and laid for three. ' Father ! ' she said in a
tone of extreme vexation, ' is he going to take his meals with us ? '
' "Where else is he to take them ? ' the doctor answered gruffly,
looking up from the old bureau at which he was writing. ' Would
you send him to the servants ? If he is left alone in his room, he
will go mad in earnest.'
He really spoke gruffly because he knew he was wrong. He
knew no more of the tall gentleman, or of why he had done what
he had done, than he knew of the man in the moon. That the
stranger dressed and spoke as a gentleman, that there was no
mark on his linen, that he had a watch and money in his pockets,
and that he had tried to take his life — this was the sum of the
doctor's knowledge of him, and he could not feel that these
matters alone rendered the stranger a fit companion for his
daughter. But the doctor had not had strength of mind to
grapple with the difficulty, and had let things slide.
Pleasance would not discuss the question, but at the meal she
sat silent and cold. The doctor was uncomfortable, and talked
jerkily. A shadow — but that seemed more than temporary —
darkened the stranger's face. At the earliest possible moment
Pleasance withdrew.
When she came down she found that the tall gentleman had
retired to his room, and she saw nothing more of him that evening.
Next day the post brought a letter from Woolley, postponing his
return for a day or two, and this sent the doctor on his rounds in
high spirits. Pleasance herself, moving upstairs about her domestic
business, felt more charitable. There might be something in what
her father said about leaving the poor man to himself. She would
go down presently, and talk to him, preserving a due distance.
444 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
She had scarcely made up her mind to this when she chanced
to look through the window, and saw the stranger himself below
her, walking slowly across the lawn. She watched him for a
moment in mere thoughtless curiosity, wondering idly indeed in
what class he had moved, and what had brought him to this.
Then she noticed the direction he was taking, and suddenly a
dreadful fear flashed across the girl's brain, and made her heart
for a second stand still. Below the lawn the little rivulet formed
a deep pool among the trees. He was going that way, glancing
nervously about him as he went.
Pleasance did not stay to think — to add up the chances. She
flung the door open, and sprang down the stairs three at a time.
When she reached the lawn he was not to be seen, but she knew
which way he had gone, and darted down the little path that
led to the water. She was round the corner — she saw him ! He
was standing gazing into the deep, dark pool, his back towards
her, his attitude one of profound melancholy. She ran on silent
and unfaltering until she reached him, and had her hand on
his arm.
' What are you doing ? ' she said, on the impulse of her great
fear.
He turned with a violent start and gasp, and found the girl's
pale face and glowing eyes close to his. He looked ghastly
enough. There was a bandage round his head, under the soft
hat which the doctor had lent him, and in the surprise of the
moment the colour had fled from his face. * Doing ? ' he muttered,
trembling violently in her grasp, and his eyes dilating ; his nerves
were still suffering from the shock of his wound, and probably
from some long strain which had preceded it. ' Doing ? Yes, I
understand you.'
He uttered the last words with a groan and a strange distor-
tion of the features. ' Come away ! ' she cried, pulling at his
arm.
He let her lead him away. He was so weak that it seemed
as if he could not have returned without her help. Near the
upper end of the walk there was a rustic seat, and here he signed
to her to let him sit down, and she did so. When he had somewhat
recovered himself he said faintly, * You are mistaken ; I came
here by chance.'
She shook her head, looking down at him solemnly. She was
still excited, taken out of herself by her sudden terror.
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 445
* It is true,' he said feebly. * I swear it.'
' Swear that you will not think of it again,' she responded.
' I do,' he answered.
She still gazed at him awhile. Then she said, * Wait ! ' She
went quickly back to the house, and presently returned with some
wine. ( Perhaps I startled you without cause,' she said, smiling
on him. He had not seen her smile before. *I must make
amends. Drink this.'
He obeyed. ' Now,' she said, ' you must take my arm and go
back to your chair.'
He assented as a child might, and when he reached the chair
sank into it with a sigh of relief. She stood beside him. The
back of his seat was towards the house, and before him an opening
in the shrubbery disclosed one shoulder of the ravine rolling
upwards, the gorse on a rugged spur of it in bloom, the sunshine
everywhere warming the dull browns and lurking purples into
brilliance.
' See ! ' she said softly, yet with an undertone of reproach in
her voice, * is not that beautiful ? Is not that a thing one would
regret ? '
* Yes, beautiful now,' he replied, answering rather her thought
than her words. ' But I have seen it under another aspect.
Stay ! ' he continued rapidly, seeing she was about to answer.
* Do not judge me too hastily. You cannot tell what reason
I had — what '
' No ! ' she retorted with some sharpness, ' I cannot. But I
<can guess what grief you would have caused others, what a
burden you would have shifted to weaker shoulders, what duties
you would have avoided, what a pang you would have inflicted on
friends and relations ! For shame ! ' She stopped for lack of
breath, her cheeks glowing.
' I have no relatives,' he answered, * and few friends. I have
no duties that others would not perform as well. My death
would cause sorrow perhaps to some, joy to as many. My burden
would die with me.'
She glanced down at him with compressed lips, divining that
he was reciting arguments he had used a score of times to his
own conscience, but puzzled how to answer him. ' Take all that
for granted,' she said at last. ' Are there no reasons higher than
these which should have deterred you ? '
* It may be so,' he replied. * Perhaps I think so now.'
446 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
She felt the admission a great victory, and said no more, but,
seeing he had recovered his composure, she left him and went
into the house. The incident, however, had one lasting effect.
It had broken down the wall between them. She felt that she
knew him almost well — better far than many whom she had
owned as acquaintances for years. The confidence surprised in a
moment of emotion cannot easily be recalled. It seemed idle for
her to affect to keep him at arm's length when she had a secret
consciousness, unacknowledged indeed, that he had confessed his
sin, and been forgiven.
So when she saw him walking feebly from the house next
day she went with him, and showed him where he could rest and
where obtain a view without climbing. Afterwards she fell natu-
rally into the habit of going with him, and little by little, as she
saw more of him, a new wonder grew upon Pleasance. Who
was he ? He talked of things in a tone which was novel to her.
He seemed to have thought deeply and read much. He spoke
of having visited this country, that country. One day her father
found him reading their day-old Times, and took it from him.
' You must not do that yet,' the doctor said. ' My daughter can
read to you, if you like, but not for long.'
She asked what she should read. He chose a rather abstruse
review of an historical work, and gently rejected the passing
topics — even a speech by Lord Hartington. This gave her an
idea, however, and she privately searched the back numbers of the
paper, but could not find that any one who resembled him was
missing. Yet he had been with them almost three weeks ; he
had received no letters, he had sent none. How could such a
man have passed from his circle and caused no inquiry ? Here at
the Old Hall they knew no more of him than when he came.
He had not offered to disclose his name, and his host, who had
quite fallen under his spell, had never plucked up courage to
ask for it, or for an explanation — had come, indeed, to no under-
standing with him at all.
It is possible that of himself the doctor might have gone on
unsuspicious to the last. But one afternoon, as he was making
up his books at the old bureau in the hall, the door being open
and a flood of sunshine pouring through it, he was suddenly
apprised of a shadow falling across the boards. He looked up.
A middle-sized fair man, with a goatee beard and a fresh com-
plexion, was setting down a bag on the floor and beginning to
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 447
take off his gloves. ' Why, Woolley ! ' said the doctor, gazing at
him feebly and making no attempt to rise, * is it you ? We did
not expect you back until Monday.'
' No, sir, but you see I have come to-day,' the traveller
answered. It was a peculiarity of this young man — he was not
very yo*ung, say thirty-eight — that when he was not well pleased
he smiled. He smiled now.
The doctor rubbed his hands to hide a little embarrassment.
'Yes, I see you have come,' he said. ' But how ? Did you walk
over from Sheffield ? '
' No, I came with Nickson.'
The doctor stopped rubbing ; then went on faster, as his
thoughts flew from Nickson to the tall gentleman, and for some
mysterious reason from the tall gentleman to Pleasance. He had
never consciously traced this connection before, but something in
his assistant's face helped him to it now.
* He tells me,' Woolley continued, making a neat ball of his
gloves and smiling at the floor, ' that you had a strange case here,
a case he was mixed up with, and that you made a cure of it.'
< Yes.'
4 The fellow has cleared out, I suppose ? '
' Well, no, he has not,' the doctor stammered, feeling warm.
How odd it was that he had never before seen into what a pit of
imprudence he was sinking ! He had been harbouring a lunatic,
or one who had acted as a lunatic — a criminal certainly ; in no
light a person fit to associate with his daughter. ' No, he is
here at present,' he stammered. ' I think — I suppose he will be
leaving in a day or two ! '
* Here still, is he ? ' Woolley said with a sneer. ' A queer sort
of parlour-boarder, is he not, sir ? May I ask then where he is
at present ? '
* I think he is out of doors somewhere.'
' Alone ? '
When the doctor thought over this scene afterwards he
whistled * Pheugh ! ' when his memory brought him to that.
* Alone ? ' He knew then that the fat was in the fire. He saw
that Woolley had pumped the carrier — who had been to the
house several times since the affair — and drawn his own conclu-
sions. ' I rather think,' he ventured humbly, * I do not know,
but I think '
* I do not think,' quoth the other dryly, * I see.'
448
THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
He pointed to the open door, and alas ! through it the tall
gentleman and Pleasance were visible approaching the house.
They had just emerged from the shrubbery, and were crossing the
lawn. The girl was carrying a basket full of marsh marigolds.
The man had a great bush of hawthorn on the end of his stick.
They were both looking up at the front of the house without a
thought that other eyes were upon them. Pleasance's face, on
which the light fell strongly, was far from gay, her smile but a
sad one ; yet there was a melancholy tenderness in the one and
the other which had anything but a reassuring effect upon the
jealous onlooker.
4 So, so ! ' he muttered harshly, his fingers closing like a vice
on the doctor's arm. * Let me deal with this.'
(TV) be continued.)
THE
CORNHILL MAGAZINE.
NOVEMBER 1898.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER XVII.
UNDERHAND.
The offender never pardons.
VICTOR DURNOVO lingered on at Loango. He elaborated and
detailed to all interested, and to some whom it did not concern,
many excuses for his delay in returning to his expedition, lying
supine and attendant at Msala. It was by now an open secret on
the coast that a great trading expedition was about to ascend the
Ogowe river, with, it was whispered, a fortune awaiting it in
the dim perspective of Central Africa.
Durnovo had already built up for himself a reputation. He
was known as one of the foremost ivory traders on the coast — a
man capable of standing against those enormous climatic risks
before which his competitors surely fell sooner or later. His
knowledge of the interior was unrivalled, his power over the
natives a household word. Great things were therefore expected,
and Durnovo found himself looked up to and respected in Loango
with that friendly worship which is only to be acquired by the
possession or prospective possession of vast wealth.
It is possible even in Loango to have a fling, but the carouser
must be prepared to face, even in the midst of his revelry, the
haunting thought that the exercise of the strictest economy in
any other part of the world might be a preferable pastime.
During the three days following his arrival Victor Durnovo
indulged, according to his lights, in the doubtful pleasure men-
tioned. He purchased at the best factory the best clothes obtain-
VOL. XXI. — NO. 125, N.S. 21
450 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
able ; he lived like a fighting cock in the one so-called hotel — a
house chiefly affected and supported by ship-captains. He spent
freely of money that was not his, and imagined himself to be
leading the life of a gentleman. He rode round on a hired horse
to call on his friends, and on the afternoon of the sixth day
he alighted from this quadruped at the gate of the Gordons'
bungalow.
He knew that Maurice Gordon had left that morning on one
of his frequent visits to a neighbouring sub-factory. Nevertheless,
he expressed surprise when the servant gave him the information.
' Miss Gordon,' he said, tapping his boot with a riding-whip :
' is she in ? '
' Yes, sir.'
A few minutes later Jocelyn came into the drawing-room, where
he was waiting with a brazen face and a sinking heart. Somehow
the very room had power to bring him down towards his own level.
When he set eyes on Jocelyn, in her fair Saxon beauty, he re-
gained aplomb.
She appeared to be rather glad to see him.
4 1 thought,' she said, ' that you had gone back to the ex-
pedition ? '
And Victor Durnovo's boundless conceit substituted ' feared '
for ' thought.'
' Not without coming to say good-bye,' he answered. ' It is
not likely.'
Just to demonstrate how fully he felt at ease, he took a chair
without waiting for an invitation, and sat tapping his boot with
his whip, looking her furtively up and down all the while with an
appraising eye.
' And when do you go ? ' she asked, with a 'subtle change in
her tone which did not penetrate through his mental epidermis.
' I suppose in a few days now ; but I'll let you know all right,
never fear.'
Victor Durnovo stretched out his legs and made himself quite
at home ; but Jocelyn did not sit down. On the contrary, she
remained standing, persistently and significantly.
' Maurice gone away ? ' he inquired.
' Yes.'
' And left you all alone,' in a tone of light badinage, which fell
rather flat, on stony ground.
1 1 am accustomed to being left,' the answered grarety,
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 451
c I don't quite like it, you know.'
' You ? '
She looked at him with a steady surprise which made him feel
a trifle uncomfortable.
' Well, you know,' he was forced to explain, shuffling the while
uneasily in his chair and dropping his whip, ' one naturally takes
an interest in one's friends' welfare. You and Maurice are the
best friends I have in Loango. I often speak to Maurice about it.
It isn't as if there was an English garrison, or anything like that.
I don't trust these niggers a bit.'
' Perhaps you do not understand them ? ' suggested she gently.
She moved away from him as far as she could get. Every
moment increased her repugnance for his presence.
'I don't think Maurice would endorse that,' he said with a
conceited laugh.
She winced at the familiar mention of her brother's name,
which was probably intentional, and her old fear of this man
came back with renewed force.
' I don't think,' he went on, ' that Maurice's estimation of my
humble self is quite so low as yours.'
She gave a nervous little laugh.
' Maurice has always spoken of you with gratitude,' she said.
' To deaf ears, eh ? Yes, he has reason to be grateful, though
perhaps I ought not to say it. I have put him into several very
good things on the coast, and it is in my power to get him into
this new scheme. It is a big thing ; he would be a rich man in
no time.'
He rose from his seat and deliberately crossed the room to the
sofa where she had sat down, where he reclined, with one arm
stretched out along the back of it towards her. In his other hand
he held his riding whip, with which he began to stroke the skirt
of her dress, which reached along the floor almost to his feet.
' Would you like him to be in it ? ' he asked, with a meaning
glance beneath his lashes. ' It is a pity to throw away a good
chance ; his position is not so very secure, you know.'
She gave a strange little hunted glance round the room. She
was wedged into a corner, and could not rise without incurring
the risk of his saying something she did not wish to hear. Then
she leant forward and deliberately withdrew her dress from the
touch of his whip, which was in its way a subtle caress.
' Is he throwing away the chance ? ' she asked.
21-2
452 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' No, but you are.'
Then she rose from her seat, and, standing in the middle of
the room, faced him with a sudden gleam in her eyes.
' I do not see what it has to do with me,' she said ; ' I do not
know anything about Maurice's business arrangements, and very
little about his business friends.'
'Then let me tell you, Jocelyn — well, then, Miss Gordon if
you prefer it — that you will know more about one of his business
friends before you have finished with him. I've got Maurice
more or less in my power now, and it rests with you '
At this moment a shadow darkened the floor of the verandah,
and an instant later Jack Meredith walked quietly in by the
window.
' Enter, young man,' he said dramatically, ' by window —
centre.'
' I am sorry,' he went on in a different tone to Jocelyn, ' to
come in this unceremonious way, but the servant told me that
you were in the verandah with Durnovo and '
He turned towards the half-breed, pausing.
' And Durnovo is the man I want,' weighing on each word.
Durnovo's right hand was in his jacket pocket. Seeing
Meredith's proffered salutation, he slowly withdrew it and shook
hands.
The flash of hatred was still in his eyes when Jack Meredith
turned upon him with aggravating courtesy. The pleasant, half-
cynical glance wandered from Durnovo's dark face very deliberately
down to his jacket pocket, where the stock of a revolver was
imperfectly concealed.
' We were getting anxious about you,' he explained, ' seeing
that you did not come back. Of course, we knew that you were
capable of taking — care — of yourself.'
He was still looking innocently at the tell-tale jacket pocket,
and Durnovo, following the direction of his glance, hastily thrust
his hand into it.
' But one can never tell, with a treacherous climate like this,
what a day may bring forth. However, I am glad to find you
looking — so very fit.'
Victor Durnovo gave an awkward little laugh, extremely con-
scious of the factory clothes.
' Oh, yes ; I'm all right,' he said. ' I was going to start this
evening.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 453
The girl stood behind them, with a flush slowly fading from
her face. There are some women who become suddenly beautiful
— not by the glory of a beautiful thought, not by the exaltation
of a lofty virtue, but by the mere, practical human flush. Jack
Meredith, when he took his eyes from Durnovo's, glancing at
Jocelyn, suddenly became aware of the presence of a beautiful
woman.
The crisis was past ; and if Jack knew it, so also did Jocelyn.
She knew that the imperturbable gentlemanliness of the English-
man had conveyed to the more passionate West Indian the simple,
downright fact that in a lady's drawing-room there was to be no
raised voice, no itching fingers, no flash of fiery eyes.
' Yes,' he said, ' that will suit me splendidly. We will travel
together.'
He turned to Jocelyn.
' 1 hear your brother is away ? '
* Yes, for a few days. He has gone up the coast.'
Then there was a silence. They both paused, helping each
other as if by pre-arrangement, and Victor Durnovo suddenly felt
that he must go. He rose, and picked up the whip which he had
dropped on the matting. There was no help for it — the united
wills of these two people were too strong for him.
Jack Meredith passed out of the verandah with him, murmur-
ing something about giving him a leg up. While they were
walking round the house, Victor Durnovo made one of those
hideous mistakes which one remembers all through life with a
sudden rush of warm shame and self-contempt. The very thing
that was uppermost in his mind to be avoided suddenly bubbled
to his lips, almost, it would seem, in defiance of his own will.
' What about the small — the small-pox ? ' he asked.
' We have got it under,' replied Jack quietly. ' We had a
very bad time for three days, but we got all the cases isolated and
prevented it from spreading. Of course, we could do little or
nothing to save them ; they died.'
Durnovo had the air of a whipped dog. His mind was a
blank. He simply had nothing to say ; the humiliation of utter
self-contempt was his.
' You need not be afraid to come back now,' Jack Meredith
went on, with a strange refinement of cruelty.
And that was all he ever said about it.
' Will it be convenient for you to meet me on the beach at
454 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
four o'clock this afternoon ? ' he asked, when Durnovo was in the
saddle.
'Yes.'
' All right, four o'clock.'
He turned and deliberately went back to the bungalow.
There are some friendships where the intercourse is only the
seed which absence duly germinates. Jocelyn Gordon and Jack
had parted as acquaintances ; they met as friends. There is no
explaining these things, for there is no gauging the depths of the
human mind. There is no getting down to the little bond that
lies at the bottom of the well — the bond of sympathy. There is
no knowing what it is that prompts us to say, ' This man, or this
woman, of all the millions, shall be my friend.'
' I am sorry,' he said, ' that he should have had a chance of
causing you uneasiness again.'
Jocelyn remembered that all her life. She remembers still —
and Africa has slipped away from her existence for ever. It is
one of the mental photographs of her memory, standing out clear
and strong amidst a host of minor recollections.
CHAPTEE XVIII.
A REQUEST.
It surely was my profit had I known,
It would have been my pleasure had I seen.
' WHY did he come back ? '
Jocelyn had risen as if to intimate that, if he cared to do so,
they would sit in the verandah.
' Why did Mr. Durnovo come back ? ' she repeated ; for Jack did
not seem to have heard the question. He was drawing forward a
cane chair with the leisurely debonnair grace that was his, and,
before replying, he considered for a moment.
' To get quinine,' he answered.
Without looking at her, he seemed to divine that he had made
a mistake. He seemed to know that she had flushed suddenly to
the roots of her hair, with a distressed look in her eyes. The
reason was too trivial. She could only draw one conclusion.
' No,' he continued ; ' to tell you the truth, I think his nerve
gave way a little. His health is undermined by this climate. He
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 455
has been too long in Africa. We have had a bad time at Msala.
We have had small-pox in the camp. Oscard and I have been
doing doughty deeds. I feel convinced that, if we applied to some
Society, we should get something or other — a testimonial or a
monument — also Joseph.'
' I like Joseph,' she said in a low tone.
' So do I. If circumstances had been different — if Joseph had
not been my domestic servant — I should have liked him for a
friend/
He was looking straight in front of him with a singular fixity.
It is possible that he was conscious of the sidelong scrutiny which
he was undergoing.
' And you — you have been all right ? ' she said lightly.
' Oh, yes,' with a laugh. ' I have not brought the infection
down to Loango ; you need not be afraid of that.'
For a moment she looked as if she were going to explain that
she was not ' afraid of that.' Then she changed her mind and let
it pass, as he seemed to believe.
' Joseph constructed a disinfecting room with a wood-smoke
fire, or something of that description, and he has been disinfecting
everything, down to Oscard's pipes.'
She gave a little laugh, which stopped suddenly.
' Was it very bad ? ' she asked.
' Oh, no. We took it in time, you see. We had eleven deaths.
And now we are all right. We are only waiting for Durnovo to
join, and then we shall make a start. Of course, somebody else
could have come down for the quinine.'
' Yes.'
He glanced at her beneath his lashes before going on.
' But, as Durnovo's nerves were a little shaken, it — was just as
well, don't you know, to get him out of it all.'
' I suppose he got himself out of it all ? ' she said quietly.
' Well — to a certain extent. With our approval, you under-
stand.'
Men have an esprit de sexe as well as women. They like to
hustle the cowards through with the crowd, unobserved.
'It is a strange thing,' said Jocelyn. with a woman's scorn of
the man who fears those things of which she herself has no sort of
dread, ' a very strange thing that Mr. Durnovo said nothing about
it down here. It is not known in Loango that you had small-pox
in the camp.'
456 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Well, you see, when he left we were not quite sure about it.'
' I imagine Mr. Durnovo knows all about small-pox. We all do
on this coast. He could hardly help recognising it in its earliest
stage.'
She turned on him with a smile which he remembered after-
wards. At the moment he felt rather abashed, as if he had been
caught in a very maze of untruths. He did not meet her eyes.
It was a matter of pride with him that he was equal to any social
emergency that might arise. He had always deemed himself
capable of withholding from the whole questioning world anything
that he might wish to withhold. But afterwards — later in his life
— he remembered that look in Jocelyn Gordon's face.
' Altogether,' she said, with a peculiar little contented laugh,
' I think you cannot keep it up any longer. He ran away from
you and left you to fight against it alone. All the same, it was— -
nice — of you to try and screen him. Very nice, but I do not
think that I could have done it myself. I suppose it was — noble
— and women cannot be noble.'
' No, it was only expedient. The best way to take the world
is to wring it dry — not to try and convert it and make it better,
but to turn its vices to account. That method has the double
advantage of serving one's purpose at the time, and standing as
a warning later. The best way to cure vice is to turn it ruth-
lessly to one's own account. That is what we are doing with
Durnovo. His little idiosyncrasies will turn in witness against
him later on.'
She shook her head in disbelief.
* Your practice and your theory do not agree,' she said.
There was a little pause ; then she turned to him gravely.
' Have you been vaccinated ? ' she asked.
' In the days of my baptism, wherein I was made '
'No doubt,' she interrupted impatiently, 'but since? Have
you had it done lately ? '
' Just before I came away from England. My tailor urged it
so strongly. He said that he had made outfits for many gents
going to Africa, and they had all made their wills and been vac-
cinated. For reasons which are too painful to dwell upon in
these pages I could not make a will, so I was enthusiastically
vaccinated.'
' And have you all the medicines you will require ? Did you
really want that quinine ? '
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 457
There was a practical common-sense anxiety in the way she
asked these questions which made him answer gravely.
' All, thanks. We did not really want the quinine, but we can
do with it. Oscard is our doctor; he is really very good. He
looks it all up in a book, puts all the negative symptoms on one
side, and the positive on the other — adds them all up, then deducts
the smaller from the larger, and treats what is left of the patient
accordingly.'
She laughed more with the view of pleasing him than from a
real sense of the ludicrous.
' I do not believe,' she said, ' that you know the risks you are
running into. Even in the short time that Maurice and I have
been here we have learnt to treat the climate of Western Africa
with a proper respect. We have known so many people who have
— succumbed.'
' Yes, but I do not mean to do that. In a way, Durnovo's —
what shall we call it ? — lack of nerve is a great safeguard. He will
not run into any danger.'
' No, but he might run you into it.'
' Not a second time, Miss Gordon. Not if we know it. Oscard
mentioned a desire to wring Durnovo's neck. I am afraid he will
do it one of these days.'
' The mistake that most people make,' the girl went on more
lightly, ' is a want of care. You cannot be too careful, you know,
in Africa.'
' I am careful ; I have reason to be.'
She was looking at him steadily, her blue eyes searching his.
' Yes ? ' she said slowly, and there were a thousand questions
in the word.
' It would be very foolish of me to be otherwise,' he said. ' I
am engaged to be married, and I came out here to make the
wherewithal. This expedition is an expedition to seek the where-
withal.'
' Yes,' she said, ' and therefore you must be more careful than
anyone else. Because, you see, your life is something which does
not belong to you, but with which you are trusted. I mean, if
there is anything dangerous to be done, let someone else do it.
What is she like ? WTiat is her name ? '
' Her name is Millicent — Millicent Chyne.'
' And — what is she like ? '
He leant back, and, interlocking his fingers, stretched his arms
21—6
458 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
out with the palms of his hands outward — a habit of his when
asked a question needing consideration.
'She is of medium height; her hair is brown. Her worst
enemy admits, I believe, that she is pretty. Of course, I am con-
vinced of it.'
' Of course,' replied Jocelyn steadily. ' That is as it should be.
And I have no doubt that you and her worst enemy are both quite
right/
He nodded cheerfully, indicating a great faith in his own judg-
ment on the matter under discussion.
' I am afraid,' he said, ' that I have not a photograph. That
would be the correct thing, would it not ? I ought to have one
always with me in a locket round my neck, or somewhere. A
curiously-wrought locket is the correct thing, I believe. People
in books usually carry something of that description — and it
is always curiously wrought. I don't Lknow where they buy
them.'
' I think they are usually inherited,' suggested Jocelyn.
' I suppose they are,' he went on in the same semi-serious
tone. ' And then I ought to have it always ready to clasp in my
dying hand, where Joseph would find it and wipe away a furtive
tear as he buried me. It is a pity. I am afraid I inherited
nothing from my ancestors except a very practical mind.'
' I should have liked very much to see a photograph of Miss
Chyne,' said Jocelyn, who had, apparently, not been listening.
' I hope some day you will see herself, at home in England.
For you have no abiding city here.'
' Only a few more years now. Has she — are her parents
living ? '
' No, they are both dead. Indian people they were. Indian
people have a tragic way of dying young. Millicent lives with
her aunt, Lady Cantourne. And Lady Cantourne ought to have
married my respected father.'
' Why did she not do so ? '
He shrugged his shoulders — paused — sat up and flicked a large
moth off the arm of his chair. Then,
' Goodness only knows,' he said. ' Goodness, and themselves.
I suppose they found it out too late. That is one of the little
risks of life.'
She answered nothing.
' Do you think,' he went on, ' that there will be a special Hell
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 459
in the Hereafter for parents who have sacrificed their children's
lives to their own ambition ? I hope there will be.'
' I have never given the matter the consideration it deserves,'
she answered. ' Was that the reason ? Is Lady Cantourne a more
important person than Lady Meredith ? '
' Yes.'
She gave a little nod of comprehension as if he had raised a
curtain for her to see into his life — into the far perspective of it
reaching back into the dim distance of fifty years before. For our
lives do reach back into the lives of our fathers and grandfathers ;
the beginnings made there come down into our daily existence,
shaping our thought and action. That which stood between Sir
John Meredith and his son was not so much the present person-
ality of Millicent Chyne as the past shadows of a disappointed life,
an unloved wife and an unsympathetic mother. And these things
Jocelyn Gordon knew while she sat, gazing with thoughtful eyes,
wherein something lived and burned of which she was almost
ignorant — gazing through the tendrils of the creeping flowers that
hung around them.
At last Jack Meredith rose briskly, watch in hand, and Jocelyn
came back to things of earth with a quick gasping sigh which took
her by surprise.
' Miss Gordon, will you do something for me ? '
' With pleasure.'
He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, and, going to the table,
he wrote on the paper with a pencil pendent at his watch-chain.
' The last few days,' he explained while he wrote, ' have
awakened me to the lamentable fact that human life is rather an
uncertain affair.'
He came towards her, holding out the paper.
' If you hear — if anything happens to me, would you be so
kind as to write to Millicent and tell her of it ? That is the
address.'
She took the paper, and read the address with a dull sort of
interest.
' Yes,' she said. ' Yes, if you like. But — nothing must happen
to you.'
There was a slight unsteadiness in her voice which made her
stop suddenly. She did not fold the paper, but continued to read
the address.
' No,' he said, ' nothing will. But would you not despise a
460 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
man who could not screw up his courage to face the possi-
bility?'
He wondered what she was thinking about, for she did not
seem to hear him.
A clock in the drawing-room behind them struck the half-hour,
and the sound seemed to recall her to the present.
' Are you going now ? ' she asked.
' Yes/ he answered, vaguely puzzled. ' Yes, I must go now.'
She rose, and for a moment he held her hand. He was dis-
tinctly conscious of something left unsaid — of many things. He
even paused on the edge of the verandah, trying to think what it
was that he had to say. Then he pushed aside the hanging flowers
and passed out.
' Good-bye ! ' he said over his shoulder.
Her lips moved, but he heard no sound. She turned with a
white drawn face and sat down again. The paper was still in her
hand. She consulted it again, reading in a whisper :
' Millicent Chyne— Millicent ! '
She turned the paper over and studied the back of it — almost
as if she was trying to find what there was behind that name.
Through the trees there rose and fell the music of the distant
surf. Somewhere near at hand a water-wheel, slowly irrigating
the rice fields, creaked and groaned after the manner of water-
wheels all over Africa. In all there was that subtle sense of un-
reality— that utter lack of permanency which touches the heart of
the white exile in tropic lands, and lets life slip away without
allowing the reality of it to be felt.
The girl sat there with the name before her — written on the
little slip of paper — the only memento he had left her.
CHAPTER XIX.
IVORY.
'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,
Another thing to fall.
ONE of the peculiarities of Africa yet to be explained is the almost
supernatural rapidity with which rumour travels. Across the
whole breadth of this darkest continent a mere bit of gossip has
made its way in a month. A man may divulge a secret, say, at
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 461
St. Paul de Loanda, take ship to Zanzibar, and there his own
secret will be told to him.
Kumour met Maurice Gordon almost at the outset of his
journey northward.
' Small-pox is raging on the Ogowe river,' they told him. ' The
English expedition is stricken down with it. The three leaders
are dead.'
Maurice Gordon had not lived four years on the West African
coast in vain. He took this for what it was worth. But if he
had acquired scepticism he had lost his nerve. He put about and
sailed back to Loango.
' I wonder,' he muttered as he walked up from the beach to
his office that same afternoon, ' I wonder if Durnovo is among
them ? '
And he was conscious of a ray of hope in his mind. He was
a kind-hearted man, in his way, this Maurice Gordon of Loango ;
but he could not disguise from himself the simple fact that the
death of Victor Durnovo would be a distinct convenience and a
most desirable relief. Even the best of us — that is to say, the
present writer and his reader — have these inconvenient little
feelings. There are people who have done us no particular injury,
to whom we wish no particular harm, but we feel that it would be
very expedient and considerate of them to die.
Thinking these thoughts, Maurice Gordon arrived at the
factory and went straight to his own office, where he found the
object of them — Victor Durnovo — sitting in consumption of the
office sherry.
Gordon saw at once that the rumour was true. There was a
hunted, unwholesome look in Durnovo's eyes. He looked shaken,
and failed to convey a suggestion of personal dignity.
' Hulloa ! ' exclaimed the proprietor of the decanter. ' You
look a bit chippy. I've heard you've got small-pox up at Msala.'
' So have I. I've just heard it from Meredith.'
4 Just heard it — is Meredith down here too ? '
' Yes, and the fool wants to go back to-night. I have to meet
him on the beach at four o'clock.'
Maurice Gordon sat down, poured out for himself a glass of
sherry, and drank it thoughtfully.
'Do you know, Durnovo,' he said emphatically, 'I have my
doubts about Meredith being a fool.'
' Indeed ! ' with a derisive laugh.
462 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Yes.'
Maurice Gordon looked over his shoulder to see that the door
was shut.
' You'll have to be very careful,' he said. ' The least slip
might let it all out. Meredith has a quiet way of looking at one
which disquiets me. He might find out.'
' Not he,' replied Durnovo confidently, ' especially if we
succeed ; and we shall succeed — by God we shall ! '
Maurice Gordon made a little movement of the shoulders, as
indicating a certain uneasiness, but he said nothing.
There was a pause of considerable duration, at the end of
which Durnovo produced a paper from his pocket and threw it
down.
' That's good business,' he said.
' Two thousand tusks,' murmured Maurice Gordon. ' Yes,
that's good. Through Akmed, I suppose ? '
' Yes. We can outdo these Arabs at their own trade.'
An evil smile lighted up Durnovo's sallow face. When he
smiled, his drooping, curtain-like moustache projected in a way
that made keen observers of the human face wonder what his
mouth was like.
Gordon, who had been handling the paper with the tips of his
fingers, as if it were something unclean, threw it down on the
table again.
' Ye — es,' he said slowly ; ' but it does not seem to dirty black
hands as it does white. They know no better.'
' Lord ! ' ejaculated Durnovo. ' Don't let us begin the old
arguments all over again. I thought we settled that the trade
was there ; we couldn't prevent it, and therefore the best thing is to
make hay while the sun shines, and then clear out of the country.'
' But suppose Meredith finds out ? ' reiterated Maurice Gordon,
with the lamentable hesitation that precedes loss.
' If Meredith finds out, it will be the worse for him.'
A certain concentration of tone aroused Maurice Gordon's
attention, and he glanced uneasily at his companion.
'No one knows what goes on in the heart of Africa,' said
Durnovo darkly. ' But we will not trouble about that ; Meredith
won't find out.'
' Where is he now ? '
' With your sister, at the bungalow. A lady's man — that is
what he is.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 463
Victor Durnovo was smarting under a sense of injury which
was annoyingly indefinite. It was true that Jack Meredith had
come at a very unpropitious moment ; but it was equally clear
that the intrusion could only have been the result of accident. It
was really a case of the third person who is no company, with
aggravated symptoms. Durnovo had vaguely felt in the presence
of either a subtle possibility of sympathy between Jocelyn Gordon
and Jack Meredith. When he saw them together, for only a few
minutes as it happened, the sympathy rose up and buffeted him
in the face, and he hated Jack Meredith for it. He hated him for
a certain reposeful sense of capability which he had at first set
down as conceit, and later on had learnt to value as something
innate in blood and education which was not conceit. He hated
him because his gentlemanliness was so obvious that it showed up
the flaws in other men, as the masterpiece upon the wall shows up
the weaknesses of the surrounding pictures. But most of all he
hated him because Jocelyn Gordon seemed to have something in
common with the son of Sir John Meredith — a world above the
head of even the most successful trader on the coast — a world
in which he, Victor Durnovo, could never live and move at ease.
Beyond this, Victor Durnovo cherished the hatred of the
Found Out. He felt instinctively that behind the courteous
demeanour of Jack Meredith there was an opinion — a cool,
unbiassed criticism — of himself, which Meredith had no intention
of divulging.
On hearing that Jack was at the bungalow with Jocelyn,
Maurice Gordon glanced at the clock and wondered how he could
get away from his present visitor. The atmosphere of Jack
Meredith's presence was preferable to that diffused by Victor
Durnovo. There was a feeling of personal safety and dignity in
the very sound of his voice which set a weak and easily-led man
upon his feet.
But Victor Durnovo had something to say to Gordon which
circumstances had brought to a crisis.
' Look here,' he said, leaning forward and throwing away the
cigarette he had been smoking. ' This Simiacine scheme is going
to be the biggest thing that has ever been run on this coast.'
' Yes,' said Gordon, with the indifference that comes from non-
participation.
' And I'm the only business man in it,' significantly.
Gordon nodded his head, awaiting further developments.
464 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
'Which means that I could work another man into it. I
might find out that we could not get on without him.'
The black eyes seemed to probe the good-natured, sensual face
of Maurice Gordon, so keen, so searching was their glance.
'And I would be willing to do it— to make that man's fortune
— provided — that he was — my brother-in-law.'
' What the devil do you mean ? ' asked Gordon, setting down
the glass that was half raised to his lips.
' I mean that I want to marry — Jocelyn.'
And the modern school of realistic, mawkishly foul novelists,
who hold that Love excuseth all, would have taken delight in the
passionate rendering of the girl's name.
' Want to marry Jocelyn, do you ? ' answered Maurice, with a
derisive little laugh. On the first impulse of the moment he ga\
no thought to himself or his own interests, and spoke with undis-
guised contempt. He might have been speaking to a beggar on
the roadside.
Durnovo's eyes flashed dangerously, and his tobacco-stained
teeth clenched for a moment over his lower lip.
' That is my desire — and intention.'
' Look here, Durnovo ! ' exclaimed Gordon. ' Don't be a fool !
Can't you see that it is quite out of the question ? '
He attempted weakly to dismiss the matter by leaning forward
on his writing-table, taking up his pen, and busying himself with
a number of papers.
Victor Durnovo rose from his chair so hastily that in a flash
Maurice Gordon's hand was in the top right-hand drawer of his
writing-table. The good-natured blue eyes suddenly became fixed
and steady. But Durnovo seemed to make an effort over himself,
and walked to the window, where he drew aside the woven-grass
blind and looked out into the glaring sunlight. Still standing
there, he turned and spoke in a low, concentrated voice :
' No,' he said, ' I can't see that it is out of the question. On
the contrary, it seems only natural that she should marry the man
who is her brother's partner in many a little — speculation.'
Maurice Gordon, sitting there, staring hopelessly into the half-
breed's yellow face, saw it all. He went back in a flash of recollec-
tion to many passing details which had been unnoted at the time —
details which now fitted into each other like the links of a chain —
and that chain was around him. He leapt forward in a momentary
opening of the future, and saw himself ruined, disgraced, held up
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 465
to the execration of the whole civilised world. He was utterly in
this man's power — bound hand and foot. He could not say him
no. And least of all could he say no to this demand, which had
roused all the latent chivalry, gentlemanliness, brotherly love that
was in him. Maurice Gordon knew that Victor Durnovo possessed
knowledge which Jocelyn would consider cheap at the price of her
person.
There was one way out of it. His hand was still on the handle
of the top right-hand drawer. He was a dead shot. His finger
was within two inches of the stock of a revolver. One bullet for
Victor Durnovo, another for himself. Then the old training of
his school-days — the training that makes an upright, honest
gentleman — asserted itself, and he saw the cowardice of it. There
was time enough for that later, when the crisis came. In the
meantime, if the worst came to the worst, he could fight to the end.
' I don't think,' said Durnovo, who seemed to be t following
Gordon's thoughts, ' that the idea will be so repellent^ to your
sister as you seem to think.'
And a sudden ray of hope shot athwart the future into which
his listener was staring. It might be so. One can never tell
with women. Maurice Gordon had had considerable experience
of the world, and, after all, he was only building up hope upon
precedent. He knew, as well as you or I, that women will dance
and flirt with — even marry — men who are not gentlemen. Not
only for the moment, but as a permanency, something seems to
kill their perception of a fact which is patent to every educated
man in the room ; and one never knows what it is. One can only
surmise that it is that thirst for admiration which does more harm
in the world than the thirst for alcoholic stimulant which we fight
by societies and guilds, oaths, and little bits of ribbon.
' The idea never entered my head,' said Gordon.
' It has never been out of mine,' replied Durnovo, with a little
harsh laugh which was almost pathetic.
' I don't want you to do anything now,' he went on more gently.
It was wonderful how well he knew Maurice Gordon. The su£-
o
gested delay appealed to one side of his nature, the softened tone
to another. ' There is time enough. When I come back I will
speak of it again.'
' You have not spoken to her ? '
' No, I have not spoken to her.'
Maurice Gordon shook his head.
466 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' She is a queer girl,' he said, trying to conceal the hope that
was in his voice. ' She is cleverer than me, you know, and all
that. My influence is very small, and would scarcely be con-
sidered.'
' But your interests would,' suggested Durnovo. ' Your sister
is very fond of you, and — I think I have one or two arguments to
put forward which she would recognise as uncommonly strong.'
The colour which had been returning slowly to Maurice Gor-
don's face now faded away again. His lips were dry and shrivelled
as if he had passed through a sirocco.
' Mind,' continued Durnovo reassuringly, ' I don't say I would
use them unless I suspected that you were acting in opposition to
my wishes.'
Gordon said nothing. His heart was throbbing uncomfortably
— it seemed to be in his throat.
' I would not bring forward those arguments except as a last
resource,' went on Victor Durnovo with the deliberate cruelty of a
tyrant. ' I would first point out the advantages : a fourth share
in the Simiacine scheme would make you a rich man — above sus-
picion— independent of the gossip of the markets-place.'
Maurice Gordon winced visibly, and his eyes wavered as if he
were about to give way to panic.
' You could retire and go home to England — to a cooler cli-
mate. This country might get too hot for your constitution —
see ? '
Durnovo came back into the centre of the room and stood by
the writing-table. His attitude was that of a man holding a whip
over a cowering dog.
He took up his hat and riding-whip with a satisfied little
laugh, as if the dog had cringingly done his bidding.
' Besides,' he said, with a certain defiance of manner, ' I may
succeed without any of that — eh ? '
' Yes,' Gordon was obliged to admit with a gulp, as if he were
swallowing his pride, and he knew that in saying the word he was
degrading his sister — throwing her at this man's feet as the price
of his own honour.
With a half-contemptuous nod Victor Durnovo turned and
went away to keep his appointment with Meredith.
WITH EDGED TOOLS, 467
CHAPTER XX,
BROUGHT TO THE SCRATCH.
Take heed of still waters ; the quick pass away. '
GUY OSCARD was sitting on the natural terrace in front of Dur-
novo's house at Msala, and Marie attended to his simple wants
with that patient dignity which suggested the recollection of
better times, and appealed strongly to the manhood of her fellow-
servant Joseph and her whilom master.
Oscard was not good at the enunciation of those small ame-
nities which are supposed to soothe the feelings of the temporarily
debased. He vaguely felt that this woman was not accustomed to
menial service, but he knew that any suggestion of sympathy was
more than he could compass. So he merely spoke to her more
gently than to the men, and perhaps she understood, despite her
chocolate-coloured skin.
They had inaugurated a strange unequal friendship during
the three days that Oscard had been left alone at Msala. Joseph
had been promoted to the command of a certain number of the
porters, and his domestic duties were laid aside. Thus Marie was
called upon to attend to Guy Oscard's daily wants.
' I think I'll take coffee,' he was saying to her in reply to a
question. ' Yes — coffee, please, Marie.'
He was smoking one of his big wooden pipes, staring straight
in front of him with a placidity natural to his bulk.
The woman turned away with a little smile. She liked this
big man with his halting tongue and quiet ways. She liked his
awkward attempts to conciliate the coquette Xantippe — to extract
a smile from the grave Nestorius, and she liked his manner
towards herself. She liked the poised pipe and the jerky voice as
he said, ' Yes — coffee, please, Marie.'
Women do like these things — they seem to understand them
and to attach some strange, subtle importance of their own to
them. For which power some of us who have not the knack of
turning a pretty phrase or throwing off an appropriate pleasantry
may well be thankful.
Presently she returned, bringing the coffee on a rough tray,
also a box of matches and Oscard's tobacco pouch. Noting this
468 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
gratuitous attention to his comfort, he looked up with a little
laugh.
' Er — thank you/ he said. ' Very kind/
He did not put his pipe back to his lips — keenly alive to the
fact that the exigency of the moment demanded a little polite ex-
change of commonplace.
' Children gone to bed ? ' he asked anxiously.
She paused in her slow, deft arrangement of the little table.
' Yes,' she answered quietly.
He nodded as if the news were eminently satisfactory. ' Nes-
torius,' he said, adhering to Meredith's pleasantry, ' is the jolliest
little chap I have met for a long time.'
' Yes,' she answered softly. ' Yes — but listen ! '
He raised his head, listening as she did — both looking down
the river into the gathering darkness.
' 1 hear the sound of paddles,' she said. ' And you ? '
' Not yet. My ears are not so sharp as yours.'
' I am accustomed to it,' the woman said, with some emotion
in her voice which he did not understand then. ' I am always
listening.'
Oscard seemed to be struck with this description of herself. It
was so very apt — so comprehensive. The woman's attitude before
the world was the attitude of the listener for some distant sound.
She poured out his coffee, setting the cup at his elbow. ' Now
you will hear,' she said, standing upright with that untrammelled
dignity of carriage which is found wherever African blood is in the
veins. ' They have just come round Broken Tree Bend. There
are two boats.'
He listened, and after a moment heard the regular glug-glug
of the paddles stealing over the waters of the still tropic river,
covering a wonderful distance.
' Yes,' he said, ' I hear. Mr. Meredith said he would be back
to-night.'
She gave a strange little low laugh — almost the laugh of a
happy woman.
' He is like that, Mr. Meredith,' she said ; ' what he says he
does ' — in the pretty English of one who has learnt Spanish first.
' Yes, Marie — he is like that.'
She turned, in her strangely subdued way, and went into the
house to prepare some supper for the new comers.
It was not long before the sound of the paddles was quite dig-
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 469
tinct, and then — probably on turning a corner of the river and
coming in sight of the lights of Msala — Jack Meredith's cheery
shout came floating through the night. Oscard took his pipe from
his lips and sent back an answer that echoed against the trees
across the river. He walked down to the water's edge, where he
was presently joined by Joseph with a lantern.
The two boats came on to the sloping shore with a grating
sound, and by the light of the waving lantern Oscard saw Durnovo
and Jack land from the same boat.
The three men walked up to the house together. Marie was
at the door, and bowed her head gravely in answer to Jack's salu-
tation. Durnovo nodded curtly and said nothing.
In the sitting room, by the light of the paraffin lamp, the two
Englishmen exchanged a long questioning glance, quite different
from the quick interrogation of a woman's eyes. There was a smile
on Jack Meredith's face.
' All ready to start to-morrow ? ' he inquired.
' Yes,' replied Oscard.
And that was all they could say. Durnovo never left them
alone together that night. He watched their faces with keen sus-
picious eyes. Behind the moustache his lips were pursed up in
restless anxiety. But he saw nothing — learnt nothing. These
two men were inscrutable.
At eleven o'clock the next morning the Simiacine seekers
left their first unhappy camp at Msala. They had tasted of mis-
fortune at the very beginning, but after the first reverse they
returned to their work with that dogged determination which is a
better spirit than the wild enthusiasm of departure, where friends
shout and flags wave, and an artificial hopefulness throws in its
jarring note.
They had left behind them with the artifice of civilisation
that subtle handicap of a woman's presence ; and the little flotilla
of canoes that set sail from the terrace at Msala one morning in
November, not so many years ago, was essentially masculine in its
bearing. The four white men — quiet, self-contained, and intrepid
— seemed to work together with a perfect unity, a oneness of
thought arfd action which really lay in the brain of one of them.
No man can define a true leader ; for one is too autocratic and
the next too easily led ; one is too quick-tempered, another too re-
served. It would almost seem that the ideal leader is that man
who knows how to extract from the brains of his subordinates all
470 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
that is best and strongest therein — who knows how to suppress his
own individuality, and merge it for the time being into that of his
fellow- worker — whose influence is from within, and not from with-
out.
The most successful Presidents of Eepublics have been those
who are or pretend to be nonentities, content to be mere pegs,
standing still and lifeless, for things to be hung upon. Jack
Meredith was, or pretended to be, this. He never assumed the
airs of a leader. He never was a leader. He merely smoothed
things over, suggested here, laughed there, and seemed to stand
by, indifferent all the while.
In less than a week they left the river, hauling their canoes
up on the bank, and hiding them in the tangle of the virgin under-
wood. A depot of provisions, likewise hidden, was duly made, and
the long, weary march began.
The daily routine of this need not be followed, for there were
weeks of long monotony varied only by a new difficulty, a fresh
danger, or a deplorable accident. Twice the whole company had
to lay aside the baggage and assume arms, when Gruy Oscard
proved himself to be a cool and daring leader. Not twice, but two
hundred times, the ring of Joseph's unerring rifle sent some naked
savage crawling into the brake to die, with a sudden wonder in
his half-awakened brain. They could not afford to be merciful ;
their only safeguard was to pass through this country, leaving a
track of blood and fire and dread behind them.
This, however, is no record of travel in Central Africa. There
are many such to be had at any circulating library, written by abler
and more fantastic pens. Some of us who have wandered in the
darkest continent have looked in vain for things seen by former
travellers — things which, as the saying is, are neither here nor
there. Indeed, there is not much to see in a vast, boundless
forest with little life and no variety — nothing but a deadly
monotony of twilit tangle. There is nothing new under the sun
— even immediately under it in Central Africa. The only novelty
is the human heart — Central Man. That is never stale, and there
are depths still unexplored, heights still unattained, warm rivers
of love, cold streams of hatred, and vast plains where strange
motives grow. These are our business.
We have not to deal so much with the finding of the Simiacine
as with the finders, and of these the chief at this time was Jack
Meredith. It seemed quite natural that one duty after another
WITH EDG&D TOOLS. 471
should devolve upon him, and he invariably had time to do them
all, and leisure to comment pleasantly upon it. But his chief
care was Victor Durnovo.
As soon as they entered the forest two hundred miles above
Msala, the half-breed was a changed man. The strange restless-
ness asserted itself again — the man was nervous, eager, sincere.
His whole being was given up to this search ; his whole heart and
soul were enveloped in it. At first he worked steadily, like a
mariner threading his way through known waters ; but gradually
his composure left him, and he became incapable of doing other
work.
Jack Meredith was at his side always. By day he walked near
him as he piloted the column through the trackless forest. At
night he slept in the same tent, stretched across the doorway.
Despite the enormous fatigue, he slept the light sleep of the
townsman, and often he was awakened by Durnovo talking aloud,
groaning, tossing on his narrow bed.
When they had been on the march for two months — piloted
with marvellous instinct by Durnovo — Meredith made one or two
changes in the organisation. The caravan naturally moved slowly,
owing to the enormous amount of baggage to be carried, and this
delay seemed to irritate Victor Durnovo to such an extent that at
last it was obvious that the man would go mad unless this enormous
tension could be relieved.
' For God's sake,' he would shout, ' hurry those men on ! We
haven't done ten miles to-day. Another man down — damn him ! '
And more than once he had to be dragged forcibly away from
the fallen porter, whom he battered with both fists. Had he had
his will he would have allowed no time for meals, and only a few
| hours' halt for rest. Guy Oscard did not understand it. His
denser nerves were incapable of comprehending the state of irrita-
tion and unreasoning restlessness into which the climate and
j excitement had brought Durnovo. But Meredith, in his finer
organisation, understood the case better. He it was who soothingly
i explained the necessity for giving the men a longer rest. He
: alone could persuade Durnovo to lie down at night and cease his
| perpetual calculations. The man's hands were so unsteady that he
i could hardly take the sights necessary to determine their position
in this sea-like waste. And to Jack alone did Victor Durnovo ever
: approach the precincts of mutual confidence.
' I can't help it, Meredith,' he said one day, with a Beared look.
4?2 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
after a particularly violent outburst of temper. ' I don't know
what it is. I sometimes think I'm going mad.'
And soon after that the change was made.
An advance column, commanded by Meredith and Durnovo,
was selected to push on to the Plateau, while Oscard and Joseph
followed more leisurely with the baggage and the slower travellers*
One of the strangest journeys in the vast unwritten history of
commercial advance was that made by the five men from the camp
of the main expedition across the lower slopes of a mountain range
— unmarked on any map, unnamed by any geographer — to the
mysterious Simiacine Plateau. It almost seemed as if the wild,
bloodshot eyes of their guide could pierce the density of the forest
where Nature had held unchecked, untrimmed sway for countless
generations. Victor Durnovo noted a thousand indications unseen
by his four companions. The journey no longer partook of the
nature of a carefully calculated progress across a country untrodden
by a white man's foot ; it was a wild rush in a straight line through
unbroken forest fastness, guided by an instinct that was stronger
than knowledge. And the only Englishman in the party — Jack
Meredith— had to choose between madness and rest. He knew
enough of the human brain to be convinced that the only possible
relief to this tension was success.
Victor Durnovo would never know rest now until he reached
the spot where the Simiacine should be. If the trees were there,
growing, as he said, in solitary state and order, strangely suggestive
of human handiwork, then Victor Durnovo was saved. If no such
spot was found, madness and death could only follow.
To save his companion's reason, Meredith more than once
drugged his food ; but when the land began to rise beneath their
feet in tentative billow-like inequalities— the deposit of a glacial
age — Durnovo refused to stop for the preparation of food. Eating
dry biscuits and stringy tinned meat as they went along, the four
men — three blacks and one white — followed in the footsteps of
their mad pilot.
' We're getting to the mountains — we're getting to the moun-
tains ! We shall be there to-night ! Think of that, Meredith-
to-night ! ' he kept repeating with a sickening monotony. And
all the while he stumbled on. The perspiration ran down his face
in one continuous stream ; at times he paused to wipe it from his
eyes with the back of his hands, and as these were torn and bleeding
there were smears of blood across his cheeks.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 473
The night fell ; the moon rose, red and glorious, and the beasts
of this untrodden forest paused in their search for meat to watch
with wondering, fearless eyes that strange, unknown animal — man.
It was Durnovo who, climbing wildly, first saw the break in
the trees ahead. He gave a muffled cry of delight, and in a few
minutes they were all rushing, like men possessed, up a bare slope
of broken shale.
Durnovo reached the summit first. A faint, pleasant odour
was wafted into their faces. They stood on the edge of a vast
table-land melting away in the yellow moonlight. Studded all
over, like sheep in a meadow, were a number of little bushes, and
no other vegetation.
Victor Durnovo stooped over one of these. He buried his
face among the leaves of it, and suddenly he toppled over.
' Yes,' he cried as he fell, ' it's Simiacine ! '
And he turned over with a groan of satisfaction, and lay like a
dead man.
(To "be continued,')
VOL. XXI. — NO. 126, ff.S. 22
474
THE SUBALTERN IN INDIA A HUNDRED
YEARS AGO.
THE British subaltern of to-day has a proverbially hard lot when
he attempts the herculean task of ' living on his pay.' Happy
those whose paternal coffers are well filled, and who possess the
' Open Sesame ' to their treasures !
India is the land of promise to the noble-hearted youths who
aspire to the achievement of making both ends meet. Thither
their footsteps turn, and there, having gone forth from their
British regiments and enrolled themselves under the banner of
the Staff Corps, they may find alleviations to their lot in the
company of the sporting, pleasure-loving members of Anglo-
Indian society.
But the subaltern has a time of danger to pass through while
he is being ' seasoned,' not only to the climate, but to the social
atmosphere of his new surroundings. In the days of his griffin-
hood — those first perilous twelve months — how many rocks ahead
there are on which his bark may go down. With prudence, it is
true, he may steer through open channels and escape shipwreck,
but few will keep clear of the toils of some ' trusty ' native bearer.
The bearer speaks the language of which the newcomer knowa
nothing ; the bearer knows the manners and customs of the
country of which his master is profoundly ignorant ; the bearer
can arrange journeys and make bandobasts to perfection, where
the griffin, after toiling and moiling, and getting his first taste of
fever in struggling against the passive resistance of native officials,
has to confess himself vanquished, and make up for his presump-
tuous rashness by unlimited backsheesh.
The ' trusty ' attendant gradually, and by the most infinitesimal
advances, gets more and more into his own hands, and makes
himself indispensable to his employer, until at last he attains the
object he has had in view all along, viz., to be paymaster and
director-general of his confiding sahib.
Who that is not versed in the ways of Anglo-Indian life would
imagine, in looking at our fair-faced, ingenuous subaltern and his
cringing, servile Eastern attendant, observing the fawning respect
THE SUBALTERN IN INDIA A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 476
of the one, and the sharp, imperious orders and irascible speech of
the other, that it is the Asiatic who is master of the situation, and
who quietly, plausibly, and convincingly represents to his superior
the necessities of the moment ? Care soon begins to dog the
footsteps of the too-confiding subaltern, and only he and his
bearer can trace the subtle windings of the spectre's advance. It
would, perhaps, be truer to say that only the bearer knows the
intricacies and can follow the slow weaving of the web that ere
long binds his master hand and foot. The subaltern's British
manhood is impotent to fight against the wiles of his Eastern
brother. Pay-day is a time of untold horrors, for the month's
pay is swallowed up in the yawning gulf of unmet claims of which
the trusty bearer has such an alarmingly accurate knowledge.
Happy those whose bearers are not of the ' trusty ' order, and
who have consequently struggled by themselves with the madden-
ing problem of settling their little bills.
Should the griffin thus stand alone in the days of his ex-
tremity, the smallness of his pay will not prevent his being light-
hearted, and there will be no extortionate bunniah, no oily,
respectful, but relentless bearer to haunt his dreams, and drive
peace from him. Then he can enjoy to the full the pigsticking
and the polo, the Gymkhana and the dance, and may bask in the
light of blue eyes and sunny smiles during his two months' leave
to the hills.
And if in this year of grace 1893 the subaltern's position in
the land of Ind is a precarious one, what was it in the time of our
grandfathers ? Then, as now, the subaltern's motto was ' noblesse
oblige,' and though his heart might be heavy within him, he
manfully showed a brave front to the world, and gallantly met the
claims that his position as a son of Mars forced on him. The
' trusty ' race of bearers had not then arisen in the land, and his
household and his housekeeping — for he does not seem to have
belonged to any mess — were on the slenderest footing. This
did not keep him from race, sport, or dance, or from trying to
retrieve his fortune in one of the many lotteries in which our
forefathers delighted.
But a groan of suffering, nevertheless, was now and again wrung
from him, and a certain Jacob Sorrowful bewailed his wretched
fate in moving terms.1 How could he live and move and have
1 Calcutta Gazette, 1787,
22—2
476 THE SUBALTERN IN iNDfA
his being on ninety-five rupees a month ? He thus makes his
moan.
I am a younger son of Mars, and spend my time in carving
A thousand different ways and means to keep myself from starving,
For how with servants' wages, Sirs, and clothes can I contrive
To rent a house and feed myself on scanty ninety-five ?
Six mornings out of seven I lie in bed to save
The only coat my pride can boast the service ever gave ;
And as for eating twice a day, as heretofore, I strive
To measure out my frugal meal by scanty ninety-five.
The sun sunk low on Thetis' lap, I quit my crazy cot
And straight prepare my bullock's heart or liver for the pot ;
For khitmudgar or cook I've not to keep my fire alive,
But puff and blow and blow and puff on scanty ninety-five.
My evening dinner gormandised, I buckle on my shoes,
And stroll among my brother subs in quest of better news ;
But what, alas ! can they expect from orders to derive,
Which scarce can give them any hope of keeping ninety-five ?
The chit-chat hour spent in grief, I trudge it home again,
And try by smoking half the night to smoke away my pain ;
But all my hopes are fruitless, and I must still contrive
To do the best a hero can on scanty ninety-five.
Alack ! that e'er I left my friends to seek my fortune here,
And gave my solid pudding up for such uncertain fare ;
Oh ! had I chose the better way and stayed at home to thrive,
I had not known what 'tis to live on scanty ninety-five.
The ' good old times ' were evidently not golden ones to the heroes
of the past, though in spite of ' scanty ninety-five ' Jacob Sorrow-
ful and his fellows seem to have had a fairly good idea of enjoying
life.
There is a curious old-world ' Gazette ' l that tells us of his life
at Calcutta, and gives us strange glimpses of a time that is no
more. To make up for the lack of ' khitmudgar and cook,' our
subaltern provided himself with a slave, and dire was his anger if
his human chattel attempted to change his condition. He adver-
tised his loss in hot haste, telling a sympathising public that for
the greater security of his rights the slave had his master's initials
branded on his arm. Would anyone to whom the lad might
apply for employment send him back to his owner ?
Luckless lad and basely defrauded owner! Surely human
merchandise must have been cheap to come within the means of
' scanty ninety-five ! ' It was but natural that the subaltern
should follow where his superior officers led the way, and those
1 Calcutta Gazette, 1784-1797.
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 477
higher in the service kept not one but several slaves to do their
bidding. Lieut.-Colonel Call, stationed at Fort William in 1786,
advertises for a slave boy who has dared to leave him, and says he
' will esteem himself particularly obliged ' if any gentleman will
enable him to recover his lost property. A few years later the East
India Company had recognised that slavery was a blot on our
social system, and issued a notice that anyone found dealing in
this ' detestable traffic,' ' so shocking to humanity,' would be
punished with the ' utmost severity.' This notice, however, seems
rather to apply to those who were exporting slaves than to those
who kept them for their own use.
Journeys in those old days were sleepy, lengthy, and withal
expensive luxuries. It was naturally a serious business to get to
and from Europe, and masters of sailing vessels were, it seems,
inclined to make their charges exorbitant to their luckless
passengers. The Honourable East India Company, in its paternal
relation to its servants, issues warnings, commands, and regulations
on the subject, but apparently with little result. At last a table
was drawn up, wherein it was stated that while general officers
should pay 2501. for their passage, an ensign should only pay
105^., and a cadet 701. Commanders were warned that if by any
ways or means, directly or indirectly, they should take or receive
further sums of money for the same they should pay to the Company,
for the use of the Poplar Hospital, treble the sum so taken.
For news from Europe our forefathers had, perforce^ to wait
with what patience they could muster. During the European
war that was raging in the nineties, we find it matter of surprise
and gratulation when news of the tragic histories of the autumn
of '93 reached Bombay in April of the following year. We
hear of the cost of a letter from Calcutta to Bombay being one
rupee nine annas ; while for news to travel from Madras to the
capital in fourteen days is said to be ' uncommonly expeditious.'
Small wonder that the excitement caused by the arrival of ships
from Europe was such that by general consent existing en-
gagements were set aside, so that all might be free to greet
friends or study the news the mail had brought. An old
native servant whose memory dated back to those days used to
affirm that at the news of the arrival of ships in the harbour the
dinner tables would be deserted, and all by one consent would
make their way to the water side. What a sight it must have
been in old Calcutta when the men rushed forth from the. dinner
478 THE SUBALTERN IN INDIA
tables and boarded the welcome vessels, clamouring for news
fiom the old world.
English ladies were few in the land, and seem then, as now, to
have wrought havoc in the susceptible breast of the subaltern. It
is somewhat startling to the rigid notions of propriety of these
nineteenth century days to find verses of an ardent nature printed
in the public journals, addressed to ladies by name, or under the
flimsiest of disguises. But we must remember the refinement of
those days was not that of the present time, and that our
ancestors thought not as we think on matters social or political.
The duel was common, and it was no unusual occurrence for
one of the principals to be left dead on the ground. Everyone
was anxious to shield the survivor from the consequences of his
deed, though the letter of the law was scrupulously adhered to.
In 1787 occurred an instance in point. A junior officer was cited
to appear before the Supreme Court of Calcutta to be tried for the
murder of Captain , of His Majesty's 73rd Foot, whom he had
killed in a duel. The Colonel of the accused duly sent his sub-
ordinate under escort to his trial, but failed to produce any
witnesses. The judge pointed out to the jury that in the absence
of evidence they could but give one verdict. Accordingly the
gentlemen of the jury, without retiring, brought in their verdict
' Not guilty,' and the prisoner was discharged.
In an official letter of the Honourable Board of Directors of
the East India Company there is a curious notice relating to a
duel that had taken place between Sir John Macpherson and
Major James Brown. The Directors say that they have read and
deliberately considered the circumstances that led to this duel,
and their remarks on the same give such a curious insight into
the manners of the time that we quote them in full. ' Eesolved
unanimously, that the apology required from Sir John Macpher-
son in his station of Governor- General of Bengal, and not in his
private capacity, the apology stating that the paragraph which
gave the offence appeared in the " Calcutta Gazette," by the
authority of the government, at the head of which he (Sir John
Macpherson) was, as Governor-General of Bengal. That the call-
ing upon any person acting in the character of the Governor-
General of Bengal, or Governor of either of the Company's other
Presidencies, or as Counsellor, or in any other station, in respect
of an official act, in the way Sir John Macpherson has been calk
upon, is highly improper, tends to a subversion of due subordi-
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 479
nation, may be highly injurious to the Company's service, and
ought not to be suffered.' There was hot blood in the veins of
those who had risen above the rank of subalterns, it seems, and
with such examples before them no wonder that youth was fiery
and impatient of control. We should like to know what the
future of Major James Brown could have been, and how he fared
after his rash quarrel with the official acts of the highest civilian
of the Presidency.
In racing and sport the subaltern of the last century took as
keen an interest as in the present day. There were pleasant break-
fasts on the race-course at Calcutta, when the stewards entertained
their friends after the races were over — a clever grouping of tents
where to the strains of one of the regimental bands two hundred
and fifty persons sat down in one company. The stewards' hospi-
tality did not end here, for after breakfast the company adjourned
to another tent, where a wooden floor had been prepared, and
there dancing was kept up till two o'clock in the afternoon. On
the last day of the races, too, there was a ball to end up with, when
the stately minuet and sprightly country dance gave our fair
countrywomen an occasion of displaying their grace and charm of
dress and manner. At one time it is said — perhaps it was in the
hot weather! — that the ladies are not such keen dancers as they
used to be, and that no one is found to dance through the night
and prepare for the duties of another day by a drive at sunrise
round the race-course. Small wonder, and our countrywomen must
have been a sprightly race for so much to have been expected of
them. One New Year's Day we hear of an 'elegant dinner,'
followed by a magnificent ball given by the Eight Honourable
the Grovernor-Greneral. At the latter the ' minuet walkers were
few, but the lively country-dance runners were bounding and
abounding.' The supper tables 'presented every requisite to
gratify the most refined Epicurean.' The ladies ' soon resumed
the pleasures of the dance, and knit the rural braid in emulation
of the poet's sister Graces till four in the morning, while some
disciples of the jolly god of wine testified their satisfaction in
paeans of satisfaction.'
Not in presence of the ladies, we will suppose ! Were there
any drives round the race-course to end up this more than usually
brilliant entertainment ? Our chronicle saith not, but we can
imagine that there may have been.
Masquerades, theatricals, and lotteries, were all attractions of
480 THE SUBALTERN IN INDIA
the season in Calcutta. So entirely was the gambling of the
latter in accordance with the spirit of the age, that it was thought
proper to devote the proceeds of a lottery to the erection of a
church. In this, perhaps, our ' fancy fairs ' and ' sales ' for the
same objects are not on altogether different lines.
The subaltern had a variety to choose from in his social
pleasures, and we fear he must have become spoilt for roughing
life if his lot were cast there many seasons in succession. ]t was
not all dance and music, though, in those good old times. There
was a reverse to the picture, and there were dangers of field and
flood to be encountered, and experiences of war with the wily
native that make us even now shudder. The ghastly sufferings
of those who fell into the hands of Tippoo Sultan were almost
beyond belief, and death claimed many before they were released.
One of the survivors, who was a prisoner with Colonel Braithwaite
in Bangalore, tried to beguile his sufferings with verse.
Along the verandah we stalk,
And think of past pleasure with pain ;
With arms unfolded we walk,
And sigh for those pleasures again.
We feel with regret our decay,
So meagre, so lank, and so pale ;
Like ghosts we are ranged in array
When mustered in Bangalore jail.
Thus while the best days of our prime
Walk slowly and wretchedly on,
We pass the dull hours of our time
With marbles, cards, dice, and a song.
Whilst others sit mending their clothes,
Which long since began for to fail ;
Amusements which lighten the woes
Of the captives in Bangalore jail.
It needed the light spirit of an Irishman, as the rhymes tell us
the author must have been, thus to celebrate his woes.
There were difficulties encountered by the officers in command
of native regiments, when as yet the former had not grasped the
subtle windings of the invincible barriers of caste, and the newly
enlisted Asiatics knew little of the stern and unbending discipline
of English military law. In the autumn of 1795 the Command er-
in-Chief laid before the Grovernor-Greneral in Council a statement
of the mutinous conduct of the 15th Battalion of Native Infantry.
It was resolved that the said battalion should be ' broken with
infamy,' a.nd its colours burned. The minutes go on to state that
A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. 481
in order to prevent misrepresentation of the reasons of this
severe punishment, a full explanation of the same shall be
published in General Orders. The men of the loth Battalion
\vere Hindus, and therefore had the strongest prejudice against
undertaking a voyage by sea. Troops were to be sent to
Malacca, and it was officially reported that the battalion had
volunteered for the service. However this may have been, when
the time came for embarkation the men refused to obey orders.
The 29th Battalion was called out to suppress this ' outrageous
mutiny,' but when summoned to lay down their arms the mutineers
fired on the 29th. The Commander-in-Chief acknowledges the
services rendered by the 29th Battalion, and compliments the
officers on the efficient state of their men. Orders are issued for
the formation of a new battalion, and stringent regulations made
to prevent the re-enlistment of any of the mutineers of the 15th
Battalion. There was evidently something to be learnt on both
sides before European officers and native soldiers could pull
together.
Dacoits were bold, and seem to have dared the law with
impunity. Many were the murders and robberies committed by
them within the precincts of Calcutta itself, while in the mofussil
(outlying districts) they were the terror of honest men. A series
of more than usually daring robberies at last led the inhabitants of
Calcutta to petition the government to take steps to suppress the
nuisance, and to put the police on a better footing.
The old torch-lighting days, or rather nights, were over for the
garrison of Fort William before the end of the century, and the
Governor-General orders that links or torches be totally prohibited
along the streets or on the ramparts, and the sentries at the sorties
are ordered not to suffer them to pass into garrison. The march
of civilisation had reached the point of ' lanthorns with candles
lighted in them,' and though less picturesque than the blazing
torches in the dark streets, they doubtless lessened the number of
conflagrations which so often roused the slumbering inhabitants at
the dead of night.
As we scan the advertisements of this same old-world ' Gazette '
from which we have been culling, we find some that would be unique
in any country. What a curious society it must have been in
which the following appeared !
' Whereas I, John Ghent, being on the Kace Ground on
Monday, the 30th of January, 1786, did, without provocation,
22-5
482 THE SUBALTERN IN INDIA A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
strike Mr. Eobert Hay, I in this public manner beg pardon of the
said Mr. Hay for committing the aforesaid offence.
' (Signed) JOHN GHENT.'
Here is a confession of anticipated connubial bliss made
naively to the world at large :
'Marriage. — On Wednesday last, John Palling, Esq., to Miss
Grieveley, a young lady possessing every qualification to render
the marriage state happy.' It does not mention the qualifications
of the bridegroom for the ' marriage state.' Let us hope they
were on a level with those of the fair bride.
Sometimes, too, military men were confounded with their
civilian brethren, and, though kindly disposed towards all, such a
slight was not to be borne. Who will not sympathise with the
following ?
' Whereas there are several persons of the name of Price whose
Christian name begins with a large J. — J. Price, Esq., doth there-
fore apply to so many that mistakes have frequently happened.
I beg leave to decline the appellation of Esq., and request of those
who do know me and of those who do not know me, but may in
future have occasion to send notes, letters, or parcels, which they
may pretend shall come direct to me, that they direct to
' Captain Joseph Price,
' Clive Street,
' Calcutta.'
Such a comprehensive guarding against danger should have been
successful. Those who know us, and those who do not know us,
embrace pretty well all sorts and conditions of our fellow-men.
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN,
I.
Ix a wild and desolate part of the Irish coast there is a curious
passage, several hundred yards wide and about three miles long,
breaking in at right angles to the line of the shore. Into it,
while the tide is rising, the sea pours itself vehemently, as though
the channel led into empty space over the edge of the world, and
the water were taking the opportunity of pouring itself away into
infinity. The infinite, and the impossible, are two kindred words,
'and must here be taken as synonymous ; for a great Irish lough
lies at the farther end of the passage, and to fill it up to the
height of the risen tide in a few hours, and through so narrow a
channel, is an impossibility. Long before the level can be ad-
justed the tide outside is falling once more ; and the water that
poured in so eagerly, on its fool's errand, comes whirling angrily
out again, away over the bar, far out into the open sea.
Eagerly pouring in, angrily rushing out again, the pace of the
water in the channel, save for a disconcerted pause at the turn of
the tide, is always tremendous. Here and there a jagged rock lifts
itself in the whirling current ; and in one place, where there is an
awkward bend to the left, a great whirlpool writhes and roars
beneath the further cliff. The Wheel is its name — white and
convulsed lips that project upwards a foot above the stream, a
yawning mouth and throat, a hoarse and hungry voice, have gained
for it a living individuality among the Lough fishers.
The passage is known as the Lough Eun. The headlong rush
of the water, the crags and rocks that strew the channel, render
its navigation perilous in the extreme. Nor are matters improved
by the ugly bar that lies across the entrance, and which has been
formed by the scourings of the Lough ; for, like too many an
Irish housewife, she keeps her rubbish-heap just outside the front
door.
One August night the tide was nearly down, and the Wheel
was roaring as hungrily as usual, while the water came pouring
down the Kun, and went in wild commotion out over the bar
into the open sea, where all was calm, in the peace of a summer
night.
484 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN.
It was long past midnight, and the Tumbler, a twenty-ton
cutter, lay idly, with all sail set, drifting with the tide a mile or so
from the shore. Two men, who were sitting idly on deck keeping
the early watch together, looked out at the marvellous spangling
of the robe of night, with eyes that were dreamy and heedless.
Not a breath of air was stirring ; everywhere overhead was the
spangle of the stars, and long smooth rollers that travelled inces-
santly across the sea towards the coast, and that came up out of
the gloom, and heaved and glided on again as silently as ghosts,
caught and reflected the lights brokenly, and spread in every
direction a dim incessantly-moving tangle of fire upon the surface
of the sea. The phosphorus-fires, too, were alight within the
waves, and as they heaved and splashed against the rudder and
beneath the counter of the yacht, burning sparkles fell back into'
the blackness of the water.
Among all these vague and mobile points of fire the lights of
the cutter stared steadily towards the shore. In the north-east a
distant lighthouse turned a watchful eye for a moment down the
seas, and then looked away again. Over the eastern horizon the
moon was just beginning to lift tilted horns that threw a wavering
line of light across the waves.
Presently one of the two men, the owner of the Tumbler, and
by name Kit Wilson, began to stir. He was sitting at the helm,
and he moved it uneasily a little from side to side, and then
called to his companion.
' Graham, you sinner, what's the use of your acting as lookout
man up there forward if you don't see anything — or swear you've
seen something at any rate ? Come down aft, old chap, and have
a talk.'
The other rose from behind the listless foresail, where he had
been lying so quietly, and came slowly down the deck. He
stretched himself beside his friend, but did not speak, and it was
once more Wilson who broke the silence :
' I guess the skipper has got the nightmare.'
For up out of the forehatch floated at regular intervals an
extraordinary sound, half choke, half snore, that wandered aim-
lessly about the sails and the rigging, and sauntered away into
dim Distance over the sea. The skipper and his men — three
hands in all — were down below. And that the skipper, for one,
was very fast asleep indeed there could not be the slightest doubt,
Presently Wilson took up his parable again :
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN. 485
' There's nothing for breakfast but that bit of antiquated ham,
unless we make Craigdauragh in time to raise something from the
house ; and I'm hanged if I think we're going to do it. Not a
breath of wind ! — and yet I could have sworn, half an hour ago,
that that boat out there was bringing up a breeze with her.'
He pointed out to the offing, where some lights had been slowly
creeping up from the distance, and were now only a few hundred
yards away. Through his night-glass he had made out that they
belonged to a schooner-rigged yacht that had been standing
up for the Eun, but had now sailed into the unlucky belt of calm
wherein the Tumbler herself was lying.
' Another fellow going up with us,' said Wilson ; ' but we
can't take the Eun unless we get enough wind to give us good
steerage-way — it's too risky. What a nuisance it is ! But that's
where the mischief is.'
He pointed down the line of the coast, where a light current
of air seemed to be setting off shore. A heavy bank of fog came
creeping out, as if with the intention of interposing itself between
the two yachts ; and it was spreading fast towards the schooner.
Graham, stretched full-length upon the deck, paid no atten-
tion to the remarks of his friend. He was watching the
marvellous play of the burning sparkles within the waves as they
rose and fell beneath the counter of the yacht : for every now and
then, as the Tumbler forged ahead a little, from far down under
her keel whirled out a stream of fire that eddied about the rudder-
post, and rose in bewildering circles towards the surface.
As he lay in silence a dark haggard expression came upon
him, and deep lines furrowed his face ; so noticeably, that Wilson
began to eye him a little dubiously. Whatever his thoughts, and
far away as they might be, they were not pleasant ones.
The bank of fog came creeping every moment closer. Pre-
sently it had enveloped the schooner and hid her from sight.
Kit Wilson hauled in his mainsheet and made it fast. The idle
swinging of the boom perhaps was worrying him. Then he turned
to his friend and touched him.
* Graham, old fellow, do you know why I asked you to come
over here and pay me a visit this month ? '
He got no answer at once, so went on for himself:
* Because, after the rough times you must have been having
this last year or two, I thought the knocking about at sea in this
pld tub would pull you together and freshen you up a bit again.
486 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN.
Now, if a fellow is ruined and come to smash, the best thing he
can do is to pluck up and fight up-hill again.'
Graham, who was the * fellow ' in question, smiled and said
rather cynically, ( Certainly.' And a moment later he added:
* But, Kit, I am going up-hill again. All things considered, I
fancy I ought to think that I'm doing pretty well.'
The drifting fog was beginning to reach the Tumbler:, the
stars were blotted out, the risen moon hidden ; grey misty dark-
ness, feebly lit by the struggling lanterns of the yacht, enveloped
her about. The outward rush of water from the Run was nearly
over. The tide was on the turn, and the booming of the bar was
dying away. But the skipper's snore sounded only the louder.
After a while, as though in apology on behalf of someone not
there present, Graham spoke :
* The Eltons were entirely in his power. The only way for
them to save themselves was, that Fairy should marry him.
Perhaps she sacrificed herself to save her people. But ' He
checked himself as if he had been about to say something that
were better left unsaid.
Graham had been a partner in the firm of Elton & Co., which
had lately come to grief.
* Well, anyhow,' said Kit gently, after a pause, * it's done, and
can't be helped. It takes all kinds of people to make a world,
unfortunately. It certainly is rather rough on you ; but, if what
you say is true, perhaps it is rougher still on her. The man
Colquhoun must be a queer sort of blackguard, I should fancy.'
4 That's just it,' returned Graham. ' He is a first-class black-
guard. He married her, knowing how matters were between us,
and so is mad, I believe, with a kind of jealousy. A pretty way
to start in life ! He has done all he could to spoil his chances of
happiness — and hers ; and now he is mad with her, and with
himself. They are drifting apart, I believe, Kit, more and more
every day.'
With his left hand he picked viciously at a splinter in one of
the timbers of the deck.
II.
CLOSE at hand in the fog arose a confused sound. Then two
voices rang out in the stillness — one a woman's, thrilled wit
passionate repulsion — and faintly discernible through the mis
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN. 487
came the schooner, a boat of about forty tons, gliding slowly, her
lofty upper sails filled by a slight air which passed above the fog
and barely touched the more humble cutter. There were people
on her deck, but too much engrossed, as it seemed, by their own
affairs to notice the dim outline of the Tumbler.
Wilson and Graham strained their ears to hear the cause of
the commotion, and their eyes to see what was taking place, and
were just able to discern the persons on the schooner's deck. They
were four in number : a sailor, in the bows ; the skipper, at the
helm ; a powerfully-built man, a gentleman, standing in a singu-
larly disconcerted attitude in the stairway that led below to the
cabin ; and these three were gazing uneasily at the tall straight
figure of a girl that swung recklessly out on the gunwale over the
grey sea. With one hand she grasped the shrouds and steadied
herself as she swayed dangerously over the water.
Another moment and the schooner, forging still slowly by,
had disappeared in the mist as noiselessly as she had come.
Graham laid his hand upon Wilson's arm, and his grip was so
painful that the other turned.
« What is it, old man ? '
* Kit ' said" Graham hoarsely.
< Ahoy ! '
The skipper of the Tumbler, roused from sleep, had put his
head up through the forehatch, and was giving a dubious hail, to
nobody in particular. After a moment's pause an answering hail
came back through the fog.
1 Somebody close aboard us, sir,' said the skipper to Kit, as
though that were a fact that a land-lubber like his owner could
not possibly have discovered for himself. * I thought I heard
something.'
' Yes,' said Wilson, * a schooner going up the Eun, I fancy —
and there's mischief on board. It's the boat that was lying off
the Red House a few days ago.'
' The Crane ! ' ejaculated the skipper, striking one hand into
the palm of the other. < And mischief on board ? Then what
they were telling me down at Craigdauragh a few nights ago
will, maybe, be true ? '
' I've heard nothing, and I don't know the Crane,' said Wilson
impatiently. * What is it ? *
' The Red House is let for the summer to a gentleman from
London, sir, with his wife. And they don't get on very well
488 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN.
together, I'm told, so he has brought round this boat of his, called
the Crane, and has discharged all his own men, and put a rapscal-
lion crew on board, and set up poor old Alister, of Craigdauragh,
as captain. And he has put his wife on board, and taken her out
to break her in.'
* Taken her out to break her in ? ' echoed Wilson.
' Yes, sir. And he swears he won't let her get foot on land
again till he has done it, bedad. When they were ashore he
never let her out of his sight, for fear she would run away ; for
he treats her orful, sir, orful — afloat or ashore, so they say.'
« The blackguard ! '
' Yes, sir,' said the skipper, accepting the inference with due
deference ; ' that's what he is, and no mistake. He's a city sharp.
They say that he ruined the gentleman who was engaged to his
wife before he married her ; and that seems to be what the row's
about.'
1 But why on earth don't she run away, then ? '
* That's just the point, sir, by what I'm told. There's some-
thing wrong about her family, and he holds them under his
thumb. It would be the ruin of her father — so people say ; of
course 7 don't know anything about it — if she was to run away,
that's clear. The gentleman could sell him up at a moment's
notice — sell the very shirt off his back. And that's "what he
swears he will do, too. And that's why she shuts her teeth and
holds on.'
The skipper shut his teeth too, and went forward.
* Kit,' said Graham, in a curiously low tone, ' do you know
now what is the matter with me ? That man on the Crane is
Colquhoun, and the girl, his wife, was Fairy Elton. I knew things
were bad between them, but I never thought it was as bad as this.
God ! that it should have come to be the common talk.'
* Hush now, man ! ' said Kit peremptorily. * Don't begin to
talk wildly. You may be mistaken ; if you knew the skipper as
well as I do you wouldn't take all he says for gospel. But here
comes a bit of a breeze at last, and we shall see more of the
Crane yet to-night.'
A light air filled the sails of the Tumbler, and she began to
forge slowly ahead, on the track along which the schooner had
passed a few minutes ago. The fog still hung listlessly on the
water, but was no longer dense or uniform ; for the advancing
puffs of air drove paths and passages through it, and gradually it
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN, 489
was collecting in masses or being entirely dispersed. And pre-
sently the Crane was once more visible, lying idly on the water,
head to wind ; and the Tumbler forged slowly on towards her.
* Crane, ahoy ! ' shouted the skipper of the Tumbler.
i Hulloo ! ' came back the answer.
* Going up the Eun ? '
* Yes, when the fog clears — if we get wind enough. Is that
the Tumbler ? Is Mr. Wilson aboard ? '
' He is,' responded Kit, laconically, for himself.
Alister, the man on the CrcCne, went aft, and pulled up a
dinghy that was in tow behind, and got into it and cast off the
rope. He was anxious, it seemed, to have a little conversation
with Mr. Wilson.
1 1 wish, sir,' he said, when he came alongside, ' if you wouldn't
mind the trouble, you would keep pretty close to us till we get up
into the Lough. I should take it as a great favour, sir, if you
wouldn't mind.'
' Why ? is anything wrong ? ' asked Kit, surprised.
* Everything, sir, I think,' responded Alister gloomily. He
was a weak-looking old man — not one to face a difficult situation
readily. ' Things is very bad on board of us to-night, and I don't
rightly know what mayn't be going to happen. Mr. Colquhoun —
our owner, that is — he's asleep now, all right, down in the cabin ;
but we're looking out for squalls when he wakes up again ; and
maybe I'd be glad of somebody at hand to help me at a pinch —
if you wouldn't mind standing by ? '
' Certainly,' said Kit readily. ' Is there anything I can do
for you now ? I thought there was something wrong when you
passed us a while ago.'
' 'Deed there was ! ' said Alister hastily. ' It's Mrs. Colqu-
houn. I wish she was on board of the Tumbler, instead of being
with us— that I do, Mr. Wilson, with all my heart.'
' Why not ? ' broke in Graham, with sudden impetuosity.
* Impossible ! ' from Kit with decision. * And impossible it
is,' assented Alister. * I don't know whether you know anything
about Mr. Colquhoun, but it is some trouble with his lady that
makes the mischief. I would be glad that she wasn't on board.
So I offered, myself, only just now, to set her on shore as soon as
I could — anywhere she liked — in reason, that is. But she only
said, " No, it was impossible." But I'd better be getting back
again, I think, Mr. Wilson j the wind's freshening,'
490 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN.
And he pulled back to his own craft, somewhat relieved in
mind.
For an hour the two yachts cruised up and down in the light
breeze before the entrance to the Eun, the Tumbler leading the
way, the Crane a little in the rear ; ghost-like, with white sails,
in the misty moonlight, flitting the one behind the other. Then
it was time to attempt the passage, for the water was pouring
into the channel on its way up to the Lough, and the boats had
but to go with the current.
But when Kit put the Tumbler before the wind, making for
the Kun, and the Crane, following suit, presently came sweeping
by him under a full spread of sail, he noticed that a tali
powerful man had come on deck and had taken the helm.
' Colquhoun ! ' said Graham, in a low tone, to Wilson.
And Alister, standing beside his owner at the helm, made a
sign of warning and entreaty to Kit as they passed, as if begging
him to remember his promise. It was clear that the skipper of
the Crane was uneasy, and that he would have been better pleased
to have had the tiller in his own hands at such a time.
III.
YAWING rather wildly from side to side of her true course, the
Crane passed through the troubled waters of the bar into the
passage, and the Tumbler tumbled stoutly through behind her.
As they drew down the Kun, the in-set of the tide became more
and more apparent ; on either hand spread a lonely, desolate
shore : jagged rocks reared their heads above the water, and it
cried grimly against them as it raced ; the Ttimbler travelled with
continually increasing velocity in the track of the Crane. The
breeze had swept the scattered mists in curtains about the crags
on either side, and, by partially concealing their outlines, added
to their grim aspect. The right-hand shore was a low continuous
cliff, against which the tide glanced as along a wall. But thq
Tumbler gave it a wide berth. For beneath it, at the point1,
where the Eun makes the sharp bend to the left, for an hour or
two in the full strength of the tide, roars and circles the dreaded
Wheel. And a couple of hundred yards earlier, in the direct track
of the water as it sweeps into the whirlpool, but showing its
smooth rounded back only at low water, lies the terrible Crab rock.
It is necessary, then, to keep well in, in rounding the corner,
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN. 491
so as to avoid being swept over by the tide towards the further
cliff, and into the dangers which lie there. But that is precisely
what Colquhoun did not do. For as the Crane approached the
corner she sheered suddenly out.
* What on earth is the fellow doing ! ' ejaculated Wilson in a
tone of utter astonishment. l He's going right o¥er towards the
Crab ! He oughtn't to take the helm at all if he don't know the
channel better than that ! '
The crew of the Crane had also realised their danger. There
was a moment of frenzied altercation between Colquhoun and
his skipper ; only a moment, and in vain ; then Alister turned to
his men, and instantly they made a rush to possess themselves of
the helm by force. But Colquhoun struggled fiercely with them ;
still, for a few moments, the Crane held on her course ; then,
suddenly, almost level with the Corner, but far over beneath the
opposite cliff, she stopped dead. There was a dull crash ; masts
and shrouds snapped like thread and matchwood, and fell over
the side.
* The drunken fool ! ' exclaimed Kit, rising excitedly. ' I
thought so! — he's gone clean onto the Crab! Here, Tom and
Larry, quick ! haul in the mainsheet,' and he put up his helm.
He too was bound for the Crab.
The skipper came hurrying aft. ' We daren't go across there
for all the gold in the world,' he cried ; ' there's the set of the race
on to the cliff ; and then the Wheel, too, will be breaking out '
* Dry up ! ' said Kit imperiously. * Get your anchor out, boys,
ready to let go.'
The skipper wrung his hands. Then he took a haul on the
foresheet with the philosophy of a sailor. So, almost at right
angles to wind and tide, the Tumbler swept across the Run,
borne broadside on up the channel. As she drew over to the
Crab rock Kit edged her more and more up into the wind,
judging his distance carefully, till at last her nose pointed almost
up-stream. And so she drifted by the Crab, at a few yards'
distance.
* Pay down your boat orua rope ! ' shouted Kit to the wreck as
he passed. Then, edging the Tumbler in behind the shelter of
the rock, he shook her up altogether into the wind.
1 Let go your anchor, boys ! ' And instantly the iron splashed
overboard, and the chain went rattling out. For a moment the
yacht still drifted astern, gathering speed in the current ; then
492 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN.
there came a dull check and strain — the anchor had gripped
among the clean-scoured boulders in the bed of the Run, and was
fast.
1 She holds ! ' said the skipper, with a deep breath, that
showed how doubtful such a result had been, as he saw the
Tumll&r boring uneasily upon her tether, and the swift current
beat upon her bows. But Graham's eyes for one were fixed upon
the wreck.
She was lying over on her beam-ends, pressed hard by the
tide upon the main rock, and within the shelter of the outlying
claws, which in shape and position resemble those of a monstrous
crab, and give to the whole mass its ill-omened name. Whatever
feeling may have actuated Colquhoun in running the hapless
Crane upon this rock — whether in his drunken frenzy he had not
perceived it, though it reared its rounded back a foot or more
above the surface, or whether he had been possessed by some
sudden and savage homicidal fantasy — he had at least had a
measure of luck in his manner of striking. Had he done so a
few feet to right or left on the outside of the Crab's claws, the
yacht would have rolled back from the smooth stone, crushed in,
and would have been swept away by the tide, only to founder a
few yards higher up the Eun. But as it was, the Crane was fast
fixed, jammed hard by the current upon the rock; only, in.no
long space of time, as the Crab was gradually submerged by the
rising tide, the yacht would at length be lifted bodily over into
the whirl behind the stone.
The crew realised the danger of delay, and Bet to work at once
to hold their small boat in readiness for launching ; it had been
lying along the deck, and, held in position by the stump of the
foremast, had luckily escaped destruction. But to set it down
in the boil of the water about the rock without allowing it to be
swamped was an affair requiring delicate care and consideration,
and the most suitable spot for the purpose was earnestly debated
by Alister and his crew. Colquhoun, the author of all the
mischief, was nowhere to be seen ; he was not on deck, nor, in
the disorder of the moment, did anyone seem to heed his dis-
appearance. But his wife was there, holding on to the stump of
the mast, and Graham gazed at her haggardly. %
The swift tide beat upon the bows of the Tumbler and glanced
on towards the cliff. Impinging heavily upon its smooth curving
wall, it paused, disconcerted by the sudden check, and went wan-
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN. 493
dering aimlessly outward with slackened speed and an angry
moan to meet the rushing water in mid-channel. There it
instantly recovered its former velocity, and, falling in with the
rest, went furiously up the tortuous course of the Run. Kit
Wilson began to look anxiously at this swirl of the water astern,
between the Tumbler and the curve of the cliff. Momentarily it
presented a more troubled and menacing appearance, as the
momentum of the in-coming tide increased ; and now and again a
vicious wave gathered itself together out of the confusion, and
made a sudden rush and bore upstream towards the yacht,
breaking at times almost beneath her counter.
* The Wheel, sir,' muttered the skipper, with a very perturbed
face, as he too looked keenly at this particular aspect of the
waters ; * that is where the Wheel will be in a few minutes, when
the tide has got its full strength. I was never anywhere near to
it before.'
' And don't want to be ever again,' quoth Kit, with a dare-
devil laugh, all his pluck rising champagne-like to meet the
situation. * Well, if the anchor don't hold after it has broken out,
you never will be again, that's pretty certain '
A sudden exclamation from Graham interrupted him. The
Crane had given a sudden lurch and moved ; the rising water
had floated her from her position, and had driven her further up
upon the back of the Crab, where she again stuck fast.
This sudden move was a calamity ; for the crew had just been
dropping their little boat gingerly into a comparatively quiet
area of the water behind the claw of the Crab, and, in the -con-
fusion and panic of the moment as the wreck moved, the boat
escaped from their hands and their control, and in an instant was
'swept swiftly away alongside the Tumbler. A sailor made a hasty
attempt to grasp its gunwale as it passed, but missed, and the
crews of both yachts watched it blankly as, whirling wildly round,
it drove in towards the cliff, and then, following the current,
wandered out again into mid-channel and disappeared up the
i Run.
Kit was the first to recover his wits.
* Send us down the end of a rope ! ' he shouted. * Quick ! —
there's no time to lose ! '
The shipwrecked men were quick to catch his meaning, and
their movements were accelerated by the ugly sounds that began
to rise from the water beneath the cliff, for it moaned and writhed
494 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN.
as though in agony. Hastily securing the combing of the fore-
hatch to the end of a rope, they swung it overboard and paid out
the rope as the hatch was swept away, till it arrived beneath the
bows of the Tumbler. The skipper seized it and dragged it on
board. The rope-end was secured to the bow of the Tumbler's
punt, and the tiny craft was dropped carefully over the side of the
yacht. Then the people on the wreck hauled in their rope again,
and drew the punt up to them, bringing it skilfully into the slack
behind the claw of the Crab, and motioned hastily to Mrs.
Colquhoun to take her place.
The moan and writhe of the water behind the Tumbler in-
creased in intensity ; then, with a hideous roar as of a living
creature rent asunder, from away under the cliff a wave suddenly
and swiftly swept upstream.
( Look ! ' said the skipper, with a scared face — ' the Wheel ! '
Sixty yards astern a large circle had appeared — a great white
lip of water standing up above the tide and beating it back in
whirling foam ; the lip of a vast yawning mouth that gaped up-
ward to the moon, and from whence issued a dull roar. The
Wheel had broken out at last — a whirling pit of water that howled
as if for prey.
' Cheerful ! ' shouted Kit to the skipper, and hardly making
himself heard ; ' the Maelstrom would hardly beat that.'
' I never was there,' replied the skipper, with his scared face.
It was all he had to say.
IV.
THE moonlight fell upon the Wheel and the yacht, upon th«
glancing water and upon the frail boat that came travelling
slowly down, stern first, upon the guiding rope. Frail indeed it
seemed to Graham, as he watched it with wolfish anxiety, to carry
such a freight in such a passage. He stood forward eagerly;
slowly it came travelling down, a seaman in the bow, and in the
stern the figure of a girl, muffled from head to foot in a heavy
cloak, as though hiding more from herself than from the dangers
about her.
But when they arrived alongside, and the seaman jumped
lightly on board, it was Kit Wilson who received Mrs. Colquhoun
and led her across the deck ; for at the last moment Graham fell
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN; 495
back among the crew ; and so, heavily muffled still, she passed
below, unconscious of his presence.
Once more the punt came travelling down, bearing the rest of
the Crane's men, — save Alister himself ; and he remained behind,
engaged in anxious entreaty with someone who was down below in
the cabin.
* Mister Colquhoun it is, bad cess to him,' said one of the
sailors. * Bedad, it's the devil himself is in him to-night, wid
dhrink and rage ; maybe he won't be for coming off the wreck at
all the night. Bad scran to him ! 'twould do him good to lave
him there altogether.'
But Alister had evidently over-persuaded him; he showed
himself on deck, and presently the pair were travelling down to-
gether ; the wreck was deserted. The end of the rope had been
made fast to the broken stump of the foremast, and Colquhoun, in
the bows of the boat, was paying out the rope as they dropped
down towards the Tumbler. Soon they were alongside, and
Alister jumped hastily on board. But as Colquhoun was reaching
out a hand to the Tumbler, to steady himself preparatory to
following, he chanced to look up, and met the eyes of Graham.
4 You ! ' he said hoarsely, and staggering as though someone
had dealt him a blow. * You here ! That is too much of a good
thing.'
Before anyone knew what he was about to do, or could stretch
a hand to stop him, he had pushed away from the yacht, and paid
out a few yards more of the rope. The punt glanced along the
side of the Tumbler, and again paused, swinging dangerously on
its tether. Ten yards separated the boat and the yacht; fifty
more, and the water that flashed by them both was circling in the
Wheel. And the Wheel roared hungrily.
* Graham ! ' shouted Colquhoun, with jeering ferocity ; ' Gra-
ham ! — Aha, there you are ! ' His position, his attitude, his
dishevelled air and wild eyes called more for pity than perhaps
the man deserved.
* 'Tis as I thought, sir,' whispered Alister to Wilson. * Couldn't
we get a hold of the rope and haul him in ? He'll maybe let
himself go into the Wheel if we don't. It's mad he is ; mad, with
the drink and all, entirely.'
Wilson tried furtively to follow the suggestion; but as he
made a reach for the rope that stretched alongside, Colquhoun
once more shouted loudly, with fierce determination :
496 THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH
* Let go that rope ! — or I leave go here.' And Kit dared not
tempt him farther.
' You fellow there — Graham ! ' went on the other, with re-
doubled violence, holding the tether with one hand only pre-
cariously, and waving his free arm to the yacht with a recklessness
of gesture that the roar of the Wheel seemed only to intensify —
* don't you think you are a happy man ? You have your old love
with you, there, on board ; and here am I, that stood between
you, on the brink of hell. You it is that have driven me to it
you and she together. But do not you think that you have beat
me yet : I came between you once, and now I come between you
again, for ever. For between you shall lie the blood of a man !
Win her if you like, marry her if you can, after this I '
Even as he spoke, the wretched man loosed his hold of the
rope, and in an instant was whirled away towards the Wheel.
* I parted you once,' he repeated with mad emphasis, standing
up in the frail swaying craft, and flinging up his arms wildly,
* and now I part you again. Marry her if you can, after this
—aha ! '
There had been a commotion at the cutter's prow : Graham
and Wilson struggling together. But Wilson was the stronger,
and held his friend securely. * Are you mad also ? ' he said fiercely ;
' there is nothing to be done.'
The men on the yacht stared with blanched faces as the boat
containing Colquhoun leaped madly up into the white writhing lip
of the whirlpool and disappeared over the brink. As he went
down into the pit he once more waved an arm and shouted
aloud. For a moment the white lip dropped, the dull roar for a
moment intermitted ; out of the cavernous recesses of the whirlpool
came a heavy choking sigh as the hideous pipe gulped down its
prey ; then once more the lips projected, and the roar of the un-
satisfied monster went up again, insatiable.
V.
THE sun, rising in a clear cloudless sky, spread a glorious goldefl
glow upon the fantastic crags and cliffs of the Kun. The rocks
were white with dense masses of gulls. Now and again a great
heron-crane lifted himself heavily from some unnoticed resting-
place, and flew away up to the Lough to look for breakfast, with
long legs trailing out behind him, head buried between his
THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH RUN. 497
shoulders, and long sharp beak pointing his way before him. A
seal puffing in the swift current showed his head for a moment as
he coasted cautiously round a rock by the shore, where the tide was
slack.
The Wheel was gone — it roars but for an hour or two, in the
full strength of the Kun. And the ill-fated Crane also had dis-
appeared ; the rising tide had lifted her bodily over the back of
the Crab, and the stump of a mast sticking up out of the swirl
behind the rock alone showed where she lay.
Gone, too, was the Tumbler. But far away on the Lough,
with white wings set to catch the brisk morning breeze, the stout
little cutter was drawing up towards a great red house that stood
back from the water, in a hollow surrounded by trees. It was
the Red House, which Colquhoun had taken for the summer;
which he had so lately left with his wife, and to which she was now
returning — a widow.
Far away on the opposite shore, a gleam of white on a hill, was
the village of Craigdauragh — the home of Kit Wilson.
The yacht came gently up to the moorings at which the luck-
less Crane had so lately been swinging in the quiet waves of the
Lough, and was presently fast. A gig was lying there, and in it
Wilson sent ashore not only the crew of the Crane, but also, under
one pretext or another, his own men too, till there remained on
deck himself and Graham only. Then he went below, to the
cabin, and after some little time reappeared. There was an un-
spoken inquiry, or perhaps entreaty, in the eyes of his friend, to
which he returned an answer by an affirmative nod of the head,
and then he took Graham's arm.
4 Yes, old fellow,' he said, * take her ashore yourself. She
i appears very anxious to go. But be gentle with her. I have told
I her everything .... she understands all .... I told her —
he went on, after a slight pause, and with a gentle pressure of his
i hand upon his friend's arm — * how you wished to go overboard to
try and save her husband, and how I prevented you. For it was
madness, old fellow .... at that moment, and in that place,
; there was nothing to be done. But go down and take her ashore
now. And be gentle with her — she needs it.'
The foresail was still set, hauled to windward, and Wilson
stood behind it.
Presently Graham came on deck with Mrs. Colquhoun. He
led her over to the yacht's punt that lay alongside, and, handing
VOL. xxi. — NO. 125, N.s. 23
m THE WHEEL OF THE LOUGH
her down into it, a moment later was pulling with long (almost
strong) sweeping strokes towards the shore.
The solitary man on deck watched them as they went.
The punt was perhaps longer in reaching the landing-place
than it need have been, for several times Graham rested upon his
oars; and once (the watcher fancied) his face was bowed almost
to his companion's hands. But he helped her ashore, and, she
leaning heavily on his arm, they passed up towards the house. A
bend of the path ; and they were hidden by some shrubs, another
bend, and they were in under the shadow of the trees. A flutter
of a dress, and they were gone.
And as Kit watched he fancied that he saw Graham once
more as he used to be — a strong light-hearted fellow. Many
another trip would they make together, thought he, in this same
Lough. . . . And then — well then ....
Somehow an old verse of the Bible went continually through
his ears, concerning an evil man : how that his place should know
him no more. And it seemed to him that the curse of such a
man could not avail to stay or to turn aside the high call of the
world. Little good had he done to humanity, that he should not
drop out of sight as a stone that falls ; or that his words should
be remembered after him. . . .
* The best act that I ever did in my life,' he muttered, ' was
to get old Graham out on this trip.'
For a long time Kit mused on. His eyes were looking
dreamily away towards Oaigdauragh ; his thoughts were away in
that little village also, and, to judge by his face, they were sweet
thoughts too. The sun seemed to pitch upon his back with a
power unnoticed but a few minutes ago ; he felt warm, comfortable,
young, and happy.
* Yes,' he said, almost aloud, * I'll eat that antiquated ham for
breakfast, as I'm a sinner. If that old beggar, Graham, gets back
in time,' he added, looking up towards the house.
And the man he saw striding airily down the winding path
was not the Graham of yesterday, but a new man in whose heart
there lived again both faith, and hope — and charity.
IN SUMMER HEAT.
THE spring and early summer of the year 1893 will be long
remembered as an exceptionally dry season ; four months of
uninterrupted sunshine we had in the neighbourhood of the
Surrey Hills ; how hot that weather was those only who have had
to be out in it busy at their various avocations, from sunrise to-
sunset, can tell. It may interest some if I give a few notes made
here and there, as I wandered to and fro, all connected more or
less with the recent dry, hot spell of almost tropical weather.
Now and again I have heard some amusing squabbles concern-
ing the dryness of the season. ' Ah well, you ken jist say what
you likes, Master Wiggins, ef you don't 'zactly member sich a
time as this 'ere afore, I do. Weather like this 'twas when I was
married; some of the folks went chouterin' about, poor silly
critters, saying as how the fust sign of the end were cum, fur the
world was to pass away in a great heat. But it didn't ; an' here
I be now, grandmother to a rare lot on 'em. There was allus a
seed time an' harvest, an' there will be, for the Book says it.
We'll get rain when the time cums.'
Day by day the heat increased ; after a time green places
exposed to the fierce rays of the sun lost their freshness, changed
to brown withered patches, and remained so, no food or shelter
there, even for a mouse. A certain amount of moisture is neces-
sary for the development of insect life in all its various forms ; and
birds and animals follow their food supply. Where streams run
through the woods covered over by the underwood and grass
tangle ; where the water in ordinary seasons forms small pools in
the water-meadows — dry often on the surface, but moist enough
below — there are the places in which to look for natural life. If
you know the run and lay of water, whether in stream, pool, or as
a mere splash, you will find the creatures you are in search of not
far from it.
Some of the wilder park lands have shown most significantly
how the heat has affected them, for there has been an almost
j complete absence, in the more exposed places, of certain creatures
that in ordinary seasons you never missed seeing if you passed
along. It is all owing to the great heat; they have followed
other creatures and gone for a time to low, moist dells and hollows,
23—2
500 IN SUMMER HEAT.
where the grass grows green. Necessity recognises no law, and to
all intents and purposes the earth has been bound as fast for all
insect-feeding birds as it is in mid-winter.
The pewits have chased the rooks like a lot of hawks striking
at their quarry ; food they must have of some kind, and in default
of worms, grubs, and wireworms, they have gone in for plovers'
eggs, when they could get them. As to fruit, I have seen some
barefaced depredations in that line. Yet they will repay all these
a thousand times, before long ; for rain has come at last, and the
rooks and jackdaws, rejoicing greatly at the change, are in the
fields hard at work on the store of life which has now come up to
the surface.
The poor little jackdaw has suffered terribly this season, for
he has been found in the very act — there is not the least use in
denying it — he was caught red-handed, as the saying goes, killing
young pheasants and partridges.
The experience of a lifetime devoted to the observation of
natural life has taught me that there is no hard and fast rule for
any living creature that is in a state of nature ; and before long I
believe that many mischievous theories will be swept away. Some
indeed of these have been originated by men who have gained
much of their knowledge — of bird life especially — from boxes of
dry skins. All the elaborate lists of genera ever compiled would
not give their readers the life habits of a sparrow. This is a
digression, however.
The late spell of burning sunshine has had a peculiar effect on
our reptiles, which are harmless with of course one exception, the
viper. They have left their usual haunts, although they do like
heat, in order to follow their prey to lower ground at the bottom
of the hills. Some very large specimens of vipers have been killed,
far exceeding any that I have ever seen or handled. These were
females, for it is with them as it is with falcons and hawks, and
in fact with all birds of prey, the gentler sex is the larger and the
stronger, and in some instances the most vindictive.
This season, although I have been in those haunts where they
are as a rule generally to be found, I have not myself seen one of
these vipers alive ; and those men I know, who look for them for
their precious ' ile,' as they call the fat inside of them, have had
the same tale to tell.
Two blindworms and one heath-lizard, killed it would seem by
some one as the poor things were crossing the high-road in self-
IN SUMMER HEAT. 501
defence, are all that I have noticed. No matter what the crea-
ture may be, furred or feathered, it will get as close to the
high-roads as possible. Those giant viperesses I have mentioned
were killed in a much frequented road, as they were basking,
stretched out full length in the middle of it. I know why they
got there, but cannot enter into that matter here.
Rooks and jackdaws make short work of any creature they can
settle. In hot, dry times they will go for anything that moves.
Game birds again make short work of small reptiles, and they help
to thin them down in hot seasons.
The hedgehog has been remarkably busy, at night of course,
in foraging for any creature he can settle ; not only that, but he
and his spined partner have had little pigs to provide for ; and
early in the morning I have noticed their tracks in the dust of the
road, where father and mother hedgehog and the little ones have
been all on the root. They leave a very plain track ; you may
note where they have crossed and recrossed the road, always in the
direction of spots where they were certain to find some little
' varmint ' or other. Their noses are remarkably keen ones ; the
crawlers may have settled comfortably for the night on a bed of
dead leaves and moss, very full of frogs, mouse or lizard, as the case
may be, but let that energetic pair of prickly wanderers nose them
out, and the forked tongue will never examine anything with
lightning-like rapidity again. Out the creature is dragged, neck
and tail, the long fore feet of the pair are placed on him to stop
all wriggling, and the body is passed through the jaws ; one of
the hedgehogs starts from the neck, the other from the tail.
That wonderful cup-and-ball mechanism of the creature's back-
bone is quickly broken up, jointed in fact, and embalmed by the
hedgehog family.
Some of the uplands have been scorched up, others covered
with trees and scrub have remained fresh and cool through it all,
the brake being of the richest green ; all depended of course on
aspect and locality. Water has been a precious article on the tops
of some of our Surrey Hills recently, in fact people have been
forced to buy it. I have heard that in some places as much as
sixpence a pail has been given for good drinking water. In the
most favourable times they rely generally on their rain water
supply, filtered. One favoured place was full of life, for the grass
was fresh and green there all through the dry time, and; the
bracken flourished in rank luxuriance. Honeysuckles twined
502 IN SUMMER HEAT,
thickly about the bushes, and the foxgloves held up their stately
flower-bells in all directions, mixed with the cool mothmulleins,
and other plants too numerous for us to mention.
As I have often said before, wild creatures can, and do, adapt
themselves to their surroundings. If they did not some would
cease to exist. The veracity of some writers has been questioned
when they wrote only the simple truth, because they have seen
animals and birds act in a certain manner, influenced by their
surroundings, in one county ; whilst other writers, equally accu-
rate, have seen the same creatures act very differently in another
county, perhaps an adjoining one. The nature or the food of the
creature does not change ; it simply alters some of its tactics in
order to procure that food, or for the purpose of self-preservation.
Numbers of birds have followed in each other's traces to spots
where the grass was growing green, in search of the water which in
some shape or other was to be found there. The herons that were
not usually seen before the fall of the leaf, when the trout run,
have been wandering about in the middle of the day, fishing, for
the streams have been low, and all the fish without exception have
congregated in the deepest and most shady water holes they coi
find, under overhanging boughs of trees.
The heron has visited the ponds on the uplands, swarming
with small carp about three inches in length, well knowing that
he could fill his belly, without the least trouble, out of the muddy
pits the ponds have dwindled down to. One morning I put out a
kingfisher from a clump of trees a good mile away from any
stream ; he also had come up for some of those small carp that
could be captured so very easily.
I have seen roach about four inches in length, lying on the
short grass of a bare hillside, very early in the morning recently.
A strange sight truly to see dead fish in the short tangle, but the
fly-lines of the herons are directly over the hill, past the fir
plantation, where the fierce sparrowhawks have kept watch and
ward lately, because the young wood-pigeons, now well on the
wing, have been bred there in great numbers this season. Both
old and young are in great force here. The hawks are not par-
ticular so long as it is a pigeon ; but the young birds are captured
with the least trouble.
I have not seen one hawk shot this season ; not that there is
more mercy shown them than of old, but for this reason — all the
time during which they are devoting their energies to the capture
IN SUMMER HEAT. 503
of wild pigeons they do not go at the young game. From the
number of pigeons I have seen come from the furze I should
imagine there were enough of them to feed all the hawks in the
county of Surrey. Sparrowhawks will strike at anything, and
when they watch for the pigeons to come out from their nesting-
place, if they catch sight of the great heron as he flaps over the
hillside, his gullet filled with fish, at him they go at once. The
heron gets frightened ; not that they could damage him much ;
but out he throws some of his fish, to lighten himself so that he
can ring up higher, and that is the reason small fish are sometimes
found on the hillside.
Weasels and owls are required now to keep the small deer
under (but they are not to be seen ; oh, the pity of it !) ; steel
traps and tile traps combined will not do the work they would.
Where we are the mischief mice will do in gardens where choice
fruit is cultivated must be seen to be believed. I have seen two
very fine and choice cherry trees, trained on trellis work against a
sunny wall, nearly stripped by them, for they climb like squirrels.
A number of square holes, just large enough to get your hand in
comfortably, let the air through the grating into the cool-houses
on the other side, where plums are grown. From certain signs I
thought that those very pretty and innocent-looking, full-eyed,
long-tailed creatures were the robbers. A short ladder was
brought and the holes examined, and from each of them a
handful of the ripest and finest cherries gave a convincing proof
of their refined taste. They had been cut off as close to the
stalks as if they had been snipped with thumb and finger-nail.
Some were half eaten, others had their skins broken, and a lot
were perfect ; you could just see where the teeth had pressed and
that was all. When I showed the fruit to the owner of those
trees he expressed wishes towards the mice that need not be
mentioned here.
The landrails have not been heard in this district; their
crake, crake, crake has not sounded even in the most favoured
parts, let alone those that have been parched up. This bird
requires thick pasture cover ; fields laid down for hay will in
ordinary seasons be sure to have one pair at least nesting in them.
The size of the field has nothing to do with the number of birds
found. But this season, as a rule, there has not been any hay to
cut ; even the sheep have been fed and watered for a long time,
horned cattle also; in fact, green grass ha? been a very scarce
504 IN SUMMER HEAT.
food supply ; even the wild rabbits have been put in some straits,
and they are supposed to do well on hard fare. Chalk hills, how-
ever, have only a crust of mould on their tops and sides, so it is
small wonder that they have been burnt up.
A certain amount of moisture is of vital moment to the land-
rail, or corn-crake as the bird is generally called; one small
meadow of about two acres, which I have passed twice every day
during April, May, June, and July, is usually a sure spot where
they may be found. On both sides and in front of it run roads,
well-used ones, too, and a railway is at the back of it, and yet
here they come in preference to places that might be considered
far more suitable for them, but the birds know best about that.
As the field is small, the owner has it mown, not cut with a
machine, and the nesting-birds are spared, if possible, for a small
tuft is left for them ; in fact, the mowers cut round them and pass
on. But this year the rail is absent.
This bird when sitting has no fear, for although the haymakers
were tossing the grass up in all directions, spreading it out to dry,
and coming now and again to have a look at her as she has sat on
her nest, the bird has never moved. Between three and four in
the afternoon, when she hatched out, she went off with her little
black mouse-like brood, just like a farm-yard hen.
Pheasants and partridges are treated in the same way ; the
mowers cut round them. Accidents do occur at times, but they
are accidents pure and simple, and the wonder is that there is not
more of them, for the birds sit very close.
This long spell of hot weather has caused all birds to get their
young out a month or five weeks earlier than in ordinary seasons.
The tree pipits, very numerous this season, are gone with their
young from their usual haunts ; the white-throats, the greater and
lesser, are ready for moving. So are the turtle-doves ; young and
old cut through the air in all directions. Starlings have visited
the fruit in numbers ; the poor things must have something for
their young. I have even seen the skylark in gardens — most
unusual places for him to come to. Wasps, through the hardness
and extreme dryness of the ground, have made their nests in
blackthorn bushes and the like. They are beautiful structures ;
at first you would take them for the nest of the long-tailed tit ;
that is exactly what they look like a short distance off, but a close
inspection at once convinces you that they are nothing of the
IN SUMMER HEAT. 505
kind. I have been fortunate enough to procure a fine specimen —
without its tenants.
The doves have worked hard for their young this season, when
they were in the nest and after they were able to fly. I live on
the edge of a small common ; as a rule this is fresh and green all
the year round, but this season it has been baked ; even the cock-
chafers, that at certain seasons the rooks hunt for with the
greatest eagerness, have been scarce through the drought. The
poor birds knew it was not the least use trying to pick anything
up in the daytime, so directly it was light some of them brought
their young on the turf beneath my window, and there they
kicked up a row. There were the old rooks stocking away at the
grubs and chafers, croaking now and then, because they have to
work hard for small returns, and there are the young rooks
hopping round their parents with open mouths and quivering
wings, in a state of eager expectancy. There is nothing to be
heard but tremulous war — are — are — wark — war — ke are ar, wark
— e — e. As we are in the habit of sleeping with our windows
open, their music wakes us up very early. Sometimes I get up in
the grey of the morning to look at their amusing antics ; but
they are not good songsters.
Rain has fallen — genial refreshing showers — all in its own
good time, as the old lady told Master Wiggins it would. They
are cutting the corn, and the corn looks well. They sowed and
now they reap, as they have ever done.
The trees are changing ; the leaves will fall early, we think,
this season. From certain movements I have noted in some birds
— the migrating portion of them — it will not be long before they
depart and others arrive.
Look where you will, the brown colour has gone, for we have
had the blessed rain. Gro where you will, in all directions and in
all places, the grass grows green.
23—0
506
NO VEMBER.
NOVEMBER — and the world of shades is here !
The sun hangs like a wafer in the sky,
Shorn of his feeblest beams ; no majesty
The clouds wear, but all blanched with shapeless fear
Trail on the earth ; the ploughboy ploughing near
Moves insubstantial, scarce less shadowy
Than the curled mist his breath makes ; while the lea
Looms half a green blot, half a vaporous smear.
And lo, what forms are these beside the streams
That bend and shudder like to joyless ghosts ?
Can they be trees stripped bare that only sigh
As the bleak wind sweeps through them, or do hosts
Of phantoms wail, anguished by fitful gleams
From life far-off, golden with memory ?
507
CHARACTER NOTE.
THE CARETAKER.
Quand c'est le coeur qui conduit, il entraine.
MARTHA caretakes a decrepit City warehouse. She cleans, or
imagines that she cleans, the offices of a depressed company of tea
merchants and of a necessitous land surveyor. They damn her
hopelessly when they arrive every morning and behold the thick-
ness of the dust on their ledgers and the black and smoky nature
of their fires. And Martha speaks of them tenderly as ' my gen-
tlemen,' and inquires fondly after their wives and families.
Martha's appearance has, it must be confessed, a worn and
dingy air, not unlike the house she lives in. She is invariably
attired in an ancient shawl and a frowsy black bonnet. People
are apt to forget that the wrinkled old face beneath it is very kind
and tender. The blackness of Martha's aprons and the streaky
nature of her house-cleaning cause them to lose sight of the fact
that London griminess has never reached Martha's soul.
Martha is boundlessly simple and contented. It is fortunate
that an external cleanliness is not necessary to her happiness,
since it has been her fate to look at Thames Street, breathe
Thames Street, and live in Thames Street since she was five-and-
twenty. Once she has been into the country. But that was a
long time ago ; though on the window-sill of her attic there still
live miserably some of the cuttings she took from the plants she
brought back with her.
Martha waters those forlorn and stunted geraniums with the
greatest pride and indiscretion. She imagines that the smutty
and despairing musk still smells deliciously, and puts her old nose
into it and sniffs with the greatest enjoyment in the world. On
sultry days she opens her window and sits at work by her ' garden.'
Her old face is quite placid and contented. The expressive lan-
guage of the costermonger below falls upon her ear. The
refreshing scent of decaying vegetables must quite overpower that
of the elderly mu?k. But either Martha has long ceased to
expect unalloyed pleasure, or is of such a very simple nature that
she can enjoy imperfect happiness perfectly.
508 CHARACTER NOTE.
Martha is very proud of her attic. It may not, in fact, does
not, contain much oxygen. But there is a beautiful picture of
the Queen smiling blandly out of a tradesman's almanac of the
year fifty. Martha's circumstances render it necessary that there
should constantly be washing drying in lines across the ceiling.
But she takes her meals quite blithely beneath this canopy and
has no feelings at all about cutting her cheese — she never seems
to eat anything except cheese or drink anything except tea — on
the patchwork quilt which covers the neglige manner in which she
has made her bed.
Martha has a table, indeed, but it is quite covered with the
accumulated treasures of a life-time. There is a religious work
presented to her by a Bible Christian minister angling for a con-
gregation, which Martha values no doubt the more because she
cannot read it. There is a creature which may or may not repre-
sent a parrot, with boot buttons for eyes and a body of many-
coloured wools. Martha blows the dust from the glass case which
incloses it, with an infinite affection and reverence. She made
the parrot herself a long, long time ago, and is tenderly proud of
it still. By its side is a Testament scored by a hand long dead,
and with Martha's homely name written in the fly leaf. There
are two china shepherdesses, with pink sashes and squints, on the
mantelpiece, and an In Memoriam card of Martha's dead nephew.
By the window there is a bird in a cage, to whom Martha
chirrups cheerfully, and whom she addresses as 'Enery. The bird
never chirrups to Martha — old age and the stifling air of Thames
Street having long silenced him for ever. But Martha's placid
optimism has caused her to believe persistently for many years that
if she only chirrups long and cheerfully enough, 'Enery will reply
to her at last.
' He's wonderful for company,' she says, ' and eats next to
nothing.' Which to Martha's mind is the greatest recommenda-
tion a friend can have.
Martha is indeed well paid for her caretaking. "When one
considers the sketchy nature of her cleaning she appears to be
ridiculously overpaid. Martha's money is not spent on herself.
She eats very little — and cheese and tea maybe bought incredibly
cheap and nasty in Thames Street. She indulges in no vanities
of dress. The frowsy shawl and bonnet are of immemorial anti-
quity. Her employers surmise uncharitably that she does not
waste her substance on soap. Martha, in fact, wastes nothing.
CHARACTER NOTE. 509
She has a money- box secreted in a drawer amid an awful confusion
of other treasures. She is a miser. She has saved and stinted
herself for years and years. She has denied herself not luxuries,
for luxuries have never even suggested themselves to her, but
what other people would call necessaries.
On that far-off visit to the country Martha found and loved a
great-niece. Tilly was, it must be confessed, a dreadful, stout,
stolid, apple-cheeked plebeian baby. But she took possession of
Martha's lonely old heart. Martha carried back to London a cheap
photograph of Tilly in her best frock, and a deep-seated resolution
concerning Tilly in her foolish old soul. When Tilly is old
enough she is to come up to London to live, at Martha's expense,
with Martha, and be 'prenticed to what Martha speaks of reveren-
tially in the abstract as ' the dressmaking.' Martha, like a true
Cockney, loves and despises the country, and is convinced that
London is the only place in which to get on. And the dress-
making is such a genteel employment.
To 'prentice Tilly to a very good house, to be able to clothe
•Tilly as her high position will require, to be able to support Tilly
what Martha calls ' elegant,' Martha instituted the money-box,
and puts into it weekly much more than she can afford. She
works for Tilly with the dogged persistence of the woman of one
idea. The stout earthy child whom she has not seen for a dozen
years or more has been beautified, perhaps beyond recognition, in
her fond and foolish imagination. Or she thinks that large, red
cheeks, and a stolid gaze — admirably caught by the cheap photo-
graph— are incapable of improvement. Tilly's picture is assigned
an honourable place by the side of a terrible, but beloved portrait
of the Prince of Wales. Though Martha is devotedly attached to
the Eoyal Family, there have been days on which the Prince's
countenance has been left thick in dust. But Martha always
makes a point of cleaning Tilly reverentially with a corner of her
shawl. She gazes at the picture when she has performed this
operation with an admiration and tenderness in her dim old eyes,
which are quite ridiculous and pathetic. Two or three times a
week she breathes on the glass which protects Tilly, and rubs it
vigorously with a piece of a cloth used indiscriminately as a duster
or a handkerchief.
For Tilly's sake she refuses to join a party of lady friends who
are going by water to Greenwich. One has to live in Thames
Street, perhaps, to know what a temptation such an expedition
510 CHARACTER NOTE.
represents. The land surveyor's wife sends Martha a cheap petti-
coat for a Christmas present. It is beautifully striped in many
colours, and Martha says, ' It's too good for my likes,' and puts it
tenderly away in a drawer for Tilly. For Tilly's sake she denies
herself sugar in her tea. For Tilly's sake she creeps about the
old house in boots so aged that the tea merchant is constrained to
speak to her severely on her disreputable appearance. For Tilly's
sake she goes to bed early to save candles, and lies awake hour
after hour with her old thoughts to keep her company. For
Tilly's sake she daily makes, in fact, the thousand little sacrifices
of which only a great love is capable.
The tea merchant, exasperated beyond bearing at last at her
incompetence, tells her her services will be no longer required.
On consideration, perhaps, of her having inquired tenderly after
his relations every morning for an indefinite number of years, he
consents to her still occupying the attic on the payment of a
modest rent.
Then Martha seeks some new employment. Her old heart
sinks when a week has passed and she has failed to find it. For
herself she can live on almost nothing. But Tilly is seventeen
now, and is coming up to London next year. Martha would
rather starve than take a penny from her money-box. She has
called it Tilly's money so long that she really believes now to
spend it would be robbing Tilly of her own. She is reduced to
selling 'Enery — with tears. He fetches a very, very small sum,
and Martha has loved him as if he were a human creature. The
theological work presented by the Bible Christian minister goes
also, and Martha, who has never read it, cannot see the vacant
place on the table because of the mist in her old eyes.
At last she is engaged by the parish clergyman to clean the
church. Up to this period Martha has been a Baptist — not so
much because she has a leaning towards that particular sect, or
any particular sect, as because the Baptist chapel is very handy,
the minister affable, and the footstools large, fat, comfortable ones
of a showy red baize.
' But it 'd be sooperstition to let them 'assicks stand in the
way of my niece,' Martha says thoughtfully to herself. The
'assicks do not stand in Tilly's way. In a day or two Martha,
with an optimistic smile on her wrinkled old face, may be seen
providing Eitualistic books of devotion to devout young gentle-
men who have come to church to attend Prime.
CHARACTER NOTE. 5U
Then Tilly comes. Martha has house-cleaned her room for
Tilly's reception. She has not, indeed, house-cleaned it very
thoroughly, partly because she has not had time and is seventy
years old and a little feeble, and partly because Martha has never
cleaned anything thoroughly, including herself. But she has
blown the dust off most things, and put up a piece of new window
curtain. She has bought a shilling looking-glass for Tilly's
benefit, Martha never seeing her own kind, tender, wrinkled,
grubby old countenance from year's end to year's end. She has
provided quite a sumptuous tea — with sugar. She has made the
bed almost neatly. She has, in fact, done everything that love
can suggest to her.
Before she goes out in the frowsy bonnet and ancient shawl to
meet Tilly at the station she takes a last look, through eyes
proudly and tenderly dim, at Tilly's picture. The day has come
for which she has been working for years, for which she has denied
herself gladly, for which she has yearned and prayed. She can
feel her heart beating quicker under the threadbare shawl, and
her hands tremble a little.
She is much too early for the train, and has to wait so long in
the waiting-room where she has arranged to meet Tilly that she
falls into a doze, A robust female with a developed figure, a tight
waist, and a flowery hat, nudges her at last impatiently with a
tin hat-box.
' Lor, aunt ! ' says Tilly, * what with you so shabby, and
snoring so ungenteel in a public place, I 'ardly liked to own yer.'
' My dear ! ' cries Martha in a trembling voice. ' My dear !
My dear ! ' and she puts her withered old arms round the girl's
neck, and kisses her and cries over her for happiness.
' What a take on to be sure ! ' says Tilly, who is perfectly prac-
tical. 'Let's go 'ome.'
And they go home and begin life together.
For a month Martha is happy. She is happy at least so far
that she can watch the accomplished Tilda reading a novelette,
and profoundly admire so much education. She puts her ridicu-
lous old head on one side, to look proudly and fondly at the
stylish black curls shading Tilly's rubicund countenance. She
ventures to kiss Tilly's cheek very gently when that young lady is
snoring profoundly after a day's pleasure, for Tilly has not yet
started ' the dressmaking.' And the premium is still wrapped up
safely in dingy newspaper in the money-box.
512 CHARACTER NOTE.
Martha is creeping up one night weary, but optimistic, after a
hard day's cleaning at the church, when a slipshod infant from
next door thrusts a note into her hand. The slipshod infant, who
has received an education, reads it to Martha at Martha's desire.
It contains only a few lines.
Tilly has gone away. Tilly has eloped with a costermonger.
Married respectable at a registry, she phrases it. ' That's all,'
says the infant of education.
That is all. But that is why Martha falls back with her face
drawn and ashen, and her lips trembling. That is all. It is the
end of those years of work and denial and hoping. Yet what is
more natural than that Tilly should desire matrimony, and try
her blandishments upon a costermonger who plied his trade most
conveniently beneath Martha's window ? What is more natural
in this cruel world than love repaid by ingratitude, and trustful-
ness by deceit ?
Martha gropes her way blindly to the attic. It is not yet so
dark there but she can see distinctly the poor little improvements
she made for Tilly's coming. She turns the cheap looking-glass
with its face to the wall. It was meant to reproduce Tilly, buxom
and twenty, and not Martha, poor, old, ugly, and disappointed.
She catches sight of Tilly's picture at four years old — Tilly,
stolid enough indeed, but little, loving, and good. And Martha
cries, and buries her head in her arms ; and the tears mark grimy
courses down her furrowed cheeks.
' If you could 'a trusted me, Tilly,' she says. ' If you would
but 'a trusted me.'
Until this bitter hour she has not known how Tilly has filled
her life. How she has lived only for Tilly, and thought and hoped
only for her. And Tilly has gone away, and Martha's house is
left unto her desolate.
A footstep outside startles her. For one wild foolish moment
she thinks that Tilly has come back — that she has but dreamt a
bad dream and is awake again. And she recognises the voluble
tones of the mamma of the educated infant, and dries her
tears, not from pride — Martha has so little — but from loyalty
to Tilda.
Mrs. Jones always have said that Tilda was a bad lot. 'A
impudent, brazen-faced thing,' says Mrs. Jones, warming to the
description.
And Martha, with a little colour coming into her poor white
CHARACTER NOTE. 513
cheeks, knows as Tilly meant no harm. And marriages are made
in 'eaven.
She may have to acknowledge Tilda erring to her own heart,
but how can she give her up to the merciless judgment of a
merciless world ?
' You're a poor sperited one, that you are,' says Mrs. Jones,
' and as likely as not you've never looked to see if she 'ave made
off with the premium.'
Martha has not looked. Is startled into confessing it. She
has not thought of the premium, so hardly earned. She has only
thought that she has loved Tilda, and Tilda has not loved her.
And a swift burning colour comes into Martha's cheeks, and some
sudden deadly premonition creeps to her heart and closes coldly
upon it. And she answers steadily, ' My Tilda's as honest as you
are.'
' Don't you be so sure,' says Mrs. Jones vindictively. ' You
look and see.'
Perhaps Martha takes some sort of resolution as she goes
heavily to the drawer where the money-box is kept. Or perhaps
no resolution is necessary, because her ignorant, loving old soul
is of its nature infinitely faithful. Her hands and lips are quite
steady now, and she is not afraid of Mrs. Jones's ' sperited ' gaze.
The money-box is quite light, and the money collected was chiefly
in pence and halfpence. It is also unlocked. And Martha turns
with her back to the drawer and faces Tilda's enemies.
' You can tell all as asks,' she says in an old voice that is very
clear and firm, ' as my Tilda is quite straight and honest. And
them as says she isn't — lies.'
' I'll believe as you speak true,' says Mrs. Jones. * If you
don't, well, the Lord forgive you.'
And who shall say that He will not ?
514
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT.
IT was during the gabble of a general election that Professor
Glidders packed his bag and started for Egypt to continue his
excavations. He wanted to be down amongst his Egyptian dead
men again ; he did not care an old spade which set of plunderers
turned the scales at the election, since neither of them would
vote or subscribe a sixpence to dig out the Pharaohs ; and candi-
dates and their agents, to say nothing of fighting lords, were
making and breaking promises at the height of their voices from
cock-crow to midnight. It was worse than the welshers' ring at
Epsom on Derby Day, and when Professor Glidders had written
to the papers to say that he wished the whole tedious pack were
submerged in Phlegethon, and that funds were wanted badly for
the work in the Valley of the Nile, he took himself out of the un-
holy racket.
A friend whom he met at Victoria Station asked him what
and where was Phlegethon.
' Oh, you go and vote for somebody,' said Professor Glidders.
As for getting money out of the public for any Egyptological
purpose, the Professor knew that he might as well have proposed
to open a fund at the Mansion House to promote communication
with Mars ; but this did not improve his temper.
When he reached Cairo, he began to be more charitably
disposed towards the race, though he disliked hotels. The pro-
prietor knew him very well, and tried to make much of him ; but
the head waiter told the tourists privately that they had better
not show the Professor any of the mess which the dealers had
sold them as antiquities.
' You see,' said the head waiter, ' Profess' Gleedair, he knaw
hall abaht zem sing. He tell you ze common pipple mek zem
zairse'f. Wat you give for zem sing? Pouf! Well, don' you
tell Profess' Gleedair ! '
So the active trippers who had picked up cheap papyri, flint
tools, bracelets, statuettes, slabs of granite with hieroglyphs, rag
dolls made by Miriam to keep Moses quiet in the bulrushes, and
other relics with pedigrees dating back to the preceding summer,
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 515
which the down-trodden natives manufactured for a living, took
pains to avoid speech with the Professor, and wished he had
stayed at home to help in the general election.
' Well, which is the Professor, anyhow ? Basked, at table d'hote,
an American lady who, with her family, had been exploring
tombs and temples at the rate of a dozen a day, being in a hurry
to return to Paris.
'Voila, madame! You got some fine ol' papyrus, or slab
granite to shaw 'im? Profess' Gieedair knaw hall abaht zem
sing,' said the head waiter.
' No, I guess that isn't he. You don't say ! What, that little
sandy chap with spectacles ? Well ! How's that, girls ? Doesn't
he look just fresh from school ? '
' Ze Professor is zirty-two, madame. Me, I am zirty-nine ; we
are abaht ze aem ej. Profess' Gieedair is nephew of Milord Driscoll.'
' Say, girls, have we ever met Lord Driscoll ? ' asked mamma.
' I guess not, Ma,' responded the eldest daughter.
' Well, Scud, you'd better ask his nephew to look at our
papyrus. He might come out and dig some in Ohio when he's
quit digging Egypt,' said the lady to her husband.
' Likely not, my dear ; and, what's more, I don't see any signs
of a marrying man on that Professor,' answered Mr. Scudwell
Chancey calmly.
Most of the hotel guests found the Professor rather alarming.
He had a habit, when he bounced into the dining-room of an
evening, of glaring round the table through his spectacles, with
an air of inquiring whether any tourists had been rifling tombs,
or hacking statues, or scraping their names on the walls of temples
during the day. Simple tourists of inquiring minds who put
elementary questions to him concerning his work got short
commons and cold for answer. He used to be asked how he
chose a site for excavation, by people who supposed that he went
prodding over the desert with a wand, lik% a spiritist medium
prospecting for a well ; whether, when he had found a site, he
began digging at the top or at the bottom ; why he didn't blow
out a pyramid with gunpowder or dynamite ; what kind of razor
Joseph shaved with ; and why the Hittites wore pig-tails.
Professor Glidders snuffed up the air of the desert impatiently,
and pushed on with his preparations. But he was not an ogre to
everybody. If anyone talked of a scarab, a stele, a cartouche, or
an enchorial inscription, and showed that he knew what he meant,
516 AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT.,
the Professor let a smooth glance fall on him, and spoke en-
couragingly. Parties whom a dragoman led by the nose he had
no patience with. He asked whether Egypt had survived twelve
centuries of oppression to become a tea-garden for tourists.
There are three Egypts at this day : the Egypt of the poli-
ticians— that unprofitable swarm ; the Egypt of the active
tripper ; and the Egypt of the archaeologist. This last, the cradle
of civilisation, was the Egypt of Professor Glidders. He lived a
long way back — his age, in his scientific capacity, was about four
thousand years. He traversed easily the dusty cycles that are
between us and the first Hyksos dynasty. The mummied
Pharaohs of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties were his
fathers, and his brothers, and his womankind. Luxurious, pur-
poseless trippers, who pottered after dancing-girls and dervishes,
were troubled by his aggressive energy of manner, his unconcilia-
tory speech, his air of Police Inspector-General over all aimless
wanderers amid the awful ruins. He looked so boyish, and was
such a bit of a chap, with his close-shorn sandy hair ; but his
blue eyes twinkled threateningly through his gold spectacles. His
voice, though he so often laid it to vehement words, was distinctly
pleasant. Mrs. Chancey thought it probable that he had been
unfortunate with a girl, and said so to her eldest daughter. Miss
Chancey ' guessed the Professor hadn't been any girl's beau up to
now.'
Fladgate, the one-eyed Special Correspondent, who was writing
up excavations for a London daily, came to stay at the hotel a
day or two before the Professor was to start for the desert. He
fraternised all round, and the table d'hote liked him much better
than it did the Professor. Fladgate, however, told the table
d'hote not to make any mistake about the Professor. He said that
Europe, hadn't his equal as an Egyptologist, which was a little on
the left side of facts, but Fladgate saw that the tourists in that
hotel were disinclined to give Professor Glidders his due.
' That's real interesting, sir,' said Mrs. Chancey ; ' and I'm
told he has an uncle in the Peerage.'
' Oh, old Driscoll ! ' said Fladgate, and laughed.
He went on to relate how Glidders had enriched the Ghizeh
and the British Museums during the past five years ; what a
fortune he might have made if he had worked for his private
gains, and how his opinion on a doubtful article or a crabbed
inscription was valued by Egyptologists.
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 517
' 1 hope to gracious Ma won't fool Pa into showing him our
papyrus,' said Miss Chancey to herself.
' And Lord Driscoll, does he dig any, sir ? ' asked Mrs. Chancey.
' What, old Driscoll ! ' said Fladgate, and laughed again.
' Why no,' said Mr. Chancey. ' Being a peer, he nat'rally
wouldn't feel any call that way. I saw one of these lords on a
street corner in London once, and asked him the way somewhere,
just to hear what he'd talk like ; but he didn't seem to have the
lay of the streets much. I reckon he didn't have occasion to.'
' There's a titled lady digging out here somewhere,' observed
Miss Chancey.
' Is that so, sir ? ' inquired Mrs. Chancey of Fladgate.
' Oh yes. Lady Plaston is superintending excavations near
Bubastis.'
' I don't say that's not so,' observed Mr. Chancey. ' She,
maybe, married the title.'
' No ; an aristocrat by birth,' said Fladgate. ' One of our
oldest families, if you're interested that way.'
' Say, girls, would you like to dig some ? ' asked Mrs. Chancey
with animation.
' My gracious, Ma ! You said at breakfast you guessed we'd
about used up this old cemetery,' plumped out Miss Chancey the
younger.
Professor Glidders, who 'sprang into the room at that moment,
with his customary manner of a detective raiding a baccarat club,
caught this naive remark, and the table d'hote expected something
volcanic.
Mr. Chancey screened his face behind his table napkin, and
murmured ' Great Gilgal ! ' purple with suppressed enjoyment.
Mrs. Chancey, whatever her feelings may have been, showed
an unmoved countenance. ' Well,' she said, ' if Egypt isrit a
cemetery, right there and back, I'd like any person to tell me
what it is ; ' and she fixed Professor Glidders with a challenging eye.
' Madam,' responded the Professor, to the mute astonishment
of the table d'hote, ' you are absolutely right.'
Mrs. Chancey swept the table with a victorious glance, and
drew a silent breath of relief.
' Jooly,' said the younger Miss Chancey to her sister after
dinner, ' didn't you ex-pect the Professor would have scorched Ma ? '
' I guess Ma '11 scorch you, miss, if you give her away that
sort again,' replied Miss Julia sweetly.
618 AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT.
It was later in the evening, and Fladgate was smoking a
well-cured cutty in the garden, and the Professor, who never
smoked, was denouncing the wretched edict of the Government
under which the natives are tempted to sell stolen or smuggled
antiquities to private collectors which ought to find their way to
the museums.
'Allow me,' said Fladgate, removing his pipe, as Miss Chancey
strolled that way. ' Mr. Glidders — Miss Chancey.' Fladgate
moved away.
' You're quitting Cairo, sir, I b'lieve,' said Miss Chancey. She
was a tall, full-figured girl, of four or five and twenty, with black
glowing eyes, black hair swept back from her forehead, and a
complexion of ivory, which lost nothing under any sky. She
spake the tongue of the Americans with a relish, as it seemed, for
her accent was Transatlantic to a degree, and she was not careful
to moderate it. Withal, she was a sparkling girl, and had a bold
and merry lip.
'Yes, I make tracks for the desert to-morrow,' said the
Professor, in his crisp, emphatic tones.
' Far from here, Professor ? '
' Not a great way ; about twenty miles. Going to try a site I
marked out last time I was here.'
' Going to camp there long, Professor ? '
' Couldn't say, Miss Chancey. Weeks, at any rate ; a quarter
of a year, perhaps.
' Lonesome ? '
' Oh dear no ! Busy all the while as a bone-setter on a battle-
field.'
/ ' Well now ! Have a real good time then, I expect, sir ?
' Rather, Miss Chancey ! It's the most exciting work in the
world.'
' Fancy ! I'd like to see it.'
' Well, what's to prevent ? If you have any interest in it, I
should be happy to show you. Strap a tent and a cooking-stove
on a donkey and you're in marching order.'
' Why, it'd be just splendid ! I'm yellow sick of following our
dragoman around. There's Ma to bring along, though ; and
donkey-back isn't her style a great deal I guess you
don't live hotel ways out yonder, Professor ? '
'Not much, Miss Chancey. If you cling to the flesh-pots, I
can't recommend you to come.'
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 519
4 Oh, / can dine off beans ! I'm thinking of Ma. Say, how
do you fix up out there ? Professor.'
' Well, you can live in a tent, or a tomb. I prefer a tomb.
It's cool in warm weather and warm in cold.'
' Do the Pharaohs have ghosts ? '
' I haven't been lucky enough to see one.'
' I guess Ma wouldn't be curious to. Do you think I could
dig any, Professor ? '
' You wouldn't care about it. But it isn't all digging.'
' What besides, for a change ? '
' Well, I've sat all day up to my nose in water, shoving coffins
about — for a change.'
Miss Chancey laughed. ' I like you, Professor,' she said.
Glidders bowed gravely.
' I don't mean that, either,' said Miss Chancey, whose eye was
pretty quick. ' I mean, I like your go. You've got some razzle-
dazzle. ... I s'pose you're about winding up by this time?
Seems they've been digging out here a pretty long while.'
' What, near the end of the work ? We haven't much more
than started on it. So far, we have learned rather more of our
ignorance than of our knowledge. As far back as we have got,
the beginning seems more remote than ever. The earliest history
we have arrived at out here, with all our diggings, shows us a
civilisation elaborate and all but perfect — combined labour, archi-
tecture, sculpture, weaving, dyeing ; a developed literature, and
luxuries without end. Now, that is something to have discovered,
Miss Chancey ; but it isn't enough. We want to reach the be-
ginning of things. We want to know how and from what all
this civilisation arose. That's the task of the future, and not a
small one.'
' Well, I don't doubt it's worth doing, Professor, anyway. I
like to hear you talk about it, and I'd like to see you digging.
I guess I'll consider myself asked to your camp — you said so,
didn't you ? '
' Oh yes. Come by all means if you really want to see
sdhiething of the work ; I shall be pleased to meet you there.'
' That's fixed, then. I'll have Ma and Pa out there, if it takes
Cook and a caravan to bring them.'
The Professor trailed off from the hotel next day, and to the
active trippers it was as if the schoolmaster had taken a holiday.
Mrs. Chancey, however, had bettered her opinion of him, and was
520 AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT.
minded to think that he knew more of the real Egypt than she
had fancied. ' If he'd put in another day I'd have showed him our
papyrus, Scud,' she remarked. ' That papyrus cost you four
hundred dollars.'
' I didn't waunt that paypyrus to any great extent, my dear ;
and I'd just as livs the Professor didn't pro-nounce upon it.
Seemed to me the dealer that traded it to us had quite a number
of 'em on hand, and I reckon that four-hundred dollar paypyri, if
they're genume, an't a drug in the market at present.'
' Well, you'll think more of it framed and hung up out home,
I guess.'
' We haven't any professors in that line of business Ohio way,
my dear, that's a fact,' said Mr. Chancey.
' Sho ! ' said Mrs. Chancey. ' I wish I'd had the Professor
look at it. The Professor was talking quite a long while with
Jooly last night ; did you know that ? Wants us to go excavating
in the desert.'
' So's he don't waunt to trade any paypyri, I don't mind.'
' How you talk about papyri ! He doesn't trade any. Say,
Franpois, what store do they sell tents at here ? '
' I tell you hall abaht zem sing, madame, one haf minnit,'
replied the head waiter, passing with a tray. ' I got a nice a-leetle
shop of me hown.'
Professor Grlidders at this time was faring by sandy ways to-
wards his chosen site. His little caravan had joined him, and he
went in the midst of his chattering Arabs and negroes (men, boys,
and girls), the first of whom had their picks and shovels, and over
whom he lorded it more genially than he had comported himself
in the hotel. Sometimes, when he chose to walk instead of riding
donkey-back, the youngsters in the rear screamed at him, ' 0
bankrupt foreigner ! ' forgetting, in their delight at the chance of
being saucy, that he was paymaster to the whole tribe ; and occa-
sionally, when they had a quarrel amongst themselves, they set up
an irrelevant shout of ' 0 Nazarene ! ' but in general, Grlidders and
his fellahin were on the best of terms. The Arab in authority is
a tyrant, a schemer, and a grasper ; under rule, he is submissive,
and kisses with every appearance of gusto the hand that governs
him. Grlidders's five-feet six did not tolerate the smallest infringe-
O
ment of his little code of rules, an inflexibility of principle which
experience had taught him ; for in matters of import the Arab
must be made obedient to the letter, and in matters indifferent he
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 521
is miserable if left a choice. But Grlidders regarded his fellahin
kindly, and with a depth of interest that they knew not of; for
he looked to a day when the Egyptians should re-possess, and be
great in, the land of the Bamessides.
Blessed to his sight, when at length the caravan stayed over
against it, was the ring of sandy mounds with a strong depression
in the centre, which was the spot he had marked out for his
work. The form of the mounds, and the depression in the middle,
told him that here was some temple or great solid building, with
the ruins of houses around it. As every excavator is aware, there
are ruins and ruins ; the man with a genius for this work, using
his imagination, backed by the knowledge that practice gjves,
guesses by the contour of the ground what he will find beneath it.
Grlidders never went to work at haphazard. No random digging ;
no picking at a site of which the possible treasures lay too deep
beneath the ground for his purse to reach them. For him, a
practicable and ordered plan, all thought out beforehand. The
Arabs sent up a shout when the Professor pointed to the goal of
their little march. Grlidders shouted with his Arabs ; the ring of
sandy mounds and the hollow in the middle meant more to him
than to them. The Arabs had begun to finger the backsheesh for
their finds — so much for this find, so much more for that. But
Grlidders thought : ' To-morrow or next week there will only be a
spade's breadth between me and another Pharaoh ! '
Within a stone's cast of the mounds was a small tomb which
he had uncovered the season before, and here — not in the sepulchre
itself, but in the upper chamber where the Egyptian had fed his
ancestors with offerings — Grlidders established himself. In here he
brought his precious implements, his theodolite and plumb-lines,
his measuring-rods, his bevelling instrument, his threads and his
wax ; his provision tins, his articles of canteen, and his blankets.
A little way off the Arabs were squatted. They lit their cooking-
fires. A great moon arose, and from beneath the tramplings of
thirty centuries the Pharaonic past came forth again, tumultuous
and splendid. A hum of voices stirred over the dumb desert,
great palaces were reared beside the silent ruins, long aisles of
statues, and rows of public buildings, temples, courts, granaries,
arsenals, and libraries. Under the master-architect an army of
slaves built up a pyramid for the king and queen, laying it out
with astonishing skill, dressing the granite courses to a fine
equality, levelling the casing perfectly. Priests, nobles, soldiers
VOL. XXI. — NO. 125, Jf.S. 24
522 AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT.
with horned and crested helmets, ministers of State, and the swarnl
of Pharaoh's servants came and went. Streets and markets were
busy and noisy. The Pharaoh rode out in a chariot covered with
plates of gold, and his people bowed to the earth as he passed.
The stones of Eome had not been laid when all this was, and
Athens was not yet a town.
On the following day the site was commenced upon. Pits
were first made about one edge of it, to find how far the ruins ex-
tended. Next, a great trench was dug all along one side, which
was gradually swept across the whole site, and Grlidders began to
get at his temple. Adjoining it were the ruins of a great tomb.
It promised to be a rich field, with labour for many weeks.
A kind of mystery attaches to the work of excavation which all
who share in it are conscious of. The mist of romance hovers over
the region of the underground. For the hired digger, there is the
excitement of the sportsman, the spice of uncertainty which
attends the treasure-seeker and the gambler. There is all this
for the excavator himself, with the addition of an intellectual and
a moral aim. He brings up from their tombs of granite the re-
nowned dead of an age prodigiously remote. He brings them back
almost like life itself. It was for him that the embalmer used
all his fantastic arts, pouring in drugs, powder of myrrh and cassia,
salting the body, wrapping it in bands of fine linen, with gums
smeared on the inner side. Thus were they to lie, in their solid
sepulchres, with their funereal images and vessels about them, their
inscriptions and their ornaments, and the records of their doings ;
silently there, through the revolutions of a hundred generations ;
and then be carried up again into the day, that we might look
upon their faces, and have familiar knowledge of them. We have
seen the very face of the Pharaoh who drove Moses out from his
presence; that terrible, old, white-haired warrior, builder, and friend
of literature, great in height, and great in bodily strength, with
long slender hands and feet, like his handsome father, Seti. The
teeth which he ground in his wrath against the G-od of the Hebrews
were white and well preserved three thousand years after he had
ceased to gnash with them.
At the end of ten days Glidders's operations were well toward,
and his scientific heart was glad within him. He sat at the en-
trance to his tomb in the quiet of the evening ; he had washed
himself, and was drinking tea out of a blue-glazed bowl of the
thirteenth dynasty, which that day's digging had turned up.
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 523
Empires — unfashioned then — had become as tales that are told
since last that bowl was drained.
The Professor had very cheerfully forgotten the Cairo hotel,
and the active trippers therein congregated.
Over the desert a donkey came pricking, with a person on its
back, and Glidders raised his head at the cry of the donkey-boy,
urging the little beast on in shrill Arabic. ' Son of a dog ! Son
of a pig ! Son of a stingy tourist ! ' piped the donkey-boy.
As they came nearer, Glidders saw that the donkey carried a
lady, whose costume was European. ' Whew ! It's the girl who
likes my razzle-dazzle ! ' he ejaculated.
' Son of a dog ! Son of a pig ! Son of a swearing tourist ! '
screamed the donkey-boy to the donkey.
' Well, and how are you pro-gressing, sir ? ' asked Miss Julia,
as she alighted from her donkey. ' I do hope you haven't towed
out Pharaoh yet. Guess you'd forgotten us, eh ? But we've come
along. I left Ma and Pa camping way out there, about two miles.
We didn't rightly know where you'd fixed till we saw your
people's fires, and then I thought I'd come across and see if I
couldn't fetch you back to supper. My ! how you've been dig-
ging ! '
' Yes, we don't lead hotel-life in these parts, Miss Chancey.
Happy to see you at my camp. Supper ? Well, I'm finishing
mine, thank you. Won't you have some ? I trust Mrs. Chancey
bore the journey well. That's plum jam at your elbow, there are
sardines and tinned salmon in the coffin behind you. May I fetch
them ? I can get you something hot from the Arabs, if you
prefer it.'
' Thank you, Professor. I guess a bite of coffined salmon
would suit this occasion sweetly. Say, who was the patriarch
that owned this coffin ? '
' I am sorry to say I cannot tell you. We found it to-day, and
I had it fetched in here for the present. Some plunderer had
made his way into the tomb before me and rifled the coffin. I
hope to find the cartouche to-morrow — at least, I mean to have a
warm hunt for it. Excuse me, you know what a cartouche is ? '
' If you'd said a papyrus, now, I'd have chimed in,' said Miss
Chancey.
' Oh, but you may find a cartouche in a papyrus,' said
Glidders. ' It's a sort of oval figure that we find on old Egyptian
monuments, and in papyri. In this figure there are groups of
24—2
524 AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT".
characters that express the names or titles of kings or queens'-1-
sometimes, but not often, of deities. That's a cartouche. But
you know a papyrus, eh ? '
4 Oh, yes, sir ; we've got one.'
' Ah ! ' said the Professor, rather drily. ' I — I hope you didn't
pay too much for it.'
' Well, it cost Pa four hundred dollars.'
' Four hundred dollars ? Eighty pounds ! H'm ! '
1 That's the way Pa talks about it,' said Miss Chancey.
' Yes, I daresay. If your father bought a papyrus for eighty
pounds, Miss Chancey, I should venture to guess that it is worth
rather more, or a good deal less, than that. I should like to see it.'
' Ma's just dying to show it to you.'
' She shall do so. May I hand you the jam again ? '
' No, I thank you, sir. I expect I should be going.'
' You must come to-morrow and see us at work. I shall take
you back to your tents, if you please.'
' Will you ? ' said Miss Chancey. ' That's kind. They'll be
glad to see you.'
She remounted her steed without assistance, and the donkey-
boy, having made the discovery that the * Nazarene ' spoke Arabic
as well as he did, restricted himself to conventional epithets.
' Here's Jooly,' said Mrs. Chancey, as the procession approached
the Chancey encampment, ' and she's got the Professor with her.'
' He looks nicer out of his store clothes,' said the younger
Miss Chancey. ' I shouldn't wonder but Jooly's got a beau.'
' Well, don't you get firing off any nonsense about anything,'
said her mother. ' I don't know but you'd better go to bed.
Times and times I feel like getting up and shaking you ; you do
fix people up so.'
' How you talk, Ma ! Why didn't you send me for a year's
schooling in Paris ? ' replied the young lady.
' You'd fix up all Paris, you would,' said her mother. ' Scud,
where's that papyrus ? See here, Scud, I'd like you to talk real
nice and smart to the Professor. You can talk some, Scud ; but
don't to gracious say you wished you hadn't bought that papyrus/
' My dear,' replied Mr. Chancey, ' as I've remarked before, I
don't see any signs of a marrying-man on that Professor.'
The Professor proved much more sociable in the desert than
he had done in the hotel, and before he set out to return to his
sepulchre he asked for a sight of the papyrus.
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 525
Mr. Chancey, not without misgivings, produced and handed it
to him. Professor Glidders's eye sparkled as he glanced it over.
Then he sighed. 'This should have found its way to the
museum/ he said.
' Then it's no hum, sir ? ' asked Mr. Chancey.
' Certainly not. A very fine specimen. Part of it is missing,
but it is worth at least double what you gave for it.'
' So, sir ? ' exclaimed Mr. Chancey. ' Been some men, now,
they'd have waunted to set up in the paypyrus line to-morrow.'
' Well, who (jot you to show it, Scud ? ' asked Mrs. Chancey,
' Just so, my dear. What I was goin' to say.'
' You must do something with it, you know,' said Glidders.
' Can't waste a precious piece of work like this. Now, you have
an Egyptian museum of your own in Boston.'
' Come to think of it, Professor, so we have. Well, I'll present
it, I shouldn't wonder.'
' You couldn't do a more excellent thing,' said Glidders,
greatly relieved. ' You see, my dear sir, these things are scarcely
to be regarded as travellers' knick-knacks, to be picked up by
some happy chance — at whatever cost — and carried home to show
to people to whom they would only mean that you had spent a
season in Egypt. They are of really priceless value to the
archaeologist, and if our fatuous Government, which hasn't a
thought in the world beyond winning its silly elections, were to
insist upon a fair price being paid by its officials in open market
for all finds brought there, there would be no smuggling, no
cutting up of valuable finds into pieces, to be sold in separate
portions as specimens. I should like to know, for instance, where
is the remainder of this splendid papyrus of yours. However,
you are going to give your portion to Boston, Mr. Chancey. You
couldn't do better.'
' I guess this little digger knows his business,' said Mrs.
Chancey to herself.
' Jooly,' said the younger sister, when they were retiring, ' did
the Professor seem to like walking beside your donkey, when you
were coming home donkey-back ? '
' He didn't let on much if he did,' said Miss Julia.
' Is he a nice sort of man to come home donkey-back with
when there's a moon out, Jooly ? '
' Oh, I guess he isn't your sort of a nice man.'
' Didn't have any candies in his old sepulchre, did he ? '
526 AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT.
' Oh, you ! Candies — no ! Go to sleep. There's plum jam,
though.'
' Say, Jooly, wasn't I awful good and proper to-night ? '
< Oh, yes.'
' Well, I don't know how long it's going to last. You'd better
go right on with your Professor while I'm on my store behaviour,
before I've time to frighten him. Ma ought to have sent me to
school to Paris, too.'
' Go to sleep, stupid. A nice little kangaroo you'd have been
in a school in Paris. Oh ! quit pinching me, will you ! '
' When we get out of this old dust-heap I'm going to have a
beau of my own. I don't want any more folks telling me to go to
bed and sleep. I'm sixteen now.'
On the morning after this, Miss Chancey was early on the
scene of Professor Glidders's operations, but the workers were
already hard at it ; diggers in the pits and trenches, basket-
carriers bearing away the earth as it was thrown up, and Glidders
skipping here and there, with a grasshopper's agility. A gang of
native porters, in a harness of ropes, .had just hauled out a great
carved block, and girls with sponges and bowls were standing ready
to wash it down. The variety of the scene bewildered Miss Chancey,
and she began to feel the infectious excitement of the work.
' Have you found the old man's cartouche ? ' she inquired.
' Not yet. I thought you might like to accompany me in a
hunt for it.'
' I guess I just would.'
' Very well, I'm quite ready to start. Please follow me ; here
is an entrance to the tomb ; we had no end of trouble to find it
the day before yesterday.'
They passed through a square, clean-cut hole in a wall opposite
to them, and commenced, what seemed to Miss Chancey, an inter-
minable journey through narrow passages and twisting tunnels,
cumbered with chips, and sand, and fallen masonry.
' I reckon this was a squeeze for Pharaoh's funeral,' said Miss
Chancey, as she stooped to pass under a low arch.-
' Oh, they didn't bring him in this way,' said Glidders. ' I
haven't found the chief passage yet. They took all this trouble to
preserve his majesty safe from spoilers.'
' Well, they didn't calc'late we might want to visit him. Say,
where are we now, Professor ? '
The explorers had descended a passage, at the end of which a
AN EGYPTIAN FRAGMENT. 527
flight of steps led into a chamber from which apparently there was
no exit. Glidders indicated a sliding trap-door, through which
another chamber was reached at a higher level, and on they went
again. Glidders's eyes were everywhere, and he was continually
stooping and raking amongst the rubbish heaps that obstructed
their course. ' You wouldn't believe,' he said, ' how important it
is to turn over every inch of stuff.'
Miss Chancey said she expected so, and indulged in a very
small yawn behind the Professor's back.
' We might come upon some treasure of an amulet, or a gold
bracelet, or some delightful little carved ornament, anywhere
about here.'
' My ! Why didn't you say so ? ' exclaimed Miss Chancey,
falling to with the point of her sunshade upon a heap of chips and
earth at her feet.
' Ha ! ha ! You've found it ! You've found it ! ' shouted
Glidders ; and he danced and screamed with delight as he drew
out of the heap a fragment of discoloured stone which Miss Chancey
had uncovered with her foot, and on which he showed, amid a mass
of hieroglyphs, the oval figure of the cartouche.
Glidders sank upon his knees — -before the hieroglyph. He
passed his hand over it reverently ; he blew the dust from it ; his
gaze seemed to grow into the mystic oval.
' My dear Miss Chancey,' he said at length. ' What a fortu-
nate find ! You really ought to feel very proud. Is it not a
perfect cartouche ? \
Miss Chancey did her best to look enthusiastic.
' Come,' said Glidders, ' we must carry out this jewel at once.
Would you like to hold it for a moment ? '
Mr. and Mrs. Chancey, with their youngest daughter, were
waiting for them at the entrance. They were to lunch with the
Professor in his sepulchre.
' Well, Jooly,' said Mrs. Chancey, while Glidders was display-
ing the cartouche to the others, ' you've had quite a nice long time
in there. Anything come of it ? '
' Why, yes, Ma. We've found Pharaoh's cartouche.'
' Oh ! ' said Mrs. Chancey, ' have you, Jooly ? Then ' (in a
tone of somewhat severe significance) ' I expect it's time we went
back to Paris.'
Miss Chancey had been of the same opinion for the last five
minutes,
528
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
COLOMBO. I
THROUGH the brilliant moonlight of a tropical night the little
steamer Aska, laden with cows, Tamil coolies, and a few European
passengers, ploughs her way across the stormy Gulf of Manaar to
Ceylon, that fairest ' Pearl of the East,' set in a sapphire ring of
Indian seas. Five miles of shallow but turbulent water, through
which a steam launch dives and plunges, lie between Tuticorin
and the vessel which waits beyond the bar. At length the
drenched and dripping cabin passengers 'are hoisted up the lurch-
ing gangway, while the frightened but pugnacious coolies tumble
in pell-mell through an open hatchway, their shrieks and quarrels
only quelled by the liberal application of a stout stick to their
bare brown shoulders by a muscular native steward. Some of the
combatants tumble into the foaming water, and being forcibly
prevented from going on board swim back disconsolately to the
launch as it gets up steam for the return journey. Babies scream
and kick, women and girls weep bitterly, as they waft frantic fare-
wells to the distant shore, and a cow breaks loose from her moor-
ings and plunges madly round the decks, pursued by a score of
brown figures with wild war-whoops and waving arms. When
comparative peace is restored we settle down amid bag and bag-
gage on the upper deck for a twenty hours' passage, which seems
an interminable nightmare of horrors. The fearful tossing of the
top-heavy boat in the January monsoon, the appalling groans of the
crowded coolies, and the dismal lowing of the cattle, together with
the discomfort caused by the miserable appointments of the
steamer, combine to render the little voyage a pandemonium 01
manifold torture. My own lot is mitigated by the loan of a deck
chair and a pillow from a kindly young officer of the ship ; but my
less favoured companions are reduced to the bare boards of the
deck as their only couch through the long hours of misery which
intervene from port to port.
At length hope revives, and life again seems worth living, as
the purple mountains of Ceylon loom on the horizon and the lofty
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 529
cone of Adam's Peak soars into the deep-blue sky. The wind,
which travels a hundred miles in a breath, fans us with the
fragrance of tropical flowers and the pungent aroma of mace and
cinnamon, for the ' spicy breezes ' of Ceylon are no poetical myth,
but a well-authenticated fact. Forests of cocoa-nut palms fringe
the coast with feathery crowns bending beneath a golden weight
of clustering fruit, the great green fronds sweeping down in
graceful curves to the violet rim of the sunlit sea. The Aska
anchors within the noble breakwater of Colombo, where the bent
spars of outrigger canoes flit about among huge steamers, and
crowds of catamarans, the native boats, made of hollowed tree-
trunks, surround us, paddled by brown figures who gesticulate
wildly in order to attract our attention. Eesisting their entreaties
we select a flat boat with an awning, and two sturdy Cingalese row
us to the shore of this earthly paradise, invested with a double
charm by contrast with the purgatory which has preceded it.
Past the red houses and towers of tree-shaded streets lined with
glittering bazaars, and thronged with gaily-clad crowds, we drive
along Galle Face, that loveliest of sea promenades, with the huge
rollers of the Indian Ocean breaking into foam at our feet. Our
powers of enjoyment are for the moment in abeyance, and even
the flaming sunset, which transmutes sea and sky into radiant
plains of molten gold, wins but a listless admiration, for the
luxurious repose of the palm-shaded hotel at the edge of the waves
is the modest goal of our present ambition.
Colombo is the marine junction of the world, and the different
lines converging here as in a focus render the commercial metro-
polis of Ceylon a cosmopolitan rather than a Cingalese city. The
busy streets glow with dazzling colour and frame perpetually
changing pictures of that brilliant Oriental life which to those
unfamiliar with it appears a dream of Arabian Nights rather than
a tangible reality of ordinary experience. The various races which
jostle each other in street and bazaar partake of the cosmopolitan
character which belongs in a certain degree to the whole island,
though more especially to Colombo. Effeminate-looking Cinga-
lese with glossy braids of black hair fastened by huge tortoise-
shell combs, wander about in smart jackets and striped skirts of
native cloth. The dress of the women is almost identical with
that of the men, though sometimes varied by a low white muslin
bodice and a string of coral, replaced in the higher classes by
sparkling circlets of rubies or sapphires on dusky necks and arms.
24— 5
530 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
Moormen, descended from ancient Arab traders who migrated
hither from Eed Sea ports, and distinguishable by their volumi-
nous red or white robes and tall hats glittering with tinsel, smoke
their narghilehs in dim arcades filled with gorgeous silks and
delicate embroideries. Malays with flat Mongolian features and
dull-blue garb drive a brisk trade in the artistically woven cloth
and cotton of their native peninsula. Stolid Bombay merchants
and keen-faced Jews with long black ringlets preside over stores
of shining gems ; for this favoured island, together with the pearl
fisheries of the western coast, possesses the further treasure of
inexhaustible sapphire-mines, and the minor wealth of tourma-
lines, moonstones, and garnets. The rubies and emeralds of
Burma and Siam, which appear plentiful as the native jewels, are
received in exchange for the splendid sapphires, and the rare
specimens of alexandrite and jacinth obtained from the quarries of
Eatnapura, famous for unique crystallisations which rank amid the
phenomena of Nature. The most valuable sapphires are of a deep
velvety blue, unchanged by artificial light, but the scale of colour
runs from palest azure to darkest indigo. Sapphires of faint pink
hue are highly prized, and the green sapphire has obtained a
well-deserved popularity, but gems of white and yellow lustre are
comparatively worthless. The semi-transparent asterias, or star
sapphire, of blue-grey tint, shows a five-pointed star radiating in
fine white veins from the centre of the stone. The abundant
tourmalines glow with rich hues of straw colour, amber, and brown,
varied occasionally by a brilliant green, gems of this colour being
locally designated as ' green diamonds ; ' but the rare alexandrite,
pale green by day and changing to lustrous crimson under arti-
ficial light, is the most exquisite of Cingalese jewels. Sparkling
cinnamon stones, their ruddy brown shot with orange, are also
local specialities ; and the delicate moonstone, so called from the
azure crescent which shimmers through the opalescent pallor of
every perfect specimen, is indigenous to the island.
With difficulty we tear ourselves away from the mysterious
fascination of the sparkling jewels, possessing that magnetic attrac-
tion for the feminine mind which Goethe realised when he placed
them in the hand of Mephistopheles as an irresistible temptation.
Coolies who only add a supplementary red handkerchief to the
brown suit with which Nature provides them, draw the rickshaws
which seem the favourite vehicles of Ceylon, and white bullocks
trot past harnessed to scarlet carts laden with brightly-clad natives.
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 531
English soldiers in white uniform and sun helmet ride prancing
chargers on the green ' Maidan ' before the barracks, and fashion-
able carriages drive up and down Galle Face, filled with elegantly-
dressed Europeans and the more gaudily-attired burghers who
belong to the Dutch and Portuguese stock, which by Cingalese inter-
marriage became incorporated with the original population.
A few expeditions in rickshaw and bullock bandy suffice for
the exploration of Colombo, which owes its modern importance to
the crowded shipping ever passing to and from this connecting
link in the intersecting chains of international commerce. The
bazaars with their local curios of ebony and sandal-wood, porcupine
quills and woven grass, surpass those of the Indian peninsula in
variety and beauty. The extensive Pettah, or native town, glows
with kaleidoscopic colouring, and the English cathedral in a shady
close adds a touch of home association to the unfamiliar aspect of
the shining East. Compulsory baptism during the Portuguese
occupation added many so-called converts to the Roman Church,
but most of these unwilling Christians reverted in after years to
their original Buddhism, though the modern Eoman mission
numbers many faithful adherents. The supreme charm of the
locality consists in the tropical verdure, which turns every rural
lane and woodland vista into a bower of floral splendour. An arti-
ficial lake in the midst of the city tempers the burning rays of
the equatorial sun, and the shadowy creeks under their canopy of
palrns are filled with floating water-lilies, pink, white, and blue. The
aromatic cinnamon gardens scent the air, and every palm-thatched
hut buries itself in a tangle of choicest exotics and a green nest of
tropical verdure. The lazy insouciance of the people and the
lavish bounty of Nature under equatorial skies contrast sharply
with the stern environment of Northern poverty in a rigorous
climate, where the earth appears as a hard taskmaster rather than
a tender mother.
An expedition to Mount Lavinia is de rigueur with every
visitor to Colombo. Picturesque bungalows and lovely gardens
line the road for the first two miles, the deep verandahs and
pillared porticoes mantled with the royal purple of Bougainvillea
and the vivid colouring of unfamiliar tropical creepers. Stately
palms rustle overhead, banana and india-rubber flap their broad
green leaves in the spice-laden breeze, and ripening mangoes glow
amid glossy foliage. The yellow canes of the giant bamboo gleam
amid the pale green, of the feathery leaves. Custard-apple and
532 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
boquat, rose-apple and pawpaw hang over every flowery hedge
and tempt the thirsty traveller to pause and gather their cool and
juicy fruits. Here and there a mighty banyan strikes the ground
again and again with the curious trunks which grow downward
from the end of every bough, and in their turn branch out into
fresh foliage like a dozen trees in one. Mahogany and tulip tree,
teak and touchwood, with a hundred unknown species, add to
the variety of the tropical woods ; and as we advance, the road
penetrates the shadowy depths of an interminable forest of cocoa-
nuts, with blue glimpses of the sea shining through their pillared
stems. We pass bamboo-roofed villages, their open stalls filled
with mounds of pine-apples, and the overhanging eaves laden
with huge bunches of yellow bananas. Gaily-clad girls tie up
this most plentiful of fruits in neat parcels with its own great
leaves, or pour out the tea, which is now the universal beverage of
Ceylon, while they chat merrily with the native wayfarers who
halt for the simple refreshment.
Mount Lavinia is the site of a large hotel above the Indian
Ocean, which bursts in foam and thunder among the rocks and
caverns below the green promontory. The shadow of the tall
grey house, and the background of waving palms, render the spot
an oasis of perpetual coolness in this sun-steeped land. A delicious
breeze blows from the sea ; fishermen mend their nets on the
golden sands of the palm-fringed bay, and catamarans dart in
and out of the rocky creeks. A small brown boy swarms up a
lofty tree to gather fresh cocoa-nuts, and we recline in dolce far
niente fashion on long bamboo chairs, sipping iced cocoa-nut
water, while we revel in the glorious sunset light which streams
over the purple ocean as the flaming disc sinks below the waves.
The return to Colombo by moonlight, a few hours later, is the
loveliest experience of all. The breeze has died away, and the
forest of palms is motionless as though carved in ebony. The
full moon fringes the dark fronds with silver, and gleams with
mellow lustre on the polished stems which pencil interlacing
shadows on the shining grass. Fire-flies sparkle in the dusky
glades, lighting up a world of mystery with their galaxies of
glittering stars. The little villages are wrapped in silence and
sleep, though here and there a dark form raises itself from a grass
mat at the sound of the horse's hoofs. Our seven miles' progress
through the scene of enchantment is all too short, for dawn, sun-
set, and moonlight, are the three conditions which glorify this
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 533
tropical Eden with a halo of unearthly beauty. In the deep
seclusion of the outlying country lies the missionary station of
Cotta, a centre of Christian work, with schools, church, and par-
sonage inclosed in a green garden. The warm welcome of the
kindly missionary to this English home in a distant land, and the
peaceful afternoon spent under his hospitable roof, is a bright
episode of the sojourn in Colombo. The native converts main-
tained and educated at Cotta show a warm appreciation of their
privileges, and the happy-looking girls who sing us familiar
English hymns and native songs in musical Cingalese, gather
round their good pastor with the unmistakable affection due to a
tried and trusted friend. The deep repose of the rural scenery
sinks into the heart, and we turn away with regret from the
tranquil lake and shadowy woods, bidding a still more reluctant
farewell to the kind and fatherly head of the English mission.
Under the rose-flushed sky of earliest dawn we drive to a Buddhist
temple outside the city. Not a leaf stirs in the glassy atmosphere,
and the wayside flowers have not yet unclosed their dewy petals
to the rising sun ; the grey boughs and scarlet blossoms of the
leafless cotton-tree rise in gorgeous pyramids of bloom above our
heads, and gold mohur alternates with red poinsettia in a brilliant
foreground to the unchanging green of the endless palms. Native
women are laying their fragrant offerings of snowy temple flowers
on Buddha's shrine. His gigantic red figure reclines at full length
behind the altar, and weird frescoes depicting the manifold trans-
migrations of his soul decorate the walls, on which he appears in
various forms, including those of a tiger and a hare. A yellow-
robed priest acts as custodian of the temple, and notwithstanding
his vow of poverty rattles an iron bowl with suspicious alacrity.
The images of Brahma and Shiva, which flank the colossal Buddha,
indicate that decadence of Buddhist creed which resulted from the
influence of the Indian mainland on the purer doctrinal system.
Colombo is about to celebrate the arrival of the Archduke
Ferdinand d'Este, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and cart-
loads of flowers and palms go past to decorate the quays. As the
Austrian ironclad Kaiserin Elisabeth is expected on the following
day, we resolve to precede his Imperial Highness to Kandy, where
great festivities are to be observed in honour of the royal guest.
A departure from Colombo is also rendered advisable by the
setting in of a ' 'long-shore wind,' which, with its enervating
effects, is one of the drawbacks to this equatorial paradise,
534 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
beautiful as a dream, but, like Eden of old, both in a literal and
figurative sense, marked with the trail of the serpent.
II.
KANDY.
THE railway from Colombo to Kandy traverses a luxuriant plain
overflowing with irrepressible verdure. Tobacco and sugar-cane
wave in the wind, and the dark foliage of magnificent cocoa-nut
palms accentuates the paler green of gigantic bananas and the
vivid emerald of springing rice,. Crossing and recrossing a
romantic river, the train winds upward into the heart of the hills,
and skirts steep precipices clad from base to summit with feathery
ferns. Cocoa-nut forests sweep' up to the edge of the fantastic
rocks, and palms of every kind — areca and talipot, fan palm, oil
palm, and sago — fringe the shadowy gorges which pierce the purple
mountains, and wind away into an unknown region of glamour
and mystery. The fluted columns of the graceful Palmyra palm
form forest aisles in Nature's green cathedral, the bread-fruit tree
waves serrated leaves among creaking bamboos and tall rattans,
the scaly globes of the jak grow in golden excrescences from the
rough bark, and the verdure of trailing creepers brightens with
intermingled leaves of pure white and dazzling scarlet, as though
even Nature's green robe caught fire from hidden depths of colour
under the glow of tropic skies. As the grey crags rise in bolder
outlines above the river, the high mountain ranges of Ceylon
tower upward bathed in violet haze, and the unearthly radiance of
the equatorial sunset suggests some magic vision of ' the light
that never shone on land or sea.' The liquid amber of the sky
flushes overhead into peach-like bloom of blended rose and lilac,
and the tranquil river flows in a golden tide through the flower-
wreathed valley. The train ascends into the cooler regions of the
tea district, where the lower spurs of the mountains are covered
with the green bushes and starry flowers of Ceylon's most valuable
crop. Brown coolies are picking the young shoots, now in full
' flush ' after a heavy shower. The tea-gatherers are all Tamils
from the Indian coast, for the prosperous Cingalese refuse to work
on tea estates, preferring to cultivate the strip of fertile land
owned by almost every native. Darkness falls as we reach far-famed
Kandy, the mountain capital of the ancient kings and a stronghold
of barbaric cruelty almost within the memory of living men,
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 535
Ceylon, once known as Serandib, and earlier still as Taprobane,
was visited by the Greeks and Romans, by Marco Polo, and by
the early Portuguese navigators. After retaining possession of the
island for a century and a half the Portuguese were expelled by
the Dutch in A.D. 1656, and in 1796 the latter gave way to the
British, who gradually extended their sway over the whole island,
the subjugation of the native Kandyan kings being the last and
most difficult feat accomplished by the victorious army. After
establishing ourselves at the charming waterside hotel, we make
the circuit of the moonlit lake by rickshaw. This picturesque
sheet of water which fills the lovely valley is of artificial construc-
tion. An ancient Kandyan king, in order to cool the heated atmo-
sphere of the mountain town situated in a basin of forest-clad
hills, imprisoned the waters of a shallow river which flowed
through the dale. A perforated stone terrace bounds the head of
the lake, now encircled by a carriage drive under drooping cocoa-
nuts and stately cabbage palms. The mystical beauty of the
moonlight scene is heightened from the Upper Lake Road, where
we look down through the luxuriant tropical vegetation to the
shimmering water lying like a shield of silver amid the darkness
of the surrounding hills. Stone pillars, washed by the rippling
wavelets, support the ancient boat-house of the Kandyan kings,
used as the present English library. The curling brown eaves and
deep balconies of the particoloured building combine rustic
simplicity with Oriental display. The remains of the royal
palace, now occupied by Government offices, exhibit the same
character in richly-carved wooden pillars and barbaric archi-
tecture, which reaches a climax of picturesque beauty in the
adjacent Temple of the Tooth, the most famous of Buddhist
shrines. At the first streak of dawn the temple band discourses
weird and uncanny music on trombone, conch shell, and flageolet,
summoning the faithful to prayer. After the morning sacrifice of
flowers and music, the yellow-robed priest who strips the blossoms
from their stems and lays them in lines upon the great silver
altar, shows us the celebrated temple library in the beautiful
octagon of striped brown and white stone which forms the most
striking feature of the picturesque building. The sacred books
are written with a stylus on leaves of the talipot palm, the gems
of this famous collection being protected by covers of carved ebony
mounted in solid silver. The intelligent young librarian, who
understands English perfectly, displays with much pride Sir Edwin
536 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
Arnold's gift of a dried leaf from the celebrated peepul tree of
Buddha-Gya, which waved its tremulous boughs over the head of
the great Indian sage as he meditated on the mystic doctrines
afterwards elaborated into the Buddhist creed. We return to the
temple at a later hour to witness the reception of the Austrian
Archduke, and to embrace the rare opportunity of seeing the
Sacred Tooth of Buddha, seldom accessible to Europeans, but
exhibited to-day in honour of the royal visit. Flags, flowers, and
palms decorate the station where the Archduke and his suite are
received by the Governor and to be escorted through Kandy by the
native infantry and all available British troops. Triumphal arches
span the streets leading to the temple, with waving palm branches,
and fronds, split, peeled, and plaited in elaborate native style and
intricate design. Baskets of gorgeous flowers hang from the open
lattice- work of every arch, and a thousand fluttering pennons of
red and yellow are suspended above the roads lined with rustic
lamps of split cocoa-nut shells mounted on bamboo-stems for the
evening illumination.
The Imperial guest is welcomed at the temple gate by the
Kandyan chiefs, who, in accordance with an ancient Cingalese
law, act as the lay custodians of the Sacred Tooth. Their broad
hats of crimson velvet and gold embroidery blaze with strings
and clasps of rubies and sapphires, every hat being surmounted
by the towering golden badge of the wearer's race. Gorgeous
jackets of red and gold brocade sparkle with the same precious
gems, and the voluminous white petticoats of gold-embroidered
muslin are tucked up in a huge bundle under a golden belt
encrusted with emeralds and pearls. A jewelled dagger flashes
at the side, and the brown hands are almost hidden by huge rings,
like miniature suns, with rays of many-coloured gems surrounding
the flaming disc of a great central ruby. The bearded faces of
this barbaric aristocracy express a sense of overwhelming import-
ance as they advance, surrounded by a native guard bearing
glittering spears, curious leathern shields, and great fans of
peacocks' feathers. Fortunately for my own share in the ceremony,
curiosity overmasters dignity in one of the noble band, now a
useful member of the island parliament, and he offers me a coign
of vantage in the temple itself, after satisfying himself by a few
preliminary questions that I shall not abuse this lofty privilege.
Following his bundle of gorgeous petticoats up the stone stairs,
I enter the inner court of the sacred edifice just as a long pro-
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 537
cession of Buddhist priests with yellow robes and shaven crowns
emerges from the dusky arches of an adjacent cloister. Tone and
texture are equally varied in the priestly garb, which includes
every shade of primrose, amber, canary, and orange. The flowing
garments, dyed with the juice of the jak tree and made of satin,
serge, cloth, or calico, leave the right arm and shoulder uncovered.
The left hand holds the great palm-leaf fan, which, together with
an iron bowl for rice, constitutes the entire personal property of
these dreamy ascetics, bound by a threefold vow of poverty,
chastity, and obedience. The mystical and subjective doctrines
of Buddhism, an ethical philosophy rather than a creed, are often
materialised in popular practice by the introduction of Hindu
rites and deities into the observances inculcated by the more
visionary and speculative system. . This religious degeneration
resulted from the frequent intermarriages of Kandyan kings with
Tamil princesses, who retained their own faith or grafted it upon
the Buddhism which in some cases they were compelled to accept.
The yawning gulf between the intellectual subtleties of Buddhist
doctrine and the gross materialism to which Southern India re-
duces the mysteries of Brahminism was thus bridged over, and the
multitude, ever preferring the seen to the unseen, readily adopted
a compromise which appealed to the senses as well as to the soul.
Many intellectual and thoughtful faces are noticeable amid
the crowd of Buddhist priests, monks, and novices present in the
Temple of the Tooth. All ages are represented, from the venerable
abbot of some historic monastery to the youthful neophyte just
emerging from childhood. From earliest dawn the green paths of
mountain and jungle have been thronged with the golden figures of
these gentle ' brethren of the yellow robe,' assembling by hundreds
to venerate the most precious relic of their ancient faith, and the
ferry-boat from the monastery buried under the trees of the opposite
shore has been in constant requisition, bearing a golden freight across
the deep blue water. As the weird strains of thundering trombone
and wailing flageolet sound in the distance, the countless priests
form into two dazzling semicircles, divided by an intersecting
aisle left free for the advancing procession. The frescoed walls
and cavernous arches of the ancient temple emphasise the crescent-
shaped masses of shaded yellow and the contrasting brown of
shaven faces and naked arms. Stalls of votive flowers light up
dim recesses with snowy bloom, and the rich fragrance of ironwood,
champak, and frangipanni blossom struggles with the fumes of
538 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
camphor and the heavy odours of burning wax. At length, as the
temple band rends the air with a wild burst of barbaric music,
the procession files past, preceded by attendants bearing glittering
fans and huge umbrellas of scarlet and gold. The Kandyan chiefs
follow, their gorgeous costume enhanced by the addition of cloth
of gold capes bristling with jewels. The young Archduke is
supported on one side by the Governor of Ceylon and on the other
by the abbot of the temple, a noble-looking man robed in rich
yellow satin. Another crowd of attendants brings up the rear
with a further array of fans, umbrellas, and heraldic badges
glittering with gold and colour. The Imperial visitor, a quiet-
looking young man in simple morning dress, appears somewhat
embarrassed by the novelty of his surroundings as he passes
within the massive silver door of the inner shrine, and on return-
ing from the sanctum sanctorum of Buddhism he makes a speedy
exit from the temple precincts. Owing to the kindness of the
Kandyan magnate whose authority sanctions my presence, I join
the first detachment of pilgrims, and ascend the corkscrew staircase
to the turret which contains the shrine of the Tooth. Only one
at a time can pass under the low-browed arch of the narrow
doorway. The friendly chief and some yellow-robed ' chelas '
mount guard within a silver railing, before a table draped with
rich embroideries, and supporting a bell-shaped shrine of silver
gilt, with costly draperies gleaming within its open door. Two
smaller shrines are contained within this external casket. An
outer one of gold set with lustrous rubies contains the actual
reliquary of priceless emeralds, wherein the Sacred Tooth is sus-
pended by a gold wire above the petals of a golden lotus. The
discoloured ivory fang, an inch and a half in length, if authentic,
must assuredly have belonged to Buddha during his incarnation
as a tiger, one of the historical transmigrations experienced by
his long-suffering soul. His miniature image is exhibited carved
from a single emerald, presumably the largest in the world, and a
less valuable figure of rock crystal is a triumph of skilful workman-
ship in archaic art. With difficulty we thread the dense crowd
of natives who surround the temple, waiting with exemplary
patience for what they consider an inestimable religious privilege.
At nightfall the long lines of lighted cocoa-nut lamps gleam
softly on the broad green leaves and drooping grasses which border
the temple roads and the woodland path to Government House.
Native dancers, with tinselled breastplates and spangled scarves
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 539
glittering on their lithe brown bodies, twirl in wild gyrations
before a Kandyan chief, whose praises they sing in a guttural
chorus. The crowds assemble again to witness the Perahera, a
solemn procession of the sacred elephants which have been arriving
all the afternoon from the Buddhist temples of the district, until the
court containing the bell-shaped Daghobas which rise round the
Temple of the Tooth is full of the noble beasts and their pic-
turesque attendants, who move about bearing green burdens of
bamboo and branches of trees for their charges to feed upon. At
length, decorated with gorgeous masks and trappings of red,
yellow, or white, glittering with gold embroidery representing
Buddha in his manifold incarnations, with sacred inscriptions
interwoven round every figure, the processional elephants are
drawn up in line on either side of the temple gate. As the Arch-
duke and his suite enter the balcony of the octagon, from whence
the Kandyan kings were wont to show themselves to their subjects,
the magnificent temple elephant descends the long flight of steps
in gorgeous state caparisons of scarlet and gold presented by the
King of Siam, and bearing the golden shrine of the Sacred Tooth
under a golden howdah. A score of attendants walk at the side,
supporting a lofty cloth of gold canopy, outlined with lamps and
flowers. Snowy plumes rise behind the flapping ears, and tur-
baned mahouts kneel on the richly-masked head, and lean against
the gilt columns of the howdah, holding peacock-feather fans and
scarlet umbrellas edged with tinkling golden bells. The temple band
leads the way, the barbaric strains of music being accompanied by
the clashing cymbals and rattling castanets of a hundred whirling
dancers. The dignified Kandyan chiefs walk in glittering ranks
before the mighty elephant which occupies the post of honour, his
small eyes twinkling through the red and golden mask of the huge
head which towers above the multitude, and his enormous tusks
guided carefully by the temple servants, to prevent accidental
damage from their sweeping ivory curves. The thirty elephants
of the procession walk three abreast, ridden by officials in muslin
robes and embroidered scarves of sacred red and yellow, and
holding golden dishes heaped with rice, cocoa-nut, and flowers,
the consecrated offerings of the Buddhist religion. Each trio of
elephants is preceded by a band of music, a troupe of dancers,
and a crowd of gaudily-clad natives with blazing torches and
scarlet banners. Sometimes a baby elephant trots along by his
mother's side as a preliminary education in the future duties of
540 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
his sacred calling, and seems terrified by the noise and glare,
which in no way disconcert the imperturbable dignity of his
elders. Round and round the wide area of the temple precincts
the gigantic animals move with the slow and stately tread which
allows ample time for the wild evolutions of the mazy dances
performed before each advancing line. The splendour of the
barbaric pageant harmonises with the vivid colouring of native
life and landscape. The red glare of a thousand flaming torches
flashing back from the gorgeous trappings of the noble elephants,
the dark faces of the bounding dancers, the waving fans and
floating banners, the wild bursts of savage music, and the Oriental
brilliancy of the many-coloured crowd, contrasting with the jewelled
costumes oi Kandyan chiefs and the yellow robes of the Buddhist
priesthood, render the imposing ceremonial a picture of unprece-
dented splendour. The tropical wealth of vegetation which frames
the fantastic procession enhances the dazzling spectacle, before
which every memory of European pageantry fades into a cold and
colourless dream.
The festivities last far into the night, and the wicks still
smoulder in the cocoa-nut shells at sunrise as the Malwatte
monastery across the lake echoes the early strains of the temple
band. Slanting sunbeams gild the plumy palms of the green
islet which studs the calm blue water. A shower has fallen in
the night, flushing the hedges of pink and purple lantana and the
massive foliage with a tangle of gorgeous flowers. G/olden alla-
manda climbs in wild profusion over bush and tree, mingling a
trailing curtain of yellow blossoms with the glowing boughs of
scarlet hibiscus and the long sprays of lilac thunbergia which festoon
the overarching branches. Passion flower ropes the palms and
flings the sweeping tendrils of its white and crimson garlands on the
green banks of the lake. Arum lilies choke each shallow brook,
and huge crotons fill every ditch with a riot of colour, the velvety
leaves of rose and crimson, chocolate and purple, spotted and
barred with white. Green spears, which shoot up in bristling
masses from mossy banks, are starred with scarlet. Orange cacti
twist blue-green spikes and writhing stems in wild contortions ;
the pink flowers of the sensitive plant carpet the turf, and the
vast green garden of equatorial nature exhales the fragrant atmo-
sphere of a crowded hothouse.
The long streets and low white dwellings of Kandy, with
feathery cocoa-nuts rising above red eaves and bamboo thatch,
JAKUARY DAYS IK CEYLON. 541
extend in curious perspective beyond the lake, and a rift in the
forest reveals a chain of dark-blue mountains piercing the roseate
morning sky. The Malwatte monastery beneath us nestles in
embowering woods, the monastic cells surrounding a quadrangle
shaded by the spreading boughs of a quivering peepul tree. De-
scending the hill on a journey of discovery, we are invited by a
young monk, engaged in teaching some boys the Buddhist Scrip-
tures, to enter his little sanctum, furnished, like the prophet's
chamber on the wall, with bed, stool, and candlestick, supple-
mented by English influences with a petroleum lamp, a photograph
of the superior in an Oxford frame, and a tiny table. The chapel
of the community contains nothing of interest but the usual image
of Buddha, and two curiously carved seats from whence ' Bana,' or
doctrine, is preached at stated seasons. The Monastery of
Asgyriya, buried in another wood behind the town, shares the
importance of Malwatte, every Buddhist priest of Ceylon being
ordained in one or other of these historic sanctuaries. The still-
ness of the woodland cloister suggests an earthly counterpart of
Nirvana ; for when the great Indian mystic
wended unto the tree
Beneath whose boughs it was ordained that truth should come,
the prophetic voice which spoke to him through whispering leaves
and sighing breeze, according to popular belief, for ever conse-
crated the solemn forests to the mysteries of religion. The
Asgyriya temple contains a colossal Buddha, eighteen cubits long,
carved in the solid rock which forms the further side of the sacred
building. An inscription at the back, in the Pali character, is a
legal conveyance of certain lands to the temple priesthood. The
neighbouring village of Lewella possesses another forest sanctuary,
with a huge red image and an historic Daghoba, or shrine, built
over sacred relics on the rocky plateau which projects from the
main edifice.
The environing scenery is divinely beautiful. Lovely walks,
named after the wives of succeeding Governors, penetrate the
tropical woods and skirt the green hillsides. The purple gorges
which cleave the sunlit mountains, and the various reaches of the
enchanting Mahaveli-Oranga, the 'great sandy river' of Ceylon,
afford exquisite glimpses of untrammelled nature, which attains
an ideal beauty at Gronawatta Ferry. A forest road overhung by
palm and banana winds round a range of cliffs high above the
swiftly flowing water, reached by a gradual descent into verdant
542 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
valleys carpeted with emerald rice, and fringed with green plumes
of palm, varied by blue blossoms of cinchona and glossy boughs of
cacao, with long brown pods hiding among the polished leaves.
For seven miles we follow the river's course through the tropic
wilderness. Two Tamil children sit on the wide green leaves of a
tall india-rubber plant at the roadside, and Cingalese girls in plaid
skirts and muslin bodices cross the ferry to a coffee plantation on
the opposite hill. Rustling leaves suggest an unseen snake ; but
though the deadly cobra hides in every jungle, and the still more
terrible tic-polonga haunts the crevices of crumbling walls, the
fatal foe is rarely seen by those who keep to the beaten tracks,
though a tree recently cut down in the gardens of Government
House disclosed a nest of cobras among the branching roots,
proving the reality of the peril so frequently forgotten. The
palm-thatched villages under the clustering cocoa-nuts repay
many exploring tours into the green depths of forest and valley,
with picturesque glimpses of rural life under novel aspects, and
the Botanical Gardens of Peradenia, three miles from Kandy, add
to the splendour of unrivalled vegetation the further charm of the
fresh experiences with which they provide us.
Amid these tropical groves we revel in the strange delight of
breaking the ripe nutmeg from the external shell of scarlet mace,
gathering fragrant buds of clove or brown seeds of pungent
allspice, and plucking glossy boughs of cinnamon in order to taste
the rough bark and bruise the aromatic leaves into double
sweetness. We stand beneath the deadly upas tree, where certain
death awaits the unwary sleeper beneath its menacing shadow,
and even the dreaded cobra is not exempt from the fatal effects of
a more deadly poison than his own. A noble aisle of towering
cabbage palms soars upward in unbroken smoothness, the bright
green ' cabbage ' forming the capital of every column and dividing
sombre plumes from silvery stems. The Mahaveli-Granga bounds
one side of the great gardens, and a graceful satinwood bridge
spans the stream flowing between thickets of bamboo, which mirror
their fluffy foliage and white or golden stems in the transparent
water. In the teeming soil of Peradenia these gigantic bamboos
shoot up at the rate of a foot in twenty-four hours, and only begin
to die down when they attain their normal height of a hundred
feet. The tropical wonders of Brazilian forests and South Sea
isles grow with native luxuriance in their adopted land, the white
flowers of the tall Liberian coffee scent the air, and the orchids of
the Amazon festoon unknown trees with brilliant blossoms which
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 543
tnimic bird and butterfly. The traveller's palm, so called from
the draught of water obtained by incision of the stem, shades the
turf with mighty fans. A single leaf is supplied to every native
soldier as a tent, and some of the fronds are large enough to
shelter fifteen men. The green lane which leads from the pretty
village of Peradenia to the little station glows with the radiant
exotics which drape the hedgerows. An advancing Buddhist
priest makes a point of vivid colour against the red earth and rich
vegetation, hiding his face with his palm-leaf fan, and guarding
his yellow robe from contact with a woman's dress, in obedience to
the rule of his Order. No lover of flowers could leave the wealth
of gorgeous blossoms untouched, but rapidity of decay equals
luxuriance of growth in a tropic clime, and our fragrant burden is
only gathered to be cast away.
A large tea estate flanks the station, the green shrubs border-
ing the line. A visit to the tea factory occupies a spare half-hour,
and we witness the process of drying, sifting, and rolling the tea,
which impregnates the air with an overpowering odour. Each of
.the four upper leaves on every newly ' flushed ' spray is used for a
different kind of tea, the topmost shoot, known as ' broken Pekoe,'
being the most costly and delicate of all ; the fragrant ' orange
Pekoe ' is made from the uncurling leaf beneath. The small open
leaf next in order is the less expensive ' Pekoe,' and the large leaf
of the tiny twig makes the coarse and common ' Pekoe Souchong.'
The frequent showers of the verdant island ' flush ' the tea about
every fortnight, whenv the whole strength of the plantation turns
out to pick the fresh shoots. Having improved our theoretical
knowledge, we return to put it into practice and enjoy the
cheering cup in the verandah of the hotel, where local merchants
preside over bales of embroidery and glittering stores of filagree.
The lake reflects a brilliant sunset, and the tall palms stand out
in black silhouette against the orange glow of the evening sky.
Our stay in Kandy draws to a close, but the spell of enchantment
remains unbroken.
The precious gem glows with. richer colour and brighter lustre
the longer we gaze into its crystal depths, and increasing fami-
liarity with the wonders of tropical scenery deepens their inefface-
able impression and alluring charm. The fair face of nature
reveals a thousand unimagined beauties to those whose admira-
tion has ripened into love, and the fetters which bind the heart
to this garden of Paradise are hard to break, although the outward
eye sees only a chain of flowers.
B44
THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
CHAPTER III.
THE walk which aroused so much indignation in Edgar Woolley's
breast had been one of more than common interest, as possibly
something in the faces of the returning couple assured him.
There is a point in the journey towards intimacy at which one or
other of the converging pair turns the conversation inwards, dis-
closing his or her hopes, fears, ambitions. Pleasance in the purest
innocence had reached this stage to-day, arriving at it by the road
of that silence which is only tolerable when some progress towards
friendship has already been made, and which even then presently
invites attack. The tall gentleman, having lopped and picked at
her bidding, and having gathered up the last scraps of the haw-
thorn which he had ruthlessly broken from the tree, turned to find
his companion gazing into distance with a shadow on her face.
* Your thoughts are not very pleasant ones, I fear,' he said, half
lightly, half seriously. ' A penny were too much for them.'
' I was thinking of Mr. Woolley,' she answered simply.
' Indeed ! ' he said, surprised. He was more surprised when
she poured out of a full heart the story of her father's debt to
his assistant, and of the mortgage on the old house which the
Partridges had held for generations, and which was to her father
as the apple of his eye. Of course no word fell from her of
Woolley's position in regard to herself. But the voice has subtle |
inflections, and men's apprehensions are quick where they are
interested — and he was interested here. Her story left little
untold which he could not conjecture.
* I am very sorry to hear this,' he said musingly, after a pause.
* But money troubles — after all, money troubles are not the worst
kind of troubles.' He raised his hat and walked for a moment
bareheaded.
' But this is not a mere money trouble,' she answered warmly.
She was wrapped up in her own distresses) and could not perceive
at the moment that he had reverted to his. « We shall lose that.'
They had reached the crown of the hill, and as she spoke she
pointed to the Old Hall lying below them, its many gables, and
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 545
stone front, and mullioned windows warmed into beauty by lichens
and sunlight. * We shall lose that ! ' she repeated, pointing to it.
' Yes ! ' the stranger said, with a quick glance at her.
' I understand, and I do not wonder it grieves you. It has been
your home always, I suppose ? ' She nodded. ' And your father
thinks it must go ? ' he continued, after a short pause given to
deep thought, as it seemed.
' He thinks so.'
' Something should be done ! ' he replied, in a tone of decision
which surprised her. * I conclude from what you say that Mr.
Woolley is pressing for his money ? '
She nodded again. Her eyes were full of tears, which the
sight of the house had brought to them, and she could not trust
herself to speak. His sympathy seemed natural to her, so that
she saw nothing at this minute strange in his position. She
forgot that only a few days or weeks earlier he had been in the
blackness of despair himself. He talked now as though he could
help others !
They were close to the house, and he had asked the history
of the mouldering shield over the doorway, and she was telling
the story when she checked herself suddenly and stood still.
Edgar Woolley had emerged, and was standing before them with
a flush of stealthy triumph on his cheek. The tall gentleman
could scarcely be in doubt who he was ; nor could Woolley well
take Pleasance's involuntary cry for a sign of gladness, though he
strove to force the smile which was habitual to him.
* Miss Pleasance,' he said, ' would you kindly step inside ?
Your father is asking for you.'
' Where is he ? ' she asked, not moving. He had used no
form of greeting, neither did she. Something — perhaps not the
same thing in each — was at work from the first moment, kindling
the one against the other.
' He is in the hall,' he answered, chafing at her delay.
She turned to her companion. ' I will take your flowers in,
please,' she said. She held out her hands as she spoke, and he
laid the pile gently in them, Woolley looking on the while. The
latter's gaze was bent chiefly on her, and he did not see what she
saw — that some strong emotion was working in the tall gentle-
man's face. He had turned a livid white, his nostrils were twitch-
ing, and a little pulse in his cheek was beating wildly.
She changed her mind abruptly. ' No, do you take them in,'
VOL. XXI. — NO. 125, N.S. 25
546 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
she said to him. ' Will you take them in, please ? ' she added
peremptorily ; and she pushed back the hawthorn into his arms,
and held out her basket. The stranger took the things with re-
luctance, as it seemed, but without demur, and went into the
house.
4 Now,' she said, turning rapidly upon Woolley, ' what do
you want ? '
* My answer ! ' he retorted, with equal fierceness.
A second before he had not intended to say that. He had
purposed carrying the war into the stranger's country. But his
temper mastered him for just a second, and he found himself
staking all, when he had planned only an affair of outposts.
* Wait, Miss Pleasance,' he added desperately, seeing in a mo-
ment what he had done, and that he had committed himself.
' I beg you not to give it me without thought — without thought
of others, of me and of your father, as well as of yourself !
Do not judge me hastily ! Do not judge me,' he continued
passionately, for her face was icy, * by myself as I am now,
Pleasance, wild with love of you, but '
* By what then, Mr. Woolley ? ' she said, her lip curling. ' By
what am I to judge you if not by yourself ? '
-By '
* Well ? ' she said mercilessly. He had halted. He could not
find words. In truth, he had made a great mistake. If he had
ever had a chance of winning her his chance was gone now ; and,
recognising this, he let his fury grow to such a pitch that he
could not wait for the answer he had requested. He was mad
with love of her, with rage at his own mistake, with shame at
being so outgeneralled. ' I will tell you, Miss Partridge ! ' he
cried hoarsely, his eyes sparkling with passion : ' Judge me by
the future ! That fellow who was with you, do you know who he
is ? Do you know that I can have him in gaol any day ? — ay, in
gaol ! '
* What has he done ? ' she said sternly. ' Tell me.'
It was a pity he could not say, * He is a thief — a forger-
swindler ! ' The charge he could bring against the stranger was
heavy enough, and yet he found it difficult to word it so that it
should seem heavy. ' You thought he was shot ? ' he said at last.
1 Bah ! he shot himself.'
* I know it,' she answered, without the movement of a muscle.
He stared at her. How was it? he wondered. Before his
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 547
holiday he had been the Old Hall's master. He had wound the
poor doctor round his finger, and Pleasance had at any rate been
civil to him. Now, it seemed, all this was altered. And why ?
* Ah, well ! He shall go to gaol, d — n him ! ' he said, putting his
conclusion into words. * He shall go to gaol ! and if you have a
fancy for him you must go there too ! '
She lost her self-possession at the insult, and her face
turned scarlet. * You coward ! ' she said, with fierce scorn. * You
would not dare to say to his face what you have to say against
him. Let me pass ! '
She swept into the house and left him standing there in the
sunlight. As she hurried through the hall, which to her coming
suddenly into it seemed dusky, she caught a glimpse of the tall
gentleman leaning over the bureau with his back to her. Had
he heard ? The door was open, and so was one window. She could
not be sure, but the suspicion was enough. Her face was on fire
as she ran up the stairs. How she hated, oh, how she hated that
wretch out there ! She thought that she had never known before
what it was to hate.
For there was something in what he had said. There lay the
sharp sting. How had she come to be so intimate with one who
had done what the tall gentleman had done ? She tried to trace
the stages, but she could not. Then she tried to think of him
with some of the horror, some of the distaste which she had felt
when he had lain ghastly and blood-stained behind the closed
door. But she could not. The face we have known a year can never
again put on for us the look it wore when first we saw it. The
hand of time does not move backward. Pleasance found this was
so, and even in the solitude of her own room hid her face and
trembled. Could anything but evil come of such a — a friendship ?
Meanwhile Woolley's state of mind was even less enviable.
His way in the world had been made hitherto by the exercise of
tact and self-control, and he valued himself upon the possession
of those qualities accordingly. He could not understand how
they had come to fail him at this pinch, or why the advantage he
had so far enjoyed had deserted him now. Yet the secret was
not far to seek. He was jealous, and when jealousy attacks him,
the man who lives by playing on the passions of others falls at
once to the common level. Jealousy undermines his judgment
as certainly and fatally as passion deprives the fencer of his skill.
Though Woolley did not allow that this was the cause of his
25—2
548 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
defeat, he knew that for the moment he could not command him-
self, and before seeking the doctor he took a turn as far as the
gate to collect his thoughts and arrange his plan of vengeance.
When he returned to the house he found the hall empty. He
passed through it and down a short passage to a small room at
the back, which Doctor Partridge occasionally used — especially in
times of trouble, when bills poured in and he meditated a fresh
loan — as a kind of sanctum. Woolley rapped at the door.
To his surprise no answering * Come in ! ' followed his
knock, but some one rising hastily from his chair came to
the door and opened it to the extent of a few inches. It was
the doctor. He squeezed himself through. His face seemed
agitated — but then the passage was ill lit, even on a summer
afternoon — his manner nervous. ' You want to see me, my dear
fellow ? ' he said, holding the door close behind him and speaking
effusively. ' Do you mind coming back in a quarter of an hour
or so ? I am — I shall be quite disengaged then.'
' I would prefer,' said Woolley doggedly, * to see you now.'
' Wait ten minutes, and you shall,' the doctor replied, taking
him by the button with his disengaged hand, as though he would
bespeak his confidence. * Just at this moment, my dear fellow —
excuse me ! '
There was an odd ring in the doctor's voice — a ring half
wheedling, half hostile. But Woolley concluded that Pleasance
was with him — making a complaint in all probability ; and this
in a measure satisfied him. He thought he could still depend on
the doctor. With a sulky nod he gave way and returned to the
lawn, and there paced up and down prodding the daisies with his
stick. Things had gone badly with him — very badly. So much
the worse for some one.
When he went in again he found the doctor alone in the
dingy little room, into which one plumped down two steps, so that it
was very like a well. ' Come in, come in,' the elder man said
fussily. * What is it, Woolley ? What can I do for you ? ' As he '
spoke his hands were busy with the papers on the table, and it
was noticeable that after one swift glance, which he shot at his
assistant's face on his first entrance, he avoided looking at him.
« What is it ? '
' First,' Woolley rejoined with acidity, ' I would like to know
whether you propose to keep that fellow any longer in your house
as a companion for your daughter ? '
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 549
' The tall gentleman ? '
* Precisely,' with great dryness.
' He is gone ! ' was the unexpected answer. ' He is gone
already. If you doubt me, my dear fellow,' the doctor added
hastily, 'ask the servants — ask Daniel.'
1 Gone, is he ? ' Woolley said, gloomily considering the state-
ment.
' Yes, he quite saw the propriety of it,' the doctor continued.
' He gave me no trouble.'
* And paid you no fees, I suppose ? '
' Well, no, he did not.'
'Then now to my second question, sir,' Woolley went on,
tapping with his fingers on the table. But try as he might, he
could not quite rise to the old cool level of superiority, he could
not drive the flush from his cheek or still his pulse. ' What is
your daughter's answer ? From something which has just passed
between us I conclude it to be unfavourable to me.'
' Indeed ? ' the doctor said, looking at him blankly.
' But, favourable or unfavourable,' Woolley continued rudely,
' I must have it betimes. You bade me go away and give her a
month to think over it. I have done so, and I am back. Now
I ask, What is her answer ? '
' Well,' said the doctor, rubbing his hands in great perplexity,
' I have not — I am not quite sure that I am prepared to say.
You must give me a little more time — indeed you must. Let
us say until the day after to-morrow. I will sound her and give
you a decisive answer then — after breakfast, and here if you like.'
The suitor restrained himself. He would have liked to reject
the proposal. But he did love her in his way, and at the sound
of her father's wavering, uncertain utterance hope began to tell
its flattering tale. ' Very well ! ' he said. ' But you quite under-
stand,' he continued, with moody fierceness, his manner curiously .
made up of shame and defiance, ' the alternative, sir ? If I am
not to be allied to you, it will no longer suit me to have my
money laid up here, and I must have it — the sooner the better.'
' Well, well,' said the poor doctor testily, ' we will talk about
that, Woolley, when the time comes.'
There seemed to be nothing more to be said. Yet Woolley
still lingered by the table, fingering the things on it without
looking up. Perhaps an impulse to withdraw his threat and end
the interview more kindly was working in him. If so, however,
550 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
he crushed it down, and presently took himself out. When his
step ceased to sound in the passage the poor doctor drew a deep
sigh of relief.
We said before that passengers along the moorland road which
passes near the Old Hall — a road once much frequented but now
little travelled, save by tramps — that passengers along it see
nothing of the house. The house lies below the surface. In like
manner a visitor arriving at the Old Hall itself during the next
thirty-six hours would have observed nothing strange, though
there was so much below the surface. The assistant contrived to
be out at his work during the greater part of the intervening day.
He judged rightly that love-making would help him little now.
The doctor rubbed his hands and talked fast to preserve appear-
ances, and Pleasance as well as her suitor seemed to have
repented of their joint outbreak. She was civil to him, if some-
what cold. So that when he knocked at the door of the little
room — after a sleepless night in which he had well bethought
himself how he should act at the coming interview — he had some
hopes. He was feeling almost amiable.
The doctor was sitting behind his table, Pleasance on a chair
in the one small window recess. With three people in it the
room looked more like a well than ever. With three people?
Nay, with four, to speak correctly. Woolley shut the door behind
him very softly and set his teeth together. For behind the doctor
was standing the tall gentleman.
The assistant smiled viciously. He was not prepared for this,
but his nerves were strung to-day. ' A trick ? Very well,' he
said, looking from one to another. * I understand and know what
to do. I can guess now what my answer is to be, doctor, and
need scarcely stay to hear it. Shall I go ? '
' No ! no ! ' the doctor answered hurriedly. He was much dis-
tressed and perturbed, perhaps by the menace which underlay the
other's last words. As for the tall gentleman, he gazed gravely
and sternly over his beard, while Pleasance looked through the
window, her face hot. * No, no, I have something to say which
affects you. And this gentleman here '
' Has he anything to say ? ' the assistant retorted, eyeing his
antagonist contemptuously. « Because I should like to hear it
before I take out a warrant against him for attempting to commit
suicide. It is punishable with a very considerable imprisonment,
my friend ! '
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 551
4 1 am no friend of yours,' was the stranger's reply, given very
gravely. ' You do not know me, Edgar Woolley.'
The latter started at being so addressed. Moreover, it was
the first time he had heard the tall gentleman's voice, and for a
breathing space, while the two looked on one another, he seemed
to be racking his memory. But he got no result, and he an-
swered with a bitter laugh, ' No, I do not know you. Nor you
me — yet ! '
* Yes, I do,' was the stern, the unexpected answer. ' Too well ! '
* Bah ! ' exclaimed Woolley fiercely, though it was evident that
he was ill at ease. * Let us have an end of these heroics ! If you
have anything to say, say it.'
'I will,' the tall gentleman answered. He was still grave
and quiet, but there was a glitter in his eyes. ' I have already
indicated to Dr. Partridge what my story is, but now I must
ask him to hear it more at length. 'Many years ago there
was a young man, almost a boy, employed in the offices of a
great firm at Liverpool — a boy poor, very poor, but of a good
and old family.'
Woolley's smile of derision became on a sudden fixed, so to
speak. But he did not interrupt, and the other after a pause
went on. * This lad made the acquaintance of a medical student
a little older than himself, and was presently led by him — I think
he was weak and sensitive and easily led — into gambling. He
lost more than he could pay. His mother was a widow, and she
was very poor. To have paid the sum, small as it was, would
have ruined her.'
The stranger paused again, overcome, it seemed, by painful
recollections. There was a slight flush on Woolley's brow. The
girl sitting in the window, her hands clasped on her knees, turned
so as to see more of the room. ' Now listen,' the speaker con-
tinued softly, ' to what happened. One day this clerk's friend, to
whom the greater part of the money was due, came to the office
at the luncheon hour and pressed him to pay. The other clerks
were out. The two were alone together, and while they were so
alone there came in a client of the firm to pay some money —
40Z. The lad took the money and gave a receipt. He had power
to do so. The man left again abruptly, after telling them that
he was starting to South America that evening. Well, when he
was gone ' — here his voice sank a little — ' the friend made a sug-
gestion. I think you will guess what it was.'
552 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
No one spoke.
* He suggested to the clerk to take this money and pay his
debts with it — to steal it, in fact. And the boy — he resisted for
a time, but in the end, still telling himself he did not intend to
steal it, he put it away in his desk and locked it up, and gave
in no account of it. After that the issue was certain. A day
came when, the other still pressing him and tempting him, he
took the money and used it, and became a thief.'
The silence in the little room was deep indeed. On Woolley
a spell seemed to have fallen. He would have interrupted the
man, but he could not.
' Almost immediately after this,' the speaker continued, ' those
two parted. And within a week — (rod's ways are not our ways —
strange news reached this young clerk. Three distant kinsmen
whom he had never seen had died within three months, and the
last of them had willed to him a great property. The name and
the honour' — for the first time the tall gentleman's voice faltered
— * of a great family had fallen upon his shoulders to wear and to
uphold ! And he was a thief ! '
' YouJ he went on — and from this point he directly addressed
the man who gazed spellbound at him from beyond the table —
* you cannot enter into his feelings, nor understand them ! It
were folly to tell you that the remembrance that he had stained
that honour and disgraced that name embittered, poisoned his
whole life. You would say that the stain was unknown and
unsuspected. So it was, but that was no comfort to him. He
made restitution tenfold, but he found no comfort in that. He
tried — Grod knows he did — to make amends by a life of honour
and integrity, and while his mother lived he led that life. But
he found no comfort in it. She died, and he lived on alone in
the old house of his family, and it may be ' — again his voice shook
— * that he brooded overmuch on this matter, and came to take
too morbid a view of it, to let it stand always between him and
the sun.' He stopped suddenly, and looked uncertainly about
him.
* Yes, yes ! ' the doctor said. Pleasance had turned again to
the window, and was weeping softly. * He did, he did ! '
' At any rate he formed a resolution. You can guess what
that was. It was a wild, mad, perhaps a wicked resolution. But
such as it was — an ancestor in sterner times, writing in a book
which this man possessed, had said, " Blood washes out shame ! "-
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 553
such as it was he made it, and Heaven used it for its own purpose,
and frustrated it in its own time. The lad, now a man, following
blind chance, as he thought, was led to within a mile of this house
— this one lonely house, of all others in England, in which you
live. But it was not chance which led him, but Heaven's own
guiding, to the end that his, Valentine Walton's life, might be
spared, and that you might be punished.'
Woolley struggled to reply. But the thought which the other's
last words expressed was in his mind too, and held him dumb.
How had Walton been led to this house of all houses ? Why had
this almost forgotten sin risen up now? He stood a moment
speechless, glaring at Walton ; aware, bitterly aware, of what the
listeners were thinking, and yet unable to say a word in his
defence. Then with an effort he became himself again.
' Well, that is your version, is it ? ' he said, with a hard, jeering
laugh which failed to hide the effect the story had produced
upon him. * You say you are a thief? It is not worth my while
to contradict you. And now, if you please, we will descend from
play-acting to business. You have been very kind in arranging
this little scene, Dr. Partridge, and I am greatly obliged to you.
I need only say that I shall take care to repay you fully, and to
the last penny.'
' First,' the doctor said mildly, yet with some dignity, * I
should repay you what I owe you — if you really want your money
now, that is.'
* Want it ? Of course I do ! ' was the fierce rejoinder. The
man's nature was recovering from the shock, and in the rebound
passion was getting the upper hand.
' Very well,' said the doctor firmly. * Then here it is.' He
pushed aside a paper, and disclosed a small packet of notes and
a little pile of gold and silver. * You will find the amount on
that piece of paper, and it includes your salary for the next
quarter in lieu of notice. When you have seen that it is correct I
shall be glad to have your receipt, and we will close our connection.'
The trapped man had one wish — to see them dead before him.
But wishes go for little, and in his bitter rage and chagrin he
clung to a shred of pride. He would not own that he had been
outgeneralled. He sat down and wrote the quittance. The first*
pen — it was a quill — would not write. He jobbed it violently on
the table, and flung it with an oath into the fireplace. But the
next served him.
554 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
' You have lent this money, I suppose,' he said, looking at
Walton as he rose. * More fool you ! You will never be repaid.'
He did not turn at all to Pleasance or look at her. He had
come into the room hoping still to win her. He went out — a
stranger. Not even their eyes had met. He had lost her, and
revenge, and everything, save his money.
CHAPTER IV.
WITHIN, a bedroom, littered and dismantled, a pile of luggage
stacked in the middle of the floor. Without, a grey cloudy sky,
such as we sometimes have in June, and a nipping east wind
blowing roughly ; a wind almost visible to the man gnawing his
nails at the window, and looking out moodily. He found no
comfort within or without, in the past or the future. Behind
him he had only a retrospect of humiliation, of vain hopes and
ambitions to turn to ; before him no prospect but that dreary one
of starting afresh in a new place among new people, unfriended,
save by three thousand and odd pounds. It had come to this.
' D n him ! ' he whispered between his clenched teeth. It
was no formal expletive. "He meant it — every letter of it.
By and by he turned wearily from the window, and his eyes
fell on a little article lying on the dressing-table. It was almost
the only thing, save a stout walking-stick, which he had not
packed up. It was a pistol. He had lit on it the day before
in a dark nook behind the medicine bottles in the surgery, and
rinding it in good condition, with one barrel of the two undischarged,
he had had no difficulty in conjecturing whose it was and how it
came there. No doubt it was Walton's, the pistol with which he
had shot himself — as indeed it was. Nickson had brought it to
the doctor, and the latter with very natural distaste had thrust it
into the first out-of-the-way place which lay ready to his hand.
This little piece of evidence Woolley presently put in his
pocket, and taking his stick left the room ; leaving it, as he knew,
for good and all, and not without a last bitter glance round the
place where he had slept, and schemed, and hoped for two years.
He went down the stairs, and through the house to the back door,
seeing no one except Daniel, who was rubbing down the mare in
the yard. To the surgeon's fancy the house, as he passed through,
seemed abnormally still, as if in the hush and silence which often
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 555
fall upon a house in the afternoon it were awaiting and expecting
something — as if it were aware that something strange was in the
air, and all the stones were saying * Hist ! '
Shaking off this feeling with an oath, the surgeon took a
back path through the shrubbery, which led into the main drive
near the white gate. From that point the track mounted between
the bracken-covered slopes of the ravine until it emerged on the
crown of the moor. In one place both path and glen turned at a
considerable angle, and Woolley had just reached this corner when
he happened to lift his eyes, and stopped short with a low ex-
clamation. In front of him, strolling slowly along in the same
direction as himself, with his hands behind him and his eyes on
the path, was the tall gentleman — Walton.
1 Ah ! ' Woolley whispered viciously to himself, hating the other
the more for falling in his way now, ' the devil take you for a
mooning lunatic ! I would like to give you in charge here, and
this minute, and swear you were going to do it again ! '
He laughed grimly at this, his first thought — a natural thought
enough, since his intention at starting had been to swear an in-
formation against Walton, and get him locked up if possible ; at
any rate, to cause him as much vexation as might be. But that
first natural thought led to another which suddenly drove the
blood from his cheek and kindled an unholy fire in his eyes.
That revenge was a poor one. But was there not another within
his grasp ? What if Walton were found there lying on the path
shot and dead, his own pistol beside him ?
Ah ! what then ? What would people say ? Would they not
say — would not Nickson be ready to swear that the madman had
done it again, and with more thoroughness? Woolley's hand
closed convulsively on the butt of the weapon in his pocket. One
barrel of it was still loaded. No one had seen him take it. No
one knew that he knew of its existence. Must not even the
doctor conclude that Walton had repossessed himself of it, and
in some temporary return of his moody aberration had used it —
this time with fatal effect ?
The perspiration sprang out on the tempted man's brow.
Though the wind was blowing keenly, and a wrack of white clouds
was sweeping over his head, the glen seemed to grow on a sudden
close and confined, roofed in with a leaden sky. ' It is a devil's
thought ! ' he muttered, his eyes on the figure before him, * a
devil's thought ! ' At that moment there could be no question
556 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
with him of the existence of a devil. He felt him at his elbow
tempting him, promising revenge and impunity.
' No, no ! Not that ! ' He rather gasped the words than said
them, yet gasped them aloud, the more thoroughly to convince
himself that he did reject the idea. * Not that ! '
No, not that. Yet he began to walk on at a pace which must
rapidly bring him up with the other. His brain too dwelt on the
ease and safety with which he might have carried out the scheme.
He remembered that before turning the corner he had looked
back and seen no one. Therefore for some minutes he was secure
from interruption from behind. All round the ravine he could
command the sky-line. There was no one visible. He and Walton
were alone. And he was overtaking Walton.
The latter heard him coming up, and turned and stopped.
He showed no surprise on discovering who his follower was, but
spoke as if he had eyes in his back, and had watched him drawing
gradually nearer. ' I have been waiting for you, Woolley,' he said.
* I thought I should meet you.'
* Did you ? ' said Woolley softly, eyeing him in a curious
fashion, and himself very pale.
* Yes, I wanted to say this to you.' There the tall gentleman
paused and looked down, prodding the turf with his stick. He
seemed to find some difficulty in going on. * It is this,' he con-
tinued at last : * I have done you a mischief here, acting honestly,
and doing only what seemed to me to be right too. But I have
harmed you — that is the fact — and I am anxious to know that
you will not leave here a hardened man — a worse man than I
found you.'
'Thank you,' the other said. His lips were dry, and he
moistened them with his tongue. But he did not take his eyes
from Walton's face.
' If you will let me know,' the tall gentleman continued halt-
ingly— he was still intent upon the ground — ( what your plans
are, I will see if I can further them. Until lately I thought you
had spoiled my whole life, and I bore you malice for it. I would
have done you what harm I could. Now '
4 Yes?'
1 1 think — I trust it may not be so. I have dwelt, I fear, too
much on that old affair. I hope to begin a new life now.'
4 With her?'
The tall gentleman looked up swiftly, as if the other had
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 557
struck him. There was menace in the tone and the words, and
menace more dreadful in the white face and gleaming eyes he
found confronting him. ' You fool ! ' Woolley hissed — passion in
the deadly calmness of his voice — and he took a step nearer to the
other. ' You fool, to come and tell me this ! — to come and taunt
me ! You help me ! You pardon me ! You will not leave me
worse than you found me ! Ay, but you will ! Dolt ! fool ! idiot ! '
His voice rose. A wicked smile flickered on his lips. His eyes
still dwelling on the other's face, he drew the pistol slowly from
his pocket and levelled it at Walton's head. ' You will, for I —
an* going — to kill you.'
Walton heard the click of the hammer as it rose. For a
second, during which his tongue refused obedience, he tasted of
the bitterness of the cup which he had before held to his own lips.
It flashed across him, as his heart gave a great bound and stood
still, that this was his punishment. Then he recovered himself.
'Not before that child!' he said scornfully. He forced his
eyes to quit the dark muzzle which threatened him and to glance
aside.
There was no one there, but Woolley turned involuntarily to
look, and in an instant Walton sprang upon him, and, knocking
up the pistol with his stick, closed with him. The one loaded
barrel exploded in the air, and the men went writhing and
stumbling to and fro, Woolley striking savagely at the other's
face with the muzzle of the pistol. The taller man contented
himself with parrying these attacks, while he clutched Woolley's
left wrist with his disengaged hand.
Presently they were down in a heap together. When they
rose and drew apart, breathless and dishevelled, there remained
unnoticed on the ground between them a tiny white object — a
small oblong packet about the size of a letter. It was very light,
for in the twinkling of an eye the wind had turned it over and
over, and carried it three or four paces away.
'You villain!' Walton gasped, trembling with excitement.
His nerves were shaken as much by the narrowness of his escape
as by the struggle. ' You would have murdered me ! '
' I would ! ' the other said, with vengeful emphasis, and the
two men stood a moment glaring at one another. Meanwhile the
wind, toying with the little white packet, rolled it slowly along
the path ; then, getting under it at a place where a break in the
ridge produced an eddy, it began to hoist it merrily up the slope.
558 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
At this point Walton's eye, straying for a second from his opponent,
lit upon it.
Just then Woolley spoke. ' You have had a lucky escape ! '
he said, with a reckless gesture, half menace, half farewell. ' Grood-
bye ! Don't come across my path again, or you may fail to come
off so easily. And don't — don't, you fool ! ' he added, returning
in a fresh fit of anger when he had already turned his back, ( pat
a man on the head when you have got him down, or he will —
He stopped short, his hand at his breast pocket. For a moment,
while his face underwent a marvellous change, he searched fran-
tically in the pocket, in other pockets. ' My notes ! ' he panted.
4 They were here ! Where are they ? ' Then a dreadful expression
of rage and suspicion distorted his features, and he advanced on
Walton, his hands outstretched. 'What have you done with
them ? ' he cried, scarcely able to articulate. * Where are they ? '
' There ! ' said the other sternly. He pointed past the furious
man to a little space of clear turf half-way up the slope. On this
the white packet could be seen fluttering gently over and over.
4 There ! But if you are not pretty quick, you villain, you will
pay a heavy price for this business !'
With an oath Woolley turned and started up the hill, the tall
man watching his exertions with a certain grim satisfaction. The
pursuer speedily overtook the notes, but to gain possession of
them was a different matter. Three times he stooped to clutch
them, and three times a mischievous gust swept them away.
Then he tripped and fell, and his hat tumbled off, and his oaths
flew more freely on the breeze.
Altogether it was not a dignified retreat, but it was a very
characteristic one. The last time Walton got a glimpse of him,
just on the crown of the hill, he was still running, bent double
with his face to the ground, and his hand outstretched. He never
saw him again.
Walton, getting back to the house unnoticed, said nothing for
the moment of what had happened. But at night before he went
to bed he told the doctor. ' He ought to go to prison ! ' the latter
said sternly. He was shocked beyond measure.
* So ought I,' said Walton, * if it is to come to prisons.'
'Pish!'
A little word, but it cheered the tall gentleman, who, notwith-
standing his escape, stood somewhat in need of cheering this
evening. He had not seen Pleasance since she had escaped from
THE SURGEON'S GUEST. 559
the room after hearing his explanation. She might have taken
his story in many different ways, and he was anxious to know in
what way she had taken it. But all day she had not appeared
downstairs. Even at dinner the doctor had apologised for her
absence. ' She is not very well,' he had said. * She was a little
upset this morning.' And of course the tall gentleman had
accepted the excuse with a heavy heart, and presaging the worst.
But dressing next morning he caught sight of Pleasance
through his window. She was walking with her father on the
lawn — talking to him earnestly, as Walton could see. Apparently
she was urging him to some course of action, and the doctor, with
his hands under his coat-tails, was assenting with no very good
grace.
When Walton descended, however, they were already seated
at breakfast, and nothing was said during the meal either of this
prelude or of what was chiefly on their minds. But presently,
when the doctor rose, it seemed he had something to say. It was
something apparently which it went against the grain to say, for
he walked to the door — they were breakfasting in the hall, and it
stood open — and looked out as if he were more than half inclined
for flight. But he returned suddenly, and sat down with a bump.
' Mr. Walton,' he said, his florid face more florid than ever, * I
think there is something I ought to tell you. I do not think that
I can — I do not see how I can repay you the money you have
advanced. And the place is not worth it. What am I to do ? '
' Do ? ' said the other, looking up sharply. t Take another cup
of tea as I am doing, and think no more about it.'
' That is impossible,' said Pleasance impulsively. She turned
very red the next instant, under the tall gentleman's eyes. She
had not meant to interfere.
' Indeed ! ' he said, rising from his chair. * Then please listen
to me. There came to a certain house a man who had been a
thief.'
1 No ! ' she said firmly.
' A man hopeless and despairing.'
<No!'
' Alas ! yes,' he answered, shaking his head soberly. * These
are facts.'
4 No, no, no!' she cried. There were tears in her eyes. *I
do not want to hear. I care nothing for facts ! ' she exclaimed
breathlessly.
560 THE SURGEON'S GUEST.
' You will not hear me ? '
'No!'
Something in her indignant face, her voice, the pose of her
figure told him the truth then. ' If you will not listen to me,'
he said, leaning with both hands on the table, and speaking in a
voice scarcely audible to the doctor, ( I will not say what I was
going to propose. If I must be repaid, I must. But you must
repay me, Pleasance. Will you ? '
The doctor did not wait to hear the answer. He found the
open door very convenient. He got away and to horse with a
lighter heart than he had carried under his waistcoat for months.
He did not feel much doubt about the answer, and indeed all that
June morning, which was by good luck as fine as the preceding
one had been gloomy, while he. rode from house to house with an
unprofessional smile on his lips and in his eyes, the two left
behind walked up and down the lawn in the sunshine, planning
the life which lay before them, and of which every day was to
be as cloudless as this day. A hundred times they passed and
repassed the old sundial, but it was nothing to them. Lovers
-count only the hours when the sun does not shine.
THE
COKNHILL MAGAZINE.
DECEMBER 1898.
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE FIRST CONSIGNMENT.
Since all that I can ever do for thee
Is to do nothing, may'st thou never see,
Never divine, the all that nothing costeth me.
ONE morning, three months later, Gruy Oscard drew up in line his
flying column. He was going back to England with the first con-
signment of Simiacine. During the twelve weeks that lay behind
there had b2en constant reference made to his little body of picked
men, and the leader had selected with a grave deliberation that
promised well.
The lost soldier that was in him was all astir in his veins as he
reviewed his command in the cool air of early morning. The
journey from Msala to the Plateau had occupied a busy two
months. Oscard expected to reach Msala with his men in forty
days. Piled up in neat square cases, such as could be carried in
pairs by a man of ordinary strength, was the crop of Simiacine,
roughly valued by Victor Durnovo at forty thousand pounds. Ten
men could carry the whole of it, and the twenty cases set close
together on the ground made a bed for Guy Oscard. Upon this
improvised couch he gravely stretched his bulk every night
all through the journey that followed.
Over the whole face of the sparsely vegetated table-land the
dwarf bushes grew at intervals, each one in a little circle of ita
own, where no grass grew ; for the dead leaves, falling, poisoned
the earth. There were no leaves on the bushes now, for they had
VOL. XXI. — NO. 126, N.8. 26
562 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
all been denuded, and the twisted branches stood out nakedly in
the morning mist. Some of the bushes had been roughly pruned,
to foster, if possible, a more bushy growth and a heavier crop of
leaves near to the parent stem.
It was a strange landscape ; and any passing traveller, knowing
nothing of" the Simiacine, must perforce have seen at once that
these insignificant little trees were something quite apart in the
vegetable kingdom. Each standing within its magic circle, no
bird built its nest within the branches — no insect constructed its
filmy home — no spider weaved its busy web from twig to twig.
Solitary, mournful, lifeless, the Plateau which had nearly cost
Victor Durnovo his life lay beneath the face of heaven, far above
the surrounding country — the summit of an unnamed mountain —
a land lying in the heart of a tropic country which was neither
tropic, temperate, nor arctic. Fauna had it none, for it produced
nothing that could sustain life. Flora it knew not, for the little
trees, each with its perennial fortune of brilliant brown-tinted
leaves, monopolised vegetable life and slew all comers. It seemed
like some stray tract of another planet, where the condition of
living things was different. There was a strange sense of having
been thrown up — thrown up, as it were, into mid-heaven, there to
hang for ever — neither this world nor the world to come. The
silence of it all was such as would drive men mad if they came to
think of it. It was the silence of the stars.
The men who had lived up here for three months did not look
quite natural. There was a singular heaviness of the eyelids which
all had noticed, though none had spoken of it. A craving for
animal food, which could only be stayed by the consumption of
abnormal quantities of meat, kept the hunters ever at work on the
lower slopes of the mountain. Sleep was broken, and uncanny
things happened in the night. Men said that they saw other men
like trees, walking abroad with sightless eyes ; and Joseph said,
' Gammon, my festive darkey — gammon ! ' but he nevertheless
glanced somewhat uneasily towards his master whenever the
natives said such things.
A clearing had been made on that part of the Plateau which
was most accessible from below. The Simiacine trees had been
ruthlessly cut away — even the roots were grubbed up and burnt —
far away on the leeward side of the little kingdom. This was done
because there arose at sunset a soft and pleasant odour from the
bushes which seemed to affect the nerves and even made the teeth
WITH EDGED TOOLS.
chatter. It was therefore deemed wise that the camp shoutu
stand on bare ground.
It was on this ground, in front of the tents, that Guy Oscard
drew up his quick-marching column before the sun had sprung up
in its fantastic tropical way from the distant line of virgin forest.
As he walked along the line, making a suggestion here, pulling on
a shoulder-rope there, he looked staunch and strong as any man
might wish to be. His face was burnt so brown that eyebrows
and moustache stood out almost blonde, though in reality they
were only brown. His eyes did not seem to be suffering from the
heaviness noticeable in others ; altogether, the climate and the
mystic breath of the Simiacine grove did not appear to affect him
as it did his companions. This was probably accounted for by the
fact that, being chief of the hunters, most of his days had been
passed on the lower slopes in search of game.
To him came presently Jack Meredith — the same gentle-
mannered man, with an incongruously brown face and quick eyes
seeing all. It is not, after all, the life that makes the man.
There are gentle backwoodsmen, and ruffians among those who
live in drawing-rooms.
' Well ? ' said Meredith, following the glance of his friend's eye
as he surveyed his men.
Oscard took his pipe from his lips and looked gravely at
liim.
' Don't half like it, you know/ he said in a low voice ; for
Durnovo was talking with a head porter a few yards away.
' Don't half like what ? — the flavour of that pipe ? It looks a
little strong.'
' No, leaving you here,' replied Oscard.
' Oh, that's all right, old chap ! You can't take me with you,
you know. I intended to stick to it when I came away from
home, and I am not going to turn back now.'
Oscard gave a queer little upward jerk of the head, as if he
had just collected further evidence in support of a theory which
chronically surprised him. Then he turned away and looked
down over the vast untrodden tract of Africa that lay beneath
them. He kept his eyes fixed there, after the manner of a man
who has no fluency in personal comment.
' You know,' he said jerkily, ' I didn't think — I mean you're
not the sort of chap I took you for. When I first saw you I
thought you were a bit of a dandy and — all that, Not the sort
26—2
562 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
'of' man for this work. I thought that the thing was bound to be
a failure. I knew Durnovo, and had no faith in him. You've
got a gentle way about you, and your clothes are so confoundedly
neat. But ' Here he paused and pulled down the folds of his
Norfolk jacket. ' But I liked the way you shot that leopard the
day we first met.'
' Beastly fluke,' put in Meredith, with his pleasant laugh.
Oscard contented himself with a denying shake of the head.
' Of course,' he continued, with obvious determination to get
it all off his mind, ' I know as well as you do that you are the
chief of this concern — have been chief since we left Msala — and I
never want to work under a better man.'
He put his pipe back between his lips and turned round with
a contented smile, as much as to say, ' There, that is the sort of
man I am ! When I want to say that sort of thing I can say it
with the best of you.'
' We have pulled along very comfortably, haven't we ? ' said
Meredith ; ' thanks to your angelic temper. And you'll deliver
that packet of letters to the governor, won't you ? I have sent
them in one packet, addressed to him, as it is easier to carry. I
will let you hear of us somehow within the next six months. Do
not go and get married before I get home. I want to be your
best man.'
Oscard laughed and gave the signal for the men to start and
the long caravan denied before them. The porters nodded to
Meredith with a great display of white teeth, while the head
men, the captains of tens, stepped out of the ranks and shook
hands.
Before they had disappeared over the edge of the plateau
Joseph came forward to say good-bye to Oscard.
' And it is understood,' said the latter, ' that I pay in to your
account at Lloyd's Bank your share of the proceeds.'
Joseph grinned. ' Yes, sir, if you please, presumin' it's a safe
bank.'
' Safe as houses.'
' Cos it's a tolerable big amount,' settling himself into hifi
boots in the manner of a millionaire.
' Lot of money — about four hundred pounds ! But you can
trust me to see to it all right.'
' No fear, sir,' replied Joseph grandly. ' I'm quite content,
I'm sure, that you should have the— fingering o' the dibs.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 565
As he finished — somewhat lamely perhaps — his rounded
periods, he looked very deliberately over Oscard's shoulder towards
Durnovo, who was approaching them.
Meredith walked a little way down the slope with Oscard.
' Good-bye, old chap ! ' he said when the parting came. ' Good
luck, and all that. Hope you will find all right at home. By
the way,' he shouted after him, ' give my kind regards to the
Gordons at Loango.'
And so the first consignment of Simiacine was sent from the
Plateau to the Coast.
Guy Oscard was one of those deceptive men who only do a few
things, and do those few very well. In forty-three days he de-
posited the twenty precious cases in Gordon's godowns at Loango,
and paid off the porters, of whom he had not lost one. These
duties performed, he turned his steps towards the bungalow. He
had refused Gordon's invitation to stay with him until the next
day, when the coasting steamer was expected. To tell the truth,
he was not very much prepossessed in Maurice's favour, and it was
with a doubtful mind that he turned his steps towards the little
house in the forest between Loango and the sea.
The room was the first surprise that awaited him, its youthful
mistress the second. Guy Oscard was rather afraid of most
women. He did not understand them, and probably he despised
them. Men who are afraid or ignorant often do.
' And when did you leave them ? ' asked Jocelyn, after her
visitor had explained who he was. He was rather taken aback by
so much dainty refinement in remote Africa, and explained rather
badly. But she helped him out by intimating that she knew all
about him.
' I left them forty-four days ago,' he replied.
' And were they well ? '
' She is very much interested,' reflected Oscard, upon whom
her eagerness of manner had not been lost. ' Surely, it cannot be
that fellow Durnovo ? '
' Oh, yes,' he replied with unconscious curtness.
' Mr. Durnovo cannot ever remain inland for long without
feeling the effect of the climate.'
Guy Oscard, with the perspicacity of his sex, gobbled up the
bait. ' It is Durnovo,' he reflected.
' Oh, he is all right,' he said ; ' wonderfully well, and so are
the others — Joseph and Meredith. You know Meredith ? '
566 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
Jocelyn was busy with a vase of flowers standing on the table
at her elbow. One of the flowers had fallen half out, and she was
replacing it — very carefully.
' Oh, yes,' she said, without ceasing her occupation, ' we know
Mr. Meredith.'
The visitor did not speak at once, and she looked up at him,
over the flowers, with grave politeness.
' Meredith,' he said, ' is one of the most remarkable men I have
ever met.'
It was evident that this ordinarily taciturn man wanted to
unburthen his mind. He was desirous of talking to someone of
Jack Meredith ; and perhaps Jocelyn reflected that she was as
good a listener as he would find in Loango.
' Eeally,' she replied with a kindly interest. ' How ? '
He paused, not because he found it difficult to talk to this
woman, but because he was thinking of something.
' I have read or heard somewhere of a steel gauntlet beneath a
velvet glove.'
' Yes.'
' That describes Meredith. He is not the man I took him for.
He is so wonderfully polite and gentle and pleasant. Not the
qualities that make a good leader for an African exploring expedi-
tion—eh ? '
Jocelyn gave a strange little laugh, which included, among
other things, a subtle intimation that she rather liked Gruy Oscard.
Women do convey these small meanings sometimes, but one finds
that they do not intend them to be acted upon.
1 And he has kept well all the time ? ' she asked softly. ' He
did not look strong.'
' Oh, yes. He is much stronger than he looks.'
' And you — you have been all right ? '
' Yes, thanks.'
' Are you going back to — them ? '
' No, I leave to-morrow morning early by the Portuguese boat.
I am going home to be married.'
' Indeed ! Then I suppose you will wash your hands of Africa
for ever ? '
'Not quite,' he replied. 'I told Meredith that I would be
prepared to go up to him in case of emergency, but not otherwise.
I shall, of course, still be interested in the scheme. I take home
the first consignment of Simiacine ; we have been very successful,
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 567
you know. I shall have to stay in London to sell that. I have a
, house there.'
' Are you to be married at once ? ' inquired Jocelyn, with that
frank interest which makes it so much easier for a man to talk of
his own affairs to a woman than to one of his own sex.
* As soon as I can arrange it,' he answered with a little laugh.
* There is nothing to wait for, We are both orphans, and, for-
tunately, we are fairly well off.'
He was fumbling in his breast-pocket, and presently he rose,
crossed the room, and handed her, quite without afterthought or
self-consciousness, a photograph in a morocco case.
Explanation was unnecessary, and Jocelyn Gordon looked
smilingly upon a smiling, bright young face.
' She is very pretty,' she said honestly.
Whereupon Guy Oscard grunted unintelligibly.
' Millicent,' he said after a little pause, ' Millicent is her name.'
* Millicent ! ' repeated Jocelyn — ' Millicent ^vhat ? '
' Millicent Chyne.'
Jocelyn folded the morocco case together and handed it back
to him.
' She is very pretty,' she repeated slowly, as if her mind could
only reproduce — it was incapable of creation.
Oscard looked puzzled. Having risen he did not sit down
again, and presently he took his leave, feeling convinced that
Jocelyn was about to faint.
When he was gone the girl sat wearily down.
' Millicent Chyne,' she whispered. ' What is to be done ? '
' Nothing,' she answered to herself after a while. ' Nothing.
It is not my business. I can do nothing.'
She sat there — alone, as she had been all her life — until the
short tropical twilight fell over the forest. Quite suddenly she
burst into tears.
* It is my business,' she sobbed. ' It is no good pretending
otherwise ; but I can do nothing.'
568 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE SECOND CONSIGNMENT.
Who has lost all hope has also lost all fear.
AMONG others, it was a strange thing that Jocelyn felt no surprise
at meeting the name of Millicent Chyne on the lips of another
man. Women understand these things better than we do. They
understand each other, and they seem to have a practical way of
accepting human nature as it is which we never learn to apply to
our fellow-men. They never bluster as we do, nor expect im-
possibilities from the frail.
Another somewhat singular residue left, as it were, in Jocelyn's
mind when the storm of emotion had subsided was a certain
indefinite tenderness for Millicent Chyne. She felt sure that
Jack Meredith's feeling for her was that feeling vaguely called the
right one, and, as such, unalterable. To this knowledge the
subtle sympathy for Millicent was perhaps attributable. But
navigation with pen and thought among the shoals and depths of
a woman's heart is hazardous and uncertain.
Coupled with this — as only a woman could couple contra-
dictions— was an unpardoning abhorrence for the deceit practised.
But Jocelyn knew the world well enough to suspect that, if she
were ever brought face to face with her meanness, Millicent would
be able to bring about her own forgiveness. It is the knowledge
of this lamentable fact that undermines the feminine sense of
honour.
Lastly, there was a calm acceptance of the fact that Guy Oscard
must and would inevitably go to the wall. There could be no
comparison between the two men. Millicent Chyne could scarcely
hesitate for a moment. That she herself must likewise suffer
uncomplainingly, inevitably, seemed to be an equally natural
consequence in Jocelyn Gordon's mind.
She could not go to Jack Meredith and say :
' This woman is deceiving you, but I love you, and my love is a
nobler, grander thing than hers. It is no passing fancy of a giddy,
dazzled girl, but the deep strong passion of a woman almost in the
middle of her life. It is a love so complete, so sufficing, that I
know I could make you forget this girl. I could so envelope you
with love, so watch over you and care for you, and tend you and
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 569
understand you, that you must be happy. I feel that I could
make you happier than any other woman in the world could make
you.'
Jocelyn Gordon could not do this ; and all the advanced females
in the world, all the blue stockings and divided skirts, all the wild
women and those who pant for burdens other than children will
never bring it to pass that women can say such things.
And precisely because she could not say this Jocelyn felt hot
and sick at the very thought that Jack Meredith should learn
aught of Millicent Chyne from her. Her own inner motive in
divulging what she had learnt from Guy Oscard could never for a
moment be hidden behind a wish, however sincere, to act for the
happiness of two honourable gentlemen.
Jocelyn had no one to consult — no one to whom she could
turn, in the maddening difficulty of her position, for advice or
sympathy. She had to work it out by herself, steering through
the quicksands by that compass that knows no deviation — the
compass of her own honour and maidenly reserve.
Just because she was so sure of her own love she felt that she
could never betray the falseness of Millicent Chyne. She felt,
somehow, that Millicent's fall in Jack Meredith's estimation would
drag down with it the whole of her sex, and consequently herself.
She did not dare to betray Millicent, because the honour of her sex
must be held up by an exaggerated honour in herself. Thus her
love for Jack Meredith tied her hands while she stood idly by
to see him wreck his own life by what could only be a miserable
union.
With the clear sight of the onlooker Jocelyn Gordon now saw
that, by Jack Meredith's own showing, Millicent was quite un-
worthy of him. But she also remembered words, silences, and
hints which demonstrated with lamentable plainness the fact that
he loved her. She was old enough and sufficiently experienced to
avoid the futile speculation as to what had attracted this love.
She knew that men marry women who in the estimation of on-
looking relatives are unworthy of them, and live happily ever
afterwards without deeming it necessary to explain to those rela-
tives how it comes about.
Now it happened that this woman — Jocelyn Gordon — was not
one of those who gracefully betray themselves at the right moment
and are immediately covered with a most becoming confusion.
She was strong to hold to her purpose, to subdue herself, to keep
26—5
570 WITH EDGED TOOLS,
silent. And this task she set herself, having thought it all care-
fully out in the little flower-scented verandah, so full of pathetic
association. But it must be remembered that she in no wise
seemed to see the pathos in her own life. She was unconscious of
romance. It was all plain fact, and the plainest was her love for
Jack Meredith.
Her daily life was in no perceptible way changed. Maurice
Gordon saw no difference. She had never been an hilarious
person. Now she went about her household, her kindnesses, and
unobtrusive good works with a quieter mien ; but, when occasion
or social duty demanded, she seemed perhaps a little readier than
before to talk of indifferent topics, to laugh at indifferent wit.
Those who have ears to hear and eyes wherewith to see learn to
distrust the laugh that is too ready, the sympathy that flows in
too broad a stream. Happiness is self-absorbed.
Four months elapsed, and the excitement created in the small
world of Western Africa by the first dazzling success of the
Simiacine Expedition began to subside. The thing took its usual
course. At first the experts]disbelieved, and then they prophesied
that it could not last. Finally, the active period of envy, hatred,
and malice gave way to a sullen tolerance not unmixed with an
indefinite grudge towards Fortune who had favoured the brave
once more.
Maurice Gordon was in daily expectation of news from that
far-off favoured spot they vaguely called the Plateau. And Jocelyn
did not pretend to conceal from herself the hope that filled her
whole being — the hope that Jack Meredith might bring the news
in person.
Instead, came Victor Durnovo.
He came upon her one evening when she was walking slowly
home from a mild tea-party at the house of a missionary. Hear-
ing footsteps on the sandy soil, she turned, and found herself face
to face with Durnovo.
' Ah ! ' she exclaimed, and her voice thrilled with some emotion
which he did not understand. ' Ah, it is you.'
'Yes,' he said, holding her hand a little longer than was
necessary. ' It is I.'
His journey from Msala through the more civilised reaches of
the lower river, his voyage in the coasting boat, and his arrival at
Loango, had partaken of the nature of a triumphal progress,
Victpr Durnovo was elated — like a girl in a new dress.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 571
' I was coming along to see you,' he said, and there was a
subtle offence in his tone.
She did not trouble to tell him that Maurice was away for ten
days. She felt that he knew that. There was a certain truculence
in his walk which annoyed her ; but she was wonderingiy conscious
of the fact that she was no longer afraid of him. This feeling had
as yet taken no definite shape. She did not know what she felt,
but she knew that there was no fear in her mind.
* Have you been successful ? ' she asked, with a certain negative
kindness of tone bred of this new self-confidence.
' I should think we had. Why, the lot that Oscard brought
down was a fortune in itself. But you saw Oscard, of course.
Did he stay at the bungalow ? '
' No ; he stayed at the hotel/
' Did you like him ? '
The question was accompanied by a momentary glance of the
dark, jealous eyes.
* Yes, very much.'
' He is a nice fellow, first-rate fellow. Of course, he has his
faults, but he and I got on splendidly. He's— engaged, you
know.'
« So he told me.'
Durnovo glanced at her again searchingly, and looked relieved.
He gave an awkward little laugh.
' And I understand,' he said, ' that Meredith is in the same
enviable position.'
< Indeed ! *
Durnovo indulged in a meaning silence.
* When do you go back ? ' she asked carelessly.
* Almost at once,' in a tone that apologised for causing her
necessary pain. ' I must leave to-morrow or the next day. I do
not like the idea of Meredith being left too long alone up there
with a reduced number of men. Of course, I had to bring a
pretty large escort. I brought down sixty thousand pounds worth
of Simiacine.'
' Yes,' she said ; ' and you take all the men back to-morrow ? '
He did not remember having stated for certain that he was
leaving the next day.
* Or the day after,' he amended.
* Have you had any more sickness among the men ? ' she asked
at once, in a tone of half-veiled sarcasm which made him wince.
572 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
< No,' he answered, ' they have been quite all right.'
' What time do you start ? ' she asked. ' There are letters for
Mr. Meredith at the office. Maurice's head clerk will give them
to you.'
She knew that these letters were from Millicent. She had
actually had them in her hand. She had inhaled the faint,
refined scent of the paper and envelopes.
' You will be careful that they are not lost, won't you ? ' she
said, tearing at her own heart with a strange love of the pain.
' They may be important.'
' Oh, I will deliver them sharp enough,' he answered. ' I
suppose I had better start to-morrow.'
'I should think so,' she replied quietly, with that gentle
mendacity which can scarcely be grudged to women because they
are so poorly armed. ' I should think so. You know what these
men are. Every hour they have in Loango demoralises them
more and more.'
They had reached the gate of the bungalow garden. She
turned and held out her hand in an undeniable manner. He bade
her good-bye and went his way, wondering vaguely what had
happened to them both. The conversation had taken quite a
different turn to what he had expected and intended. But some-
how it had got beyond his control. He had looked forward to a
very different ending to the interview. And now he found him-
self returning somewhat disconsolately to the wretched hotel in
Loango — dismissed — sent back.
The next day he actually left the little West African Coast
town, turning his face northward with bad grace. Even at that
distance he feared Jack Meredith's half-veiled sarcasm. He knew
that nothing could be hidden for long from the Englishman's
suavely persistent inquiry and deduction. Besides, the natives
were no longer safe. Meredith, with the quickness of a cultured
linguist, had picked up enough of their language to understand
them, while Joseph talked freely with them in that singular
mixture of slang and vernacular which follows the redcoat all over
the world. Durnovo had only been allowed to come down to the
coast under a promise, gracefully veiled but distinct enough, that
he should only remain twenty-four hours in Loango.
Jocelyn avoided seeing him again. She was forced to forego
the opportunity of hearing much that she wanted to learn because
Durnovo, the source of the desired knowledge, was unsafe. But
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 573
the relief from the suspense of the last few months was in itself a
consolation. All seemed to be going on well at the Plateau.
Danger is always discounted at sight, and Jocelyn felt compara-
tively easy respecting the present welfare of Jack Meredith, living
as she did on the edge of danger.
Four days later she was riding through the native town of
Loango, accompanied by a lady-friend, when she met Victor
Durnovo. The sight of him gave her a distinct shock. She
knew that he had left Loango three days before with all his men.
There was no doubt about that. Moreover, his air was distinctly
furtive — almost scared. It was evident that the chance meeting
was as undesired by him as it was surprising to her.
' I thought you had left,' she said shortly, pulling up her
horse with undeniable decision.
' Yes .... but I have come back — for, for more men.'
She knew he was lying, and he felt that she knew.
' Indeed ! ' she said. ' You are not .... a good starter.'
She turned her horse's head, nodded to her friend, bowed coldly
to Durnovo, and trotted towards home. When she had reached
the corner of the rambling ill-paved street she touched her horse.
The animal responded. She broke into a gentle canter, which
made the little children cease their play and stare. In the forest
she applied the spur, and beneath the whispering trees, over the
silent sand, the girl galloped home as fast as her horse could lay
legs to ground.
Jocelyn Gordon was one of those women who rise slowly to the
occasion, and the limit of their power seems at times to be only
denned by the greatness of the need.
CHAPTEB XXIII.
MERCURY.
So cowards never use their might
But against such that will not fight.
ON nearing the bungalow Jocelyn turned aside into the forest
where a little colony of huts nestled in a hollow of the sand-
dunes.
' Nala,' she cried, ' the paddle-maker. Ask him to come to me.'
She spoke in the dialect of the coast to some women who sat
together before one of the huts.
574 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Nala — yes,' they answered. And they raised their strident
voices.
In a few moments a man emerged from a shed of banana-
leaves. He was a scraggy man — very lightly clad — and a violent
squint handicapped him seriously in the matter of first impres-
sions. When he saw Jocelyn he dropped his burden of wood and
ran towards her. The African negro does not cringe. He is a
proud man in his way. If he is properly handled he is not only
trustworthy — he is something stronger. Nala grinned as he ran
towards Jocelyn.
' Nala,' she said, ' will you go a journey for me ? '
* I will go at once.'
' I came to you,' said Jocelyn, ' because I know that you are an
intelligent man and a great traveller.'
' I have travelled much,' he answered, ' when I was younger.'
' Before you were married ? ' said the English girl. ' Before
little Nala came ? '
The man grinned.
He looked back over his shoulder towards one of the huts
where a scraggy infant with a violent squint lay on its diaphragm
on the sand.
' Where do you wish me to go ?' asked the proud father.
' To Msala on the Ogowe river.'
' I know the Ogowe. I have been at Msala,' with the grave
nod of a great traveller.
' When can you leave ? '
He shrugged his shoulders.
'Now.'
Jocelyn had her purse in her hand.
' You can hire a dhow,' she said ; ' and on the river you may
have as many rowers as you like. You must go very quickly to
Msala. There you must ask about the Englishman's Expedition.
You have heard of it ? '
' Yes : the Englishman Durnovo, and the soldier who laughs.'
' Yes. Some of the men are at Msala now. They were going
up-country to join the other Englishman far away — near the
mountains. They have stopped at Msala. Find out why they
have not gone on, and come back very quickly to tell me. You
understand, Nala ? '
'Yes.'
' And I can trust you ? '
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 575
' Yes : because" you cured the little one when he had an evil
spirit. Yes, you can trust me.'
She gave him money and rode on home. Before she reached
the bungalow the paddle-maker passed her at a trot, going towards
the sea.
She waited for three days, and then Victor Durnovo came
again. Maurice was still away. There was an awful sense of
impending danger in the very air — in the loneliness of her position.
Yet she was not afraid of Durnovo. She had left that fear behind.
She went to the drawing-room to see him, full of resolution.
' I could not go away,' he said, after relinquishing her hand,
* without coming to see you.' •
Jocelyn said nothing. The scared look which she had last
seen in his face was no longer there ; but the eyes were full of lies.
' Jocelyn,' the man went on, ' I suppose you know that I love
you ? It must have been plain to you for a long time.'
' No,' she answered with a little catch in her breath. ' No, it
has not. And I am sorry to hear it now.'
' Why ? ' he asked, with a dull gleam which could not be
dignified by the name of love.
' Because it can only lead to trouble.'
Victor Durnovo was standing with his back to the window,
while Jocelyn, in the full light of the afternoon, stood before him.
He looked her slowly up and down with a glance of approval
which alarmed and disquieted her.
' Will you marry me ? ' he asked.
'No!'
His black moustache was pushed forward by some motion of
the hidden lips.
' Why ? '
' Do you want the real reason ? ' asked Jocelyn,
Victor Durnovo paused for a moment.
' Yes,' he said.
' Because I not only do not care for you, but I despise and
distrust you.'
' You are candid,' he said, with an unpleasant little laugh.
' Yes.'
He moved a little to one side and drew a chair towards him,
half-leaning, half-sitting on the back of it.
* Then,' he said, ' I will be candid with you. I intend you to
marry me ; I have intended it for a long time, I am not going
576 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
down on my knees to ask you to do it : that is not my way. But,
if you drive me to it, I will make your brother Maurice go down
on his knees and beg you to marry me.'
' I don't think you will do that,' answered the girl steadily.
' Whatever your power over Maurice may be, it is not strong
enough for that ; you overrate it.'
' You think so ? ' he sneered.
' I am sure of it.'
Durnovo glanced hastily round the room in order to make sure
that they were not overheard.
'Suppose,' he said, in a low, hissing voice, 'that I possess
knowledge that I have only to mention to one or two people to
make this place too hot for Maurice Gordon. If he escaped the
fury of the natives, it would be difficult to know where he could
go to. England would be too hot for him. They wouldn't have
him there ; I could see to that. He would be a ruined man — an
outcast — execrated by all the civilised world.'
He was watching her face all the while. He saw the colour
leave even her lips, but they were steady and firm. A strange
wonder crept into his heart. This woman never flinched. There
was some reserved strength within herself upon which she was
now drawing. His dealings had all been with half-castes — with
impure blood and doubtful descendants of a mixed ancestry. He
had never fairly roused a pure-bred English man or woman, and
suddenly he began to feel out of his depth.
' What is your knowledge ? ' asked Jocelyn in a coldly mea-
sured voice.
' I think you had better not ask that ; you will be sorry after-
wards. I would rather that you thought quietly over what I have
told you. Perhaps, on second thoughts, you will see your way to
give me some — slight hope. I should really advise it.'
' I did not ask your advice. What is your knowledge ? '
' You will have it ? ' he hissed.
' Yes.'
He leant forward, craning his neck, pushing his yellow face
and hungering black eyes close into hers.
' Then, if you will have it, your brother — Maurice Gordon — is
a slave-owner.'
She drew back as she might have done from some unclean
animal. She knew that he was telling the truth. There might
be extenuating circumstances. The real truth might have quite
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 577
a different sound, spoken in different words ; but there was enough
of the truth in it, as Victor Durnovo placed it before her, to con-
demn Maurice before the world.
' Now will you marry me ? ' he sneered.
'No!'
Quick as thought she had seen the only loop-hole — the only
possible way of meeting this terrible accusation.
He laughed ; but there was a faint jangle of uneasiness in his
laughter.
' Indeed ! '
' Supposing,' said Jocelyn, ' for one moment that there was a
grain of truth in your fabrication, who would believe you ? Who
on this coast would take your word against the word of an English
gentleman ? Even if the whole story were true, which it is not,
could you prove it ? You are a liar, as well as a coward and a
traitor ! Do you think that the very servants in the stable would
believe you ? Do you think that the incident of the small-pox at
Msala is forgotten ? Do you think that all Loango, even to the
boatmen on the beach, ignores the fact that you are here in
Loango now because you are afraid to go through a savage
country to the Simiacine Plateau as you are pledged to do ? You
were afraid of the small-pox once ; there is something else that
you are afraid of now. I do not know what it is, but I will find
out. Coward ! Go ! Leave the house at once, before I call in
the stable boys to turn you out, and never dare to speak to me
again ! '
Victor Durnovo recoiled before her, conscious all the while that
she had never been so beautiful as at that moment. But she was
something far above him — a different creation altogether. He
never knew what drove him from that room. It was the fear of
something that he did not understand.
He heard her close the window after him as he walked away
beneath the trees.
She stood watching him — proud, cold, terrible in her womanly
anger. Then she turned, and suddenly sank down upon the sofa,
sobbing.
But fortune decreed that she should have neither time to weep
nor think. She heard the approaching footsteps of her old
servant, and when the door was opened Jocelyn Gordon was reading
a book, with her back turned towards the window.
' That man Nala, miss, the paddle-maker, wants to see you.'
578 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' Tell him to go round to the verandah.'
Jocelyn went out by the open window, and presently Nala
came grinning towards her. He was evidently very much pleased
with himself— held himself erect, and squinted more violently than
usual.
' I have been to Msala,' he said with considerable dignity of
manner.
' Yes, and what news have you ? '
Nala squatted down on the chunam floor, and proceeded to
unfold a leaf. The operation took some time. Within the outer
covering there was a second envelope of paper, likewise secured by
a string. Finally, the man produced a small note, which showed
signs of having been read more than once. This he handed to
Jocelyn with an absurd air of importance.
She opened the paper and read : —
'To MAKIE AT MSALA, — Send at once to Mr. Durnovo, in-
forming him that the tribes have risen and are rapidly surrounding
the Plateau. He must return here at once with as large an armed
force as he can raise. But the most important consideration is
time. He must not wait for men from elsewhere, but must pick
up as many as he "can in Loando and on the way up to Msala. I
reckon that we can hold out for three months without outside
assistance, but after that period we shall be forced to surrender or
to try and cut pur way through without the Simiacine. With a
larger force we could beat back the tribes, and establish our hold
on the Plateau by force of arms. This must be forwarded to Mr.
Durnovo at once, wherever he is. The letter is in duplicate, sent
by two good messengers, who go by different routes.
' JOHN MEREDITH.'
When Jocelyn looked up, dry-lipped, breathless, Nala was
standing before her, beaming with self-importance.
' Who gave you this ? '
' Marie, at Msala.'
1 Who is she ? '
' Oh — Mr. Durnovo's woman at Msala. She keeps his house.'
' But this letter is for Mr. Durnovo,' cried Jocelyn, whose fear
made her unreasonably angry. * Why has he not had it ? '
Nala came nearer with upraised forefinger and explanatory palm.
• Marie tell me,' he said, « that Mr. Meredith send two letters.
Marie give Mr. Durnovo one. This — other letter.'
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 579
There was a strange glitter in the girl's blue eyes — something
steely and unpleasant.
' You are sure of that ? You are quite sure that Mr. Durnovo
has had a letter like this ? ' she asked slowly and carefully, so that
there could be no mistake.
' That is true,' answered the man.
' Have you any more news from Msala ? f
Nala looked slightly hurt. He evidently thought that he had
brought as much news as one man could be expected to carry.
' Marie has heard,' he said, ' that there is much fighting up in
the country.'
' She has heard no particulars — nothing more than that ? '
' No : nothing.'
Jocelyn Gordon rose to this occasion also.
' Can you go,' she said, after a moment's thought, ' to St. Paul
de Loanda for me ? '
The man laughed.
' Yes,' he answered simply.
* At once — now ? '
' Oh, yes,' with a sigh.
Already Jocelyn was writing something on a sheet of paper.
' Take this,' she said, ' to the telegraph office at St. Paul de
Loanda, and send it off at once. Here is money. You under-
stand ? I will pay you when you bring back the receipt. If you
have been very quick, I will pay you well.'
That same evening a second messenger started northward
after Maurice Gordon with a letter telling him to come back at
once to Loango.
CHAPTER XXIV.
NEMESIS.
1 Take heed of still waters.'
DESPITE his assertion to Lady Cantourne, Guy Oscard stayed on in
the gloomy house in Russell Square. He had naturally gone
thither on his return from Africa, and during the months that
followed he did not find time to think much of his own affairs.
Millicent Chyne occupied all his thoughts — all his waking
moments. It is marvellous how busily an active-minded young
lady can keep a man employed.
580 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
In the ill-lighted study rendered famous by the great history
which had emanated in the manuscript therefrom, Guy Oscard
had interviewed sundry great commercial experts, and a cheque for
forty-eight thousand pounds had been handed to him across the
table polished bright by his father's studious elbow. The
Simiacine was sold, and the first portion of it spent went to
buy a diamond aigrette for the dainty head of Miss Millicent
Chyne.
Guy Oscard was in the midst of the London season. His
wealth and a certain restricted renown had soon made him popular.
He had only to choose his society, and the selection was not difficult.
Wherever Millicent Chyne went, he went also, and to the lady's
credit it must be recorded that no one beyond herself and Guy
Oscard had hitherto noticed this fact. Millicent was nothing if
not discreet. It was more or less generally known that she was
engaged to Jack Meredith, who, although absent on some vaguely
romantic quest of a fortune, was not yet forgotten. No word,
however, was popularly whispered connecting her name with that
of any other swain nearer home. Miss Chyne was too much of a
woman of the world to allow that. But, in the meantime, she
rather liked diamond aigrettes and the suppressed devotion of Guy
Oscard.
It was the evening of a great ball, and Guy Oscart!, having
received his orders and instructions, was dining alone in Kussell
Square, when a telegram was handed to him. He opened it and
spread the thin paper out upon the table-cloth. A word from
that far wild country, which seemed so much fitter a background
to his simple bulk and strength than the cramped ways of
London society — a message from the very heart of the dark
continent — to him :
' Meredith surrounded and in danger Durnovo false come at
once Jocelyn Gordon.'
Guy Oscard pushed back his chair and rose at once, as if there
were somebody waiting in the hall to see him.
' I do not want any more dinner,' he said. ' I am going to
Africa. Come and help me to pack my things.'
He studied Bradshaw and wrote a note to Millicent Chyne. To
her he said the same as he had said to the butler, ' I am going to
Africa.'
There was something refreshingly direct and simple about this
man, He did not enter into long explanations. He simply bore
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 581
on in the line he had marked out. He rose from the table and
never looked back. His attitude seemed to say, ' I am going to
Africa : kindly get out of my way.'
At three minutes to nine — that is to say, in one hour and a
half — Guy Oscard took his seat in the Plymouth express. He had
ascertained that a Madeira boat was timed to sail from Dartmouth
at eight o'clock that evening. He was preceded by a telegram to
Lloyd's agent at Plymouth :
' Have fastest craft available, steam up ready to put to sea to
catch the Banyan African steamer four o'clock to-morrow morning.
Expense not to be considered.'
As the train crept out into the night the butler of the gloomy
house in Kussell Square, who had finished the port, and was
beginning to feel resigned, received a second shock. This came in
the form of a carriage and pair, followed by a ring at the bell.
The man opened the door, and his fellow servitor of an eccen-
tric class and generation stepped back on the doorstep to let a
young lady pass into the hall.
' Mr. Oscard ? ' she said curtly.
' Left 'ome, miss,' replied the butler, stiffly conscious of walnut-
peel on his waistcoat.
' How long ago ? '
' A matter of half an hour, miss.'
Millicent Chyne, whose face was drawn and white, passed farther
into the hall. Seeing the dining-room door ajar, she passed into
that stately apartment, followed by the butler.
' Mr. Oscard sent me this note,' she said, showing a crumpled
paper, ' saying that he was leaving for Africa to-night. He gives
no explanation. Why has he gone to Africa ? '
' He received a telegram while he was at dinner, miss,' replied
the butler, whose knowledge of the world indicated the approach of
at least a sovereign. ' He rose and threw down his napkin, miss.
" I'm goin' to Africa," he says. " Come and help me pack." '
' Did you see the telegram — by any chance ? ' asked Miss
Chyne.
' Well, miss, I didn't rightly read it.'
Millicent had given way to a sudden panic on the receipt of
Guy's note. A telegram calling him to Africa — calling with a
voice which he obeyed with such alacrity that he had not paused
to finish his dinner — could only mean that some disaster had
happened — some disaster to Jack Meredith. And quite suddenly
582 WITH EDGED TOOLS
r
Millicent Chyne's world was emptied of all else but Jack Meredith.
For a moment she forgot herself. She ran to the room where
Lady Cantourne was affixing the family jewelry on her dress, and,
showing the letter, said breathlessly that she must see Guy Oscard
at once. Lady Cantourne, wise woman of the world that she was,
said nothing. She merely finished her toilet, and, when the
carriage was ready, they drove round by Russell Square.
' Who was it from ? ' asked Millicent.
' From a person named Gordon, miss.'
' And what did it say ? '
' Well, miss, as I said before, I did not rightly see. But it
seems that it said, " Come at once." I saw that.'
' And what else ? Be quick, please.'
'I think there was mention of somebody bein' surrounded,
miss. Some name like Denver, I think. No ! Wait a bit : it
wasn't that ; it was somebody else.'
Finishing off the port had also meant beginning it, and the
worthy butler's mind was not particularly clear.
' Was there any mention of Mr. Oscard's partner, Mr. — eh —
Meredith ? ' asked Millicent, glancing at the clock.
' Yes, miss, there was that name, but I don't rightly remember
in what connection.'
' It didn't say that he ' Millicent paused and drew in her
breath with a jerk—' was dead, or anything like that ? '
' Oh, no, miss.'
' Thank you. I — am sorry we missed Mr. Oscard.'
She turned and went back to Lady Cantourne, who was sitting
in the carriage. And while she was dancing the second extra with
the first comer at four o'clock the next morning, Guy Oscard was
racing out of Plymouth Sound into the teeth of a fine, driving
rain. On the bridge of the trembling tug-boat, by Oscard's side,
stood a keen-eyed Channel pilot, who knew the tracks of the
steamers up and down Channel as a gamekeeper knows the hare-
tracks across a stubble-field. Moreover, the tug-boat caught the
big steamer pounding down into the grey of the Atlantic Ocean,
and in due time Guy Oscard landed on the beach at Loanda.
He had the telegram still in his pocket, and he went, not to
Maurice Gordon's office, but to the bungalow.
Jocelyn greeted him with a little inarticulate cry of joy.
' I did not think that you could possibly be here so soon,' she
said.
WITH EDGED TOOLS. 583
* What news have you ? ' he asked, without pausing to explain.
He was one of those men who are silenced by an unlimited
capacity for prompt action.
'That/ she replied, handing him the note written by Jack
Meredith to Marie at Msala.
Guy Oscard read it carefully.
' Dated seven weeks last Monday — nearly two months ago,' he
muttered, half to himself.
He raised his head and looked out of the window. There were
lines of anxiety round his eyes. Jocelyn never took her glance
from his face.
' Nearly two months ago,' he repeated.
' But you will go ? ' she said— and something in her voice
startled him.
' Of course I will go,' he replied. He looked down into her
face with a vague question in his quiet eyes ; and who knows
what he saw there? Perhaps she was off her guard. Perhaps
she read this man aright and did not care.
With a certain slow hesitation he laid his hand on her arm.
There was something almost paternal in his manner which was in
keeping with his stature.
' Moreover,' he went on, ' I will get there in time. I have an
immense respect for Meredith. If he said that he could hold out
for four months, I should say that he could hold out for six.
There is no one like Meredith, once he makes up his mind to take
things seriously.'
It was not very well done, and she probably saw through it.
She probably knew that he was as anxious as she was herself.
But his very presence was full of comfort. It somehow brought a
change to the moral atmosphere — a sense of purposeful, direct
simplicity which was new to the West African Coast.
'I will send over to the factory for Maurice,' said the girl.
' He has been hard at work getting together your men. If your
telegram had not come he was going up to the Plateau himself.'
Oscard looked slightly surprised. That did not sound like
Maurice Gordon.
' I believe you are almost capable of going yourself,' said the
big man with a slow smile.
' If I had been a man I should have been half-way there by
this time.'
' Where is Durnovo ? ' he asked suddenly.
584 WITH EDGED TOOLS.
' I believe he is in Loango. He has not been to this house
for more than a fortnight ; but Maurice has heard that he is still
somewhere in Loango.'
Jocelyn paused. There was an expression on Guy Oscard's
face which she rather liked, while it alarmed her.
' It is not likely,' she went on, ' that he will come here. I — I
rather lost my temper with him, and said things which, I imagine,
hurt his feelings.'
Oscar nodded gravely.
' I'm rather afraid of doing that myself,' he said ; ' only it will
not be his feelings.'
' I do not think/ she replied, ' that it would be at all expedient
to say or do anything at present. He must go with you to the
Plateau. Afterwards — perhaps.'
Oscard laughed quietly.
' Ah,' he said, ' that sounds like one of Meredith's propositions.
But he does not mean it any more than you do.'
' I do mean it,' replied Jocelyn quietly. There is no hatred so
complete, so merciless, as the hatred of a woman for one who has
wronged the man she loves. At such times women do aot pause
to give fair play. They make no allowance.
Jocelyn Gordon found a sort of fearful joy in the anger of this
self-contained Englishman. It was an unfathomed mine of
possible punishment over which she could in thought hold Victor
Durnovo.
' Nothing,' she went on, ' could be too mean — nothing could
be mean enough — to mete out to him in payment of his own
treachery and cowardice.'
She went to a drawer in her writing-table and took from it an
almanac.
' The letter you have in your hand,' she said, ' was handed to
Mr. Durnovo exactly a month ago by the woman at Msala. From
that time to this he has done nothing. He has simply abandoned
Mr. Meredith.'
' He is in Loango ? ' inquired Oscard, with a premonitory sense
of enjoyment in his voice.
'Yes.'
' Does he know that you have sent for me ? '
' No,' replied Jocelyn.
Guy Oscard smiled.
' I think I will go and look for him,' he said.
WITH EDGED T6OLS. 585
At dusk that same evening there was a singular incident in
the bar-room of the only hotel in Loango.
Victor Durnovo was there, surrounded by a few friends of
antecedents and blood similar to his own. They were having a
convivial time of it, and the consumption of whisky was greater
than might be deemed discreet in such a climate as that of Loango •
Durnovo was in the act of raising his glass to his lips when the
open doorway was darkened, and Guy Oscard stood before him.
The half-bred's jaw dropped ; the glass was set down again rather
unsteadily on the zinc-covered counter.
' I want you,' said Oscard.
There was a little pause, an ominous silence, and Victor
Durnovo slowly followed Oscard out of the room, leaving that
ominous silence behind.
' I leave for Msala to-night,' said Oscard, when they were out-
side, ' and you are coming with me.'
' I'll see you damned first ! ' replied Durnovo, with a courage
born of Irish whisky.
Guy Oscard said nothing, but he stretched out his right hand
suddenly. His fingers closed in the collar of Victor Durnovo's
coat, and that parti-coloured scion of two races found himself
feebly trotting through the one street of Loango.
' Le' go ! ' he gasped.
But the hand at his neck neither relinquished nor contracted.
When they reached the beach the embarkation of the little army
was going forward under Maurice Gordon's supervision. Victor
looked at Gordon. He reflected over the trump card held in his
hand, but he was too skilful to play it then.
(To be continued.')
VOL. XXI.— NO.. 12G, N.S. 27
586
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL,
IT was a very remarkable gathering — that gathering of men in the
Balliol Chapel — to mourn for the Master who had been taken from
their head. Walkers in various paths of life, thinkers of various
ways of thought, had found their paths and ways all converge in
sorrow for a common loss — not only to the College, but to their
time and fatherland. The coffin lay upon its trestles shoulder
high. Over it fell a purple pall, made white with floral tributes ;
but the greatest tribute there was the presence of such men of
busy life and active mind, come to pay grateful homage to the
memory of their spiritual father. For indeed he was their spiri-
tual even as he was their intellectual father, he who for so many
years of incessant labour and marvellous energy had taught them
all how best to be about their Father's business.
A Scotch philosopher, an English lord, and a Japanese earl
came by me and took their seats in silent sadness. The thought
of the secret of Jowett's power to reach, through these his pupils,
such divers worlds crossed one's mind, and as one noted that just
opposite sat together the Dean of Westminster, the Speaker of the
House of Commons, and Professor Huxley, the wonder grew.
Then forth from the chapel we went, a great crowd. But
where were the personal mourners ? where the relatives ? Close
behind the coffin came the faithful servants of the house, hardly
able to restrain their grief; but brothers and sisters, nephews or
nieces, there were none. Only, as we moved through the quiet
quadrangle towards the St. Giles' entrance, a voice seemed to say,
' I have no need of relations in the flesh, seeing I have such
near ones in the spirit. Behold ! all these that follow me are
sons.' It was indeed a striking instance of the strength of the
spiritual tie that this man, who sixty years ago had taken Balliol
College unto himself as bride, should now- be borne along to burial
by such a family of sons and daughters (for women were of the
company) as followed the coffin through the broad St. Giles and the
narrow-streeted suburb, to that unlovely and unlovable resting-
place in Jericho.
' I owe everything to the College,' Jowett used to say ; and if
one had been tempted to have replied, ' The College owes every-
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 587
thing to you,' the Master would certainly have said, ' Not at all,
not at all ! You don't know what you are talking about.' And, in a
sense, it was true. For the little fair-haired lad, of cherub face,
clad in tail-coat and short breeches tied at the knee with blue
ribbon, who was the joke of his competitors for the Balliol
Scholarship long years ago, came nobody quite knew from whence,
and seemed to have no relatives to return to. He might have
been the son of a certain gentleman fond of flowers, of whom in
1810, at Cambridge, ran the quatrain —
• A little garden little Jowett made,
And fenced it with a little palisade.
If you would know the mind of little Jowett,
This little garden does no little show it.'
Or, again, he might be the son of a worthy printer in Bolt Court,
London. Some averred that his parents were well-known linen-
drapers, near St. Paul's School. All that was really known was
that, from the day he won the Scholarship, Balliol became to the
boy's heart — home. He never talked at all about his relations —
indeed seemed a little huffed when asked after a certain cousin
who was known as ' Joe Jowett ' in the Kettering neighbourhood
some thirty years ago, and answered sharply :
' I don't know what is become of him. I never knew him.'
To such an apparently friendless youth Balliol became father,
mother, sister, and brother ; and one could understand upon
reflection what was meant when he said, ' I owe everything to the
College.' For he had climbed from high to higher. Scholar,
Fellow, and Tutor; all but Master in 1854; Master in 1870;
unchanging in his love and devotion to the great trust imposed
upon him ; changeless almost in cherubic face ; changeless in
dress — tail-coated to the last — and so unchangeable in his affec-
tionate regard for the wife he had espoused when he became a
Scholar, that the very last words that fell from his lips before he
died were ' My love to the College.' What were the secrets of
this life of influence ? They were many. First and foremost,
resistless and untiring energy. In the old tutorial days, before he
became Master, his doors were open to every undergraduate who
cared to be helped. Many a don felt that the day's work ceased
with the last lecture ; most were confident that after Hall came
Common-room, and after Common-room rest, perhaps sleep. But
from eight o'clock till midnight a stream of young men might be
seen passing up to Jowett's rooms, with essay, iambics, Greek
27—2
588 MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.
verse or prose — all coming, by invitation, for advice and help, and
taking away not only corrections in metre and style, but new
thoughts about the worth of work done thoroughly, and the possi-
bility of serving others than themselves by the work they took
in hand. It was this resistless energy that made him, as an
undergraduate, work thirteen hours a day, as he once told a
Siamese prince, in my hearing.
The said Siamese prince had, as the porter pompously expressed
it, ' Corned into BaUiolby the Master's frontdoor, Sir,' had entered
for his ' Smalls,' had telegraphed, so it was popularly understood,
to his father that he was in for this, his first examination, and had
paid for a reply telegram, which, it is asserted, ran as follows :
' It is well. Fourteen youths of the nobler sort have been sacri-
ficed.' But the propitiatory offering in Siam had failed to help in
the battle of the schools. The prince had been plowed, and was
sent for by the Master.
' I am much ashamed of you,' said Jowett, in his sternest and
jerkiest manner; 'you are very idle — very idle. You are no
credit to your country, or to this College. How many hours a day
do you work ? '
To which the Siamese answered, smilingly, ' Aw, Master, I do
work very hard. Sometimes three hours.'
To whom replied the Master, ' You ought to work at least
eight hours. When I was your age I worked thirteen.'
It is true that one was convulsed at the time by hearing the
Prince say, with a grin from ear to ear, but in all good faith, ' Aw,
but Master, you have such a very big head ! ' but that ' I used to
work thirteen hours a day ' sank deep into one's mind.
It was this same unquenchable energy that made Jowett (at
least so it is reported), when he was beginning to be ill two years ago,
on hearing from his medical attendant that he was very seriously
sick and must keep absolutely quiet, after much question and
answer about the symptoms, bow the doctor out of his bedroom,
with ' Thank you, thank you ! ' — then rise from his bed, dress,
order a hansom, go up to London, transact some business he felt
important, and return to his bed. It was the same spirit that, as
late as three years ago, when I met him at a station, refused to
allow me to carry his luggage for him to the conveyance, with a
short ' I can do it myself.' It was this spirit that, when on the
occasion of the Laureate's funeral, a year ago, I proffered him an
arm as we descended the long steps from the Chapter House to
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 589
the cloisters, made him say, a little sharply, ' No, no ; I don't
want an arm. Just steady me — that's all.'
Another secret of his influence with men was his transparent
candour — candour too transparent to be rude. One remembers
how, at the first breakfast with the Master, we, who as trembling
undergraduates had talked, or thought we had talked, of • all things
under heaven and on earth, and had been unable to extract any
replies whatever, heard from the Master's lips his opinion of our
chatter — ' Grood morning, gentlemen. I think you must cultivate
conversational powers. Grood morning.'
This candour was so natural to the man that at times he ran
risks of being thought to be personal. Thus, for example, in one
of his sermons in chapel we were electrified to hear him once
say, ' We see our old friends sitting in their study-chairs and
getting narrower and narrower every day.' Now, we saw one of
those old friends actually sitting within a few feet of the preacher,
and our ears tingled for the Master ; but it was quite evident that
the preacher was in that condition of mind upon the matter that
friends qua, persons had ceased to exist for him, and the truth
he wished to press home of the need of wide sympathy to
the end of life had obliterated all thought or fear of the person
of man.
From anyone else it might have seemed a little rude to take a
man out for a long walk, make no reply to a remark about the
weather that had been at last made in sheer desperation, walk back a
mile in silence, and turn round on the doorstep, shake hands, and
say : ' I don't think much of that last remark of yours — good-day ' ;
but it came naturally from Jowett, and was said with such evident
intent not to harm, but to help, that the man was not hurt by it at all.
By the way, what funny things those silent walks were ! The
Master would, after a lap or two of silence, suddenly break-to
humming a tune, and after a turn or two of humming would
relapse into silence. Sometimes he would astonish his companions
by saying, ' Shall we run and get warm ? ' and away he would go
till the younger would cry, ' Hold ; enough ! '
It was this candour that made him say once to a talkative
young fellow who had come up to compete for the Balliol Scholar-
ship, and who had come into breakfast with his competitor — a
very shy boy — and had asked whether his rival was a clever boy,
' Yes ; he'll get the Scholarship — not you.'*
It was this candour that came to the front at a dinner-party of
590 MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL
men (old Balliol scholars) who had passed out with honours from
the College, and were serving their country in various public posts
of importance. One of them said, 'Master, we should be very
sorry to have to go in for the Balliol Scholarship now ; we should
none of us pass,' and all expected to hear Jowett say, ' Oh, non-
sense ! You are all better scholars now than then.' But Jowett
glanced round the table, and just said, ' Yes, one of you would —
Stanley, here.'
It was this candour that enabled him, as it was currently
reported, to say to the young man who had thrown up an impor-
tant post in the Indian Civil Service and taken the twelve-shillings-
a-week pay of a Captain in the Salvation Army, ' I always thought
you a foolish young man ; but, on the whole, I have come to the
conclusion that this is the wisest step you could have taken.'
Once I feared his blunt outspokenness would have got him
into serious trouble. A drunken flyman, one fine moonlight night,
came to take us home after dinner from the house of a friend,
and our host had gone to the door and expostulated with the
incapable coachman. When we went out the driver had got
down from the box, and appeared to wish to be squaring up to the
Master, with the words, ' This gen'man says I'm drunk. What do
you say ? ' I shall not soon forget the look of calm serenity, nor
the absolute truthfulness and tone of unflinching assertion, with
which Jowett — who might have been pardoned for a certain
evasion under the circumstances — said to the flyman militant,
' Yes, you are drunk — very drunk indeed.'
Of course, at times this blunt outspokenness and absolute
reality were felt to be galling. Men who were deservedly snubbed
smarted under it. But then the Master knew generally what was
in man ; he studied men's characters, observed men closely, and
even on the torture-rack of his long silences he learned something
of their inner lives. So that if his words were sharp, they were
often salutary.
A Greek scholar, with a great reputation and a fairly good
opinion of himself, came up from a Scotch University and showed
up an incontestably good copy of Greek Iambics. Jowett looked
them over, and to the young man expectant of great praise quietly
said, with his quaint blink of the eye, ' Do you think, Mr. So-and-
So, you could do anything in the way of mathematics ? '
On another occasion, at one of the test-by-silence breakfasts,
a young man who did most of the chatter said to his neighbour,
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 591
' I seem to be doing all the talking.' Jowett overheard him, and
answered, ' Yes ; very young men generally do that.'
This reality of the Master made him impatient of all sham or
shoddy, and very much inclined to distrust all gush and all
apparent unreality. It was a common story in old Balliol days
that an undergraduate who had attended the Master's lectures on
'Natural Keligion' thought it the right thing to pose as an
unbeliever, and said, ' The fact is, Master, I cannot find evidence
of a god anywhere.'
' You must find one by midnight, or you will go down
to-morrow,' was the sharp answer that brought the young man to
his senses, and discovered a Divinity that shaped his ends where it
was least expected, in the clear common sense that would stand no
trifling or levity in serious things.
I remember his saying to a young man who had been talking
rather gushingly of his love for the poets, ' Do you ever write
poetry, Mr. M ? ' ' Yes — well, I do something in that way,'
was the answer. ' Never mind,' said the Master, ' how much
you write, as long as you burn it all.' It was good advice, and it
was said with guch a kindly smile that it was felt for good.
On another occasion an undergraduate gushed considerably
about the glory of the bright spring day. ' The shower of blossom
the song of birds, the music of bees — what a gift from Heaven it
all is ! It makes us all poets. Does it not make you feel poetical,
Master ? ' said the rash youth. ' No,' said Jowett testily, ' I think
not. Take some more tea.'
Jowett's reality could not stand conceit a bit more than he could
away with idleness. Instead of saying, as Harry Smith would say,
' My dear sir, you are a very young man and belong to a very old
College,' Jowett would say straight out, ' You are a very conceited
young man-; do not be so foolish.'
Akin to this love of reality was a love of naturalness that at
times almost appeared simplicity. The Master's easy manner with
women, and his pleasure in the company of children, was the result
of this love of naturalness. The way in which he shared his con-
fidence with the servants of his household, his close friendship
with his secretary whom he had trained to the work, was part of
his sincere delight in naturalness. On one occasion a friend of
mine had forgotten the hour for reading essays to the Master till
it was too late for him to go home and change his boating-dress.
He came up breathless from the boats in a Balliol blazer, knocked
592 MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.
at the study-door, and said, ' I am very sorry, Master, I clean
forgot the time, and have run up straight from the boats to read
my essay. I know I ought to have come in cap and gown, but I
really have not had time to go to my lodgings.'
To the astonishment of the brother essayists assembled, Jowett
smiled, and said, 'Come in, come in. I quite understand.' It
was the naturalness of the man in the blazer that had appealed to
the Master's heart.
There was also about the Master an attractiveness to business
men from the way in which he went to the point in few words.
As Vice-Chaiicellor men said his ability to transact business
swiftly was astonishing.
Of course, it is true that sometimes in council or debate he was
accused of being very deaf at judicious moments, and so not
putting a motion which he knew would be the direct opposite of
what he wished or felt was wise ; but even then his wisdom, his
determination not to be caught napping, called forth the admira-
tion of his opponents. Undergraduates often experienced how
wide-awake the apparently comatose Master was, and this especially
at essay-time. A friend of mine had forgotten till too late the
weekly task, and accordingly had written six instead of twelve
sheets of rubbish. Jowett appeared to be asleep, and the reader
read very slowly and majestically, and ended the ' linked sweetness
long drawn out ' with a grand rhetorical flourish, as much as to
say, ' You see what a hard-working young fellow I am, and how
industriously I have performed the allotted task ! ' Jowett just
said, ' Eead on, please,' in his little chirping voice, and my friend
was floored.
That piping chirrup of the Master's was very catching. One
at least of the undergraduates had by imitation become so uncon-
sciously like of speech that we who were assembled in tlie Master's
study to hear the essays read, and wait our turn for execution,
were horrified and convulsed to hear Jowett say at the end of the
essay, ' Very bald, very bald,' in his quaint falsetto, and to hear
in answer from the culprit in just the same falsetto with a crack
in it, * Oh ! do you think so ? ' We expected an explosion, but
the Master was always master of himself, and he simply stirred the
fire, and said, ' Next, please.'
I suppose it was in his business capacity that his brevity of
speech stood the Master in best stead. Many instances occur of
this commendable brevity.
.
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 593
There had been a luncheon party in College, and, after it, the
young men who had well lunched thought it the proper way of
showing their appreciation of their host's kindness to bolt him
into his room and pepper his windows with rolls. Jowett watched
the proceeding from his oriel window, summoned the host, and said,
' You should not have such friends. If bread-throwing were the
rule, life in College would be intolerable. You are gated for a
week.'
On another occasion a grand complaint was made about the
toughness of meat in Hall. ' The meat, sir, is not fit for a gentle-
man to eat,' said the leader of the malcontents. Jowett touched
his bell, called his trusty servant. ' Go to the kitchen ; bring me
a plate of meat from the same joint.' We waited and wondered.
Up came the plate, salt and bread and potatoes to boot. Down
sat the Master. He presently looked up at us, blinked eyes,
and said, ' It is quite good enough for me. Good evening,
gentlemen?
The leader of the band was in a difficulty ; the syllogism was
too apparent, and we beat a hasty retreat. It is fair to say that
the Balliol cookery did improve afterwards. For Jowett was a
man of strong common sense. He knew that if men were doing
hard work with their brains they must rest, and they must eat.
His advice to freshmen, ' Get through smalls, cultivate conversa-
tional powers, entertain your friends,' had some bearing upon
the former need; and reforms in the Balliol kitchen which he
wrought had bearing upon the latter.
Jowett never thought any details of College management
beneath him. I used to think it almost a pathetic waste of his
precious time that he should glance each Saturday through my
' Battells ' bill, and interview ' the Dinner Committee ' four times
with every moon, but the Master did not think so.
How carefully he looked after the bodily needs of his pupils
many a man saved from a bad breakdown before the schools can
testify, who had suddenly received a little note : ' Dear So-and so,
you are looking tired and need a rest. Go down for the next
three days to my house at Malvern. Yours truly, B. Jowett.'
Nor can one forget how this same kindly concern was shown
to others than those of the College. When Mr. T. H. Green died,
a scholarship was set on foot to enable boys who were at the
National Schools in Oxford to proceed to the High School. A
little delicate lad gained such a scholarship. Jowett knew his
27—5
594 MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.
mother's circumstances, and said quietly : ' The boy must dine
here every day he is at school. He cannot work his brains unless
he be well fed.' And all through that boy's school-time the
Master took care that he should fare well. That lad is now a
professor, an honour to the town that bred him and the College
that fed him.
But Jowett's brevity of speech and despatch of business never
shone more than on the great occasion of his dealing with the
refractory washerwomen of Balliol. These worthy dames struck
for higher wage in one department. Twelve collars for a shilling was,
I believe, the statutory price. They came to interview the Master.
' The washerwomen have come to see you,' said the butler.
' Show the ladies up,' said the Master. They clumped into the
room to find him fiddling with the poker at the ashes in the grate.
He turned round. ' Will you wash twelve collars for a shilling ? '
They began to expostulate. He touched the bell ; in came the
butler. ' Show the ladies down.'
Presently the butler appeared again :
' They seem very sorry, sir — would like to see you again.'
' Show them up.' The washerwomen found the Master intent,
as before, on the fire-grate. ' Will . you wash twelve collars for a
shilling ? ' piped his cheery little voice. A stalwart speaker began
to make explanations. He touched the bell. ' Show these ladies
down,' said he, and down they went. Again the butler expressed
a hope that he would see them. ' Certainly ; show them up.'
They entered the room. 'Will you wash twelve collars for a
shilling ? ' ' We will,' they cried. ' Thank you — good-day, good-
day,' said the Master ; and, touching the bell, he said, ' Knight,
show these ladies down '—and the strike was over.
One of the secrets of Jowett's power with men was doubtless
his sense of humour. He had a peculiar way of rubbing his
hands together as if he enjoyed the joke, which added point to
it. He would often tell stories against himself — not that he ever
told how when a certain worthy fellow-tutor, with somewhat of a
lacustrine name, hoping to score off him, once said, ' Do you
know what they call you in College ? They call you " little Benja-
min," ' he turned the tables by saying, ' And do you know what
they call you ? They call you " Puddle." ' It was probably an
invention impromptu, but it was smart. Nor did he ever report
the quaint love-passage in his life when the young fiancee who
wished to show the Master how much she valued his attention to
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 595
her and her brother, whom she had been nursing in a serious
illness at Balliol, and who, with her wedding-day in mind, had
said girlishly and gushingly, ' Dear Master ! I have but one
more request to make. I know you won't refuse. Will you
marry me ? ' For it was currently reported that on this occasion
Jowett was taken off guard, in his delightful simplicity. The
Head of the College fidgeted — hesitated — blushed — poked the fire
— rose — walked briskly up and down the room, and answered,
' No, no. I don't think we should either of us be happy.' It is,
however, fair to add that another version of the story looks as if
the Master had entered thoroughly into the joke, and that he
covered the maiden with confusion by saying, ' I think your re-
quest is rather premature.'
But Jowett delighted to recall the time when in consequence
of Calverley being sent down for some prank certain windows in
Hall were broken by resentful friends, and would tell how Dr.
Jenkyns, whose attention was called to this serious breach of
College windows and discipline, said, ' I rayther think, Mr. Dean,
that it was done by lightning.'
It was not the only time that the then master of Balliol, Dr.
Jenkyns, had a blind eye for a good purpose. For when, after
some College wine, an excited undergraduate, clad in white surplice,
had climbed into the chestnut-tree, and was making night hideous,
the Bursar had called the master's attention to it, Dr. Jenkyns,
peering up into the branches, replied, ' I rayther think I do see some
kind of white bird, Mr. Bursar.' Jowett always laughed as he told
this. Another story he delighted to recount was that of the rich
lady who, when asked to subscribe to the conversion of the Jews,
answered, ' No, not a penny ; they are quite rich enough to convert
themselves.' Nor could he ever mention Tait's reply to those who
condoled with him on the difficulty of an archiepiscopate — ' Yes,
yes ; but it has large compensations, you know ' — without a good
chuckle.
Jowett's kindness to the Jews was remarkable. He did not
proselytise ; on the contrary, he encouraged them to see that the
services of the synagogue should be organised and kept up in
Oxford. One of the most touching notices in memoriam of the
Master came from the pen of a Balliol Jew. But to return to
Jowett's humour.
This sense of humour, coupled with a swift insight into men's
minds, was a great engine in his hands. It enabled him on many
596 MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.
an occasion to turn the laugh, against the laugher. There are
those who remember how, at the end of a lecture, when he was
being pestered by a youth's questions as to the difference between
the conjunctive and subjunctive moods, he affected not to have
heard the questioner, and said, ' Will you be kind enough to
repeat the question ? ' Then the unfortunately rash one repeated
his foolish question, and Jowett, seeing that the whole class was
getting fidgety and restive at being thus detained, said, 'I
don't quite understand.' For the third time the youth, now
abashed by his own stupidity, and conscious of the indignation of
his companions, kept in durance, stammered out his question, and
the lecturer just blinked eyes and said, with the blandest smile,
' I really don't know,' and left it to the indignant class to settle
the question with the questioner.
Jowett was a close observer of faces as index to the mind, and
it was wonderful how accurate his diagnosis often was. I remember
hearing how he once looked upon the photograph of a lady —
famous since in the world of thought and philanthropy — whom he
had no personal acquaintance with, and how he said ' That lady
lives in a world of high moral excitement ' — which was certainly
and absolutely true.
But the power of the Master of Balliol lay also in his ability to
discriminate — to enter into the varied characters of the young men
who passed under his ken. ' If you want to be a successful teacher,'
he once said to the head master of a public school, ' you must
know the intellectual needs of every member of your class.' This
advice he acted on himself. With a surprising swiftness of insight,
he got by very few occasions of personal meeting a pretty accu-
rate idea of the mental and moral capacities of each member of
the College. He got to know more : he learned the peculiar
difficulties of the home-life — the pecuniary and other troubles
that hampered the progress of many in their start in life ; and it
is not too much to say that whenever and wherever there was a
bona fide need for sympathy and succour the Master was at the
pupil's side, the Master's voice in the pupil's ear, the Master's
purse in the pupil's hand. It it be true that the best things in a
good man's life are the little unremembered acts of constant
kindness, then the best of Jowett's life will never be recorded on
earth, for his right hand would not let his left hand know what it
did of charity and love.
And only those in far-off parts of the world can testify how
that love followed them constantly, and seemed to care, with
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 597
ceaseless and individual sympathy, for the quiet worker in the
distant field. It is true the Master always felt that nothing
succeeded like success, and would say pithily, 'Never retract,
never explain, never apologise ' — nay, would sometimes run risk of
being looked upon as of the world worldly in his precepts to
those who were just starting on their walk in life.
But all who knew the Master well knew that he cared as little
for success as a personal thing for his pupils as he had cared
for it for himself. What he coveted for them was the vantage
position from which they could help their time. He was some-
times accused of toadying to the grand and the great, because il
a nobleman entered at Balliol the Master kept his eye upon him.
But nothing could have been more false to fact or untrue to the
Master's character. All he desired was to get on such intimate
terms with the young scions of nobility as to influence their lives
and mould their characters for good. He knew to what power
they were born, and he was determined not to let the opportunity
slip of getting them to look on life with his own larger views, and
more unselfish eyes.
One of the attractive features of the Master's character to the
undergraduate mind was his sympathy with fields of thought and
knowledge into which he had never penetrated ; for the Master
was shockingly ignorant of some common things. He knew as
little about the make of his body as of the building-up of a
crystal. If he had been asked where his lungs were, or where
his heart lay, he could not have told you. The whole range of
physical and natural science was unexplored by him. But though
he did not talk enthusiastically about the newer sciences, and
made it possible for young wits to write —
I am Professor Benjamin Jowett,
All that can be known, I know it ;
I am the Master of this College,
What I know not, is not knowledge.
It was a gross libel upon his large-hearted sympathy with men in
other fields of labour ; and the young chemist, or doctor, or mathe-
matician, was as great an object of interest to him as even the
young Greek philosopher. And Jowett was never ashamed to say
;I don't know.' Indeed, it was touching to see how he would
encourage people to know what he did not. His saying, ' You
must cultivate conversational powers,' was perhaps caused by his
own feeling of his want of such power; and only a few weeks
before his death he patted a little girl upon the head, and said,
598 MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL.
with kindly smile, ' You must learn all about the flowers and
stars, and how to play whist ' — three branches of knowledge in
which he himself was a complete tyro.
Of Jowett as a preacher, one's memory of the appearance of
the man as he went and came from the pulpit almost obliterates
the memory of the matter of his discourse. A friend once
described him on these occasions as looking like ' an elderly cherub
made ready for bed.' The tone, too, of the word ' charity ' in his
favourite prefatory- collect always rings in one's ears. But though
these sermons seldom betrayed feeling, they generally contained
some pithy saying which stuck. In one of the last sermons
preached in the Abbey of Westminster, for example, he said,
' Better is the foolishness of the enthusiast than the wisdom of
the pessimist ; ' and such sayings as ' As you go forward in life
never expect too much, never hope for too little,' or such a message
as he gave the Clifton boys in his sermon on manners, ' There are
only two rules for good manners. One is, Always think of others ;
the other is, Never think of yourself,' remain as echoes that cannot
die. At times, it is true, when in his sermon he touched on the
character of a dead friend his voice trembled a little ; but generally
one felt the discourses were essays rather than exhortation. It has
been said that he seldom seemed to set forth the sinfulness of sin ; .,
yet, on the other hand, one who was at Balliol forty years ago once
told 'me that he had attended one of the short religious talks
which Jowett used then to give on Sunday evenings to a certain
number of seriously-disposed undergraduates, and he came away
with a conviction of the teacher's horror of sin which has remained
with him ever since.
Of his deep personal piety none could doubt ; of his fondness for
certain Psalms and hymns those who were intimate with him can
vouch. He did not care much for books of devotional exercise so
common nowadays ; but the fourteenth chapter of St. John will
be found graven on his heart. A man's religious belief is tested by
the presence of death. The Master had always an abiding sense
of the shortness and uncertainty of life ; but, as he told his friend
Rogers, he had set his house in order, made all his arrangements,
and meant to die like a Christian gentleman. He was quite cal
when the ' mute, unquestionable figure ' came up so close
years ago ; indeed, when nearly in extremis, he astonished his ni
by the quiet way in which he said, 'Nurse, you should never
look sad in a sick man's presence.' But he was glad to live. He
had two years' more .work he wished to do, and he was thankful
MEMORIES OF THE MASTER OF BALLIOL. 599
for what he called a respite. Those two years, he often said, were
very happy ones ; for the Master needed the affection of men,
and those two years were a revelation to him of their affection
and loving kindness towards him.
Besides, he got through the work he set his mind to do ; and
when at the last illness he finished the jotting down of his remi-
niscences of his dear friend Lord Tennyson, he could truly say,
as he did say, ' I can rest now ' — and so entered into the rest
that cannot be broken.
One other secret of Jowett's success with men was his eternal
youth of mind. It was a good object-lesson for them to find a
man past three score years and ten determining that a cricket-
ground should be obtained for the College, and taking upon him-
self the chief burden of soliciting, by private letters, subscriptions
for the purchase.
It was a good lesson in the need of catholic taste to find an
aged man, absolutely without any musical knowledge, determining
that the undergraduate mind should be moved by the harmony
of sweet sound to deeper feeling and finer sensibilities ; and
walking in Sunday after Sunday to the College-hall concert to
show that he felt music was — as Luther put it — ' a fair handmaid
of Grod and near allied unto Divinity.' One does not wonder
that all the audience rose on these occasions, as a matter of course,
to do him homage, as the Master walked, cap in hand, to his seat
upon the dais.
For here was a man who had fought a good fight for the sake
of truth, tolerance, justice, and the cause of a higher idea of
what education should be — still in the van of all wise reform,
still able to startle and surprise men by the newness of his ideas,
and the novelty of his methods to meet the new needs of his
day ; not only master of the art of getting men to work for others
than themselves, but master of the art of securing their noblest
sympathy and insuring their most affectionate regard.
It was not only as Master of the College but master of the
College servants that he will be long remembered. Those who on
the funeral day spoke with the College porter and the College
scout, or talked with the faithful housekeeper and the servants at
the Master's lodge, know well how true and thoughtful a friend
they felt they had lost ; and can realise how fine an example of
the Christian type of generous English gentleman went away
from Oxford when the Master of Balliol died. ' My love to the
College ' were his last words.
600
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
HI
NEWEBA-ELIYA,
THE mountain railway of Ceylon ascends to a height of six
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and in the journey
from the tropical plains of Colombo to the highland sanatorium of
Newera-Eliya we pass, between sunrise and sunset, from the torrid
to the temperate zone. After leaving Kandy the line traverses a
wilderness of palm and bamboo, with the silvery waters of the
swift Mahaelli-Granga shining through the green vistas of feathery
foliage. Beyond the luxuriant verdure of these shadowy woods
lies the great tea district of Hatton, where the terraced mountain-
sides are ruthlessly cleared of jungle and disfigured by the rows
of round green bushes, clipped until no projecting leaf or twig
breaks their rigid uniformity of outline. Higher ' still the glossy
foliage and snowy blossoms of the coffee plantations extend for
many miles, sheltered by the blue peaks of Dimbulla. Mountain
streams swirl through rocky gorges, and the music of falling water
fills the air, as our upward way penetrates a sea of drifting clouds
which float in fleecy masses round the flanks of the hills, and
shroud the village of Nanuoya, where the coach for Newera-Eliya
awaits the arrival of the train. The road borders a forest-clad
gorge, with tall cliffs towering overhead and a turbulent river
foaming through the deep ravine below. The region of palm and
cocoa-nut is left far behind, but magnificent tree-ferns take their
place, clinging to the rocky precipices and fringing the deep glens
with branching fronds. The lofty tableland of Newera-Eliya, at
the summit of the pass, seems far removed from the tropical world
of sunshine and colour, -and the comparative bleakness of the
desolate scenery suggests a Scottish moorland rather than an
equatorial 'patena.' Virgin forest clothes the mountains which
enclose the green and marshy plain. A melancholy lake winds
between wooded shores, and the abrupt outline of the black Hak-
galla Peak — in native parlance, the 'jaw ' of the mountain chain —
cuts sharply into the foreground. Evening closes in with mist
and rain, and a welcome log-fire burns cheerily on the open hearth;
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 601
the yellow gleam of an unseen sunset fails to brighten the lonely
landscape, and, as the mountain winds moan through the swaying
boughs of sighing pines, we turn with a shiver from the dreary
prospect to the ruddy glow of the firelit room.
A radiant morning follows the wet and windy night. The
roses of dawn fade into the infinite azure of a cloudless sky, and
the cool breath of the mountain air is an elixir of life. The grey
tower of a tiny church rises beyond an avenue of golden wattles ;
pink and yellow bungalows nestle among clumps of trees, and the
straggling native village which forms the nucleus of the mountain-
station is just waking up to the business of the day. The first
expedition from this little Cingalese ' city of the plain ' is the
ascent of Pederutallagalla — commonly abbreviated into ' Pedro ' —
the highest point of Ceylon, eight thousand feet above the sea and
two thousand feet beyond Newera-Eliya. A pretty bridle-path
climbs the mountain, clothed from base to summit with primeval
forest, the gnarled and knotted branches of the ancient trees
festooned with heavy wreaths of soft green moss, dripping with
dew as they sway in the balmy breeze. The steep ascent ends in
a long green ridge strewn with mossy boulders, in which guava-
bushes have taken root ; but, though ripening berries glow among
the grey leaves, the luscious fruit loses its accustomed sweetness
at this lofty altitude, and our desire for new experiences is soon
satisfied. From the present vantage-point all the mountain ranges
of Ceylon are visible tier above tier, chiselled like cones of tur-
quoise against the paler blue of the rain-washed sky. Even the
shadows of each rocky cleft and glen seem but rays of intensified
light throwing purple gleams across the vivid blue. The serrated
heights of Totapella, the sharp ridge of Naminakulia, and the bold
cone of Peacock Mountain rise in sculptured outlines before us,
while the majestic pyramid of Adam's Peak soars upward into
heaven like a mighty altar, consecrated by countless ages of fer-
vent devotion. This famous centre of Buddhist and Mohammedan
pilgrimage has been reverenced as holy ground almost from the
dawn of history. Myth and legend entwine the barren peak with
an unfading wreath of memories, like clinging ivy round a ruined
tower. The idea of Ceylon as the earthly Paradise culminates
here, where it probably originated, and the verdant loveliness of
the tropical island perpetuates the dream. A deep impression on
the rocky summit is reverenced by the Mohammedan as the foot-
print of Adam, who left this trace of his presence in the Eden
602 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
from whence he was expelled to remind his descendants of the
bitter consequences ensuing from the Fall. The tradition of
the Buddhist world is a variation of the same story, the gigantic
footprint being ascribed to Buddha, who impressed it upon the
mountain-top when he crossed over from Ceylon to Siam with
one mighty stride, thenceforth constituting the ' Kingdom of the
White Elephant ' the centre of Buddhism. A constant stream of
pilgrims flows to the sacred mountain, climbing the painful stairs
and perilous ladders of the steep ascent to the shrines which crown
the peak, careless of the inevitable sufferings of hunger, thirst,
and weariness aggravated by the vertical rays of the equatorial sun
beating with fierce intensity upon the unsheltered cone. Only
the tireless patience of the Oriental could in many cases accom-
plish a task which proves such a terrible ordeal to the aged and
the sick that they often die in the attempt ; but the sacrifice of
life itself is not without consolation to the faithful pilgrim, for
death on this sacred journey is regarded as a sure entrance within
the open gate of heaven, and Buddhist self-renunciation joins
hands with Moslem fatalism to smooth the rugged path which
leads to ' Paradise regained.'
The magnificent panorama from the summit of Pedro embraces
the whole island, and as we turn from the amphitheatre of sunlit
mountains the eye ranges over a wilderness of sombre jungle, the
lair of the leopard and the haunt of the cobra, to the blue sea
breaking on the eastern coast eighty miles away.
Presently the scene changes, and snowy billows of cloud rise
from the deep valleys, and extend for scores of miles and thou-
sands of feet below us, while rifts in the veil of wreathing vapour
disclose momentary glimpses of fields and forests far away. The
weird effect of the strange transformation-scene suggests some
magic vision of a tropical Eden revealed through Arctic snows.
As the dense white clouds roll upward, and envelope the exposed
ridge on which we stand, their icy chill soon drives us down the
steep incline, and through flying mists and moss-wreathed trees
we discern the green plains of distant Newera-Eliya, basking in
sunshine which turns the winding lake into a sparkling mirror of
burnished silver.
The Botanical Gardens of Hakgalla, rich in the typical vege-
tation of the temperate zone, are reached by a wooded defile,
widening after the first six miles to display a panoramic view over
the province of Uva, where successive ranges of grassy hills sweep
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 603
up from intervening valleys terraced and cultivated with rice, to
blue chains of distant mountains. A still finer prospect of this
remote province may be seen from the picturesque summer-house
of the Gardens. In the foreground rises the great Hakgalla Peak,
a noble forest-fringed rock which plays an important part in pro-
moting the fine weather for which Uva is celebrated. Standing
out in bold relief from the lower hills as a shoulder to the moun-
tain system of Ceylon, this frowning height is situated meteoro-
logically just on the borders of the two monsoons. When the
tempestuous rains and drifting mists of the south-west monsoon
sweep wildly across the island from the western coast, and rush
over the mountain ranges towards Hakgalla, the rock acts as an
impassable barrier to the fury of the elements. Beyond this
phenomenal peak lies a land of perpetual calm and sunshine,
where no rain falls, and to which no cloud can travel ; or if an
occasional wreath of mist should break away from the gloomy
thunder-pile which broods over the western sky, it is speedily
dissolved into transparency by the brilliant climate of Uva. We
may stand on one side of the Hakgalla Peak within the region
of the monsoon, and look through the last veil of rain draped
between heaven and earth to the sun-scorched hills of Uva, thirst-
ing for the refreshing showers which descend so near, though
forbidden by some mysterious law of nature to pass beyond the
prescribed limit. Eight hundred native villages are scattered
over this apparently deserted province, into which European
influences have scarcely penetrated, and an extension of the rail-
way to Haputalle, on the borders of these grassy heights, is the
only link between Uva and civilisation. A solitary shepherd
driving his flock across the withered grass accentuates the loneli-
ness of this pastoral province lying parched beneath the eternal
blue of a cloudless sky, while the adjacent region is green and
fertile, cooled by mountain winds and fed by frequent showers.
The agricultural value of Uva will be quadrupled should the
Government accomplish the proposition of planting trees on the
sunny hills in order to attract the rainfall now diverted by the
magnetic influence of the Hakgalla Peak.
Within the Botanical Gardens the vegetation of temperate and
sub-tropical climates finds a congenial soil, and even the familiar
flowers of English lanes and hedgerows struggle for a feeble exist-
ence among the floral spoils of warmer latitudes. The trellised
arches of a rosary surround a central fountain with bloom and
604 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
fragrance; great bushes of heliotrope and geranium alternate
with thickets of white and yellow marguerites, pink camellias
grow to the size of forest trees, and crimson tacsonia twines round
branch and stem. A hedge of lemon verbena scents the air,
datura swings its creamy chalices in the breeze, and multitudes of
unknown blossoms, plants, and trees attest the infinite varieties
of exotic growth which thrive in this favoured spot.
The cool green glades of the fernery look like ideal haunts of
nymph and fairy ; stately tree-ferns spread verdant canopies over-
head, and the tempered sunlight filters through the feathery
fronds in flickering streams of emerald radiance. Masses of pale
green maidenhair and filmy lace-fern border rippling brooks and
nod over foaming cascades crossed by rustic bridges, their wooden
lattice-work concealed by a thick growth of elm and beech fern
rooted in crevice and cranny. Hart's-tongue, of abnormal height
and size, sways broad green leaves oyer crystal pools, and variegated
plumes of gold and silver fern wave above mossy boulders. A
forest of tropical ferns in endless variety lines a deep dell, and
the green twilight of the secluded bowers enhances their visionary
loveliness with suggestions of glamour and mystery.
The splendour of the tree-ferns peculiar to the highlands of
Ceylon reaches a climax in the magnificent gorge of Kandepolla,
where gigantic fronds ten feet in length bend over the waterfalls,
which leap from crag to crag and swell the torrent dashing
through the dark ravine. In the typical vegetation of the differ-
ent zones nature seems to obey some immutable law of form
which lies behind her operations as grammar lies behind language,
controlling outward expression and bringing order from chaos.
The tree-fern of the mountain heights, in drooping frond and
pillared stem, imitates the sweeping curves of the graceful cocoa-
nut which decks the lower levels with myriad slender shafts and
feathery crowns, symbolising the acme of tropic luxuriance.
Even the mosses which cushion each rocky niche carry out the
prevailing type, and in their delicate stalks and fragile plumes
resemble a miniature forest of mimic palms.
The road to Kandepolla skirts the rugged shoulder of Pedro,
known as the Lovers' Leap, and celebrated as the scene of a
romantic Cingalese legend.
A Kandyan prince of olden time when elephant-hunting in
the jungle became separated from his companions in the chase,
and lost his way amidst the dark labyrinth of tangled trees. He
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 605
was guided back to the path by a beautiful Kandyan girl of
low caste, who emerged from one of the forest glades as the
young prince stood in doubt beneath a lofty palm which marked
the intersection of two diverging tracks. Admiration soon
warmed into love, and the remonstrances of the king only
strengthened his son's determination to espouse the dusky nymph
of the woods. The old monarch vindicated the outraged dignity
of the Kandyan crown by exercising the royal prerogative, and
forbidding the unequal marriage ; but his commands were set at
naught by the elopement of the lovers, who fled to the woods,
pursued by the king's warriors. Day by day the fugitives
retreated farther into the recesses of the mountains, climbing
ever onward through the tangled jungle into the veil of drifting
cloud which hid pursuers and pursued, until -they reached the
wild forests which clothed the unknown heights of Pedro. The
whistle of arrows and the glint of spears through the dark
foliage at length showed that the soldiers were close upon them,
just as they arrived on the verge of a sheer precipice which cut
off their advance. Preferring instant death to capture and its
accompanying tortures, the lovers locked themselves together in
a farewell embrace and leaped over the cliffs into the dark valley
two thousand feet below. Still, when the full moon silvers the
black precipice of the Lovers' Leap, the native wayfarer passes
with fear and trembling along the road beneath, and mutters a
wild incantation as he grasps the amulet around his neck, afraid
to look upward to the spot where his superstitious fears picture
a shadowy figure crowned with waving plumes and bending
over a weeping girl, who haunts the summit where the last kiss
was pressed upon her dying lips. The mournful tale of passion
and despair invests the Kandepolla route with a pathetic charm,
but the grandeur of the scenery is excelled by the Eambodde
Pass, which skirts another mountain gorge. Within the sheltered
wall of the fern-fringed mountains orange-trees bend beneath a
weight of golden fruit, their snowy blossoms mingling with the
trailing garlands of pale blue passion-flower which festoon each
bush and tree. Gorgeous caladiums line every watercourse, and
yellow calceolarias grow thickly on the turf as cowslips in an
English meadow. Scarlet sheaves of salvia and stately arum
lilies bloom side by side, and vie in beauty with the climbing
roses which flourish in this temperate clime to unexampled
perfection.
606 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
The fascination of the lovely road culminates at the summit
of the pass in a magnificent view across the mountain ranges to
the Eastern sea. The sun is just sinking into the sapphire depths,
and flushing the golden glow of the sky with unearthly hues of
rose and amethyst, until the overarching heaven seems ethereal-
ised into a transparent veil, suffused with the mystic radiance of
some hidden glory far beyond earthly ken.
A bearded native, in white skirt and plaid jacket, watches us
with wondering eyes, as he sits down by the road-side to smooth
out his oily black tresses before rolling them into a large chignon
secured by a tortoiseshell comb ; and a brown boy, clad only in a
string of beads and the proverbial smile, pursues us with eager
attentions until driven from the field by a dusky maiden in the
comparatively full dress of a silver necklace and a yellow flounce.
She demands instant payment for her services, with evident
confidence in the irresistible nature of her charms, and on
receiving her easily-earned douceur scampers back to the rustic
toll-bar over which she presides, to dispute the passage of a
bullock-cart which lumbers heavily up the hill, laden with green
and purple sugar-cane from the torrid plains below. The upland
plains or ' patenas ' of the mountain heights are wholly different
in character. A walk of eight miles takes us round the Moon
Plains, past the lake and the pretty pink bungalow of the
bishop's family, whose kindly hospitality is one of the bright
memories belonging to Newera-Eliya. Leaving the water-side,
the road traverses a green plateau full of discarded moonstone
pits, from which the patenas take their name. The stones are
still so plentiful in the district that the washing of gravel in
search of various gems is a favourite amusement with visitors,
whose perseverance is often rewarded by a promising collection of
moonstones, garnets, and tourmalines. The solitude of the scene
is only enlivened by a distant thud of hoofs across the turf, as two
officers from the neighbouring barracks gallop across the plain for
their morning ride. The road winds away into the dark depths of
a beautiful ravine, and emerges at the head of the Barrack Lake,
a narrow sheet of water extending to a second green patena which
completes the circuitous route to the village of Newera-Eliya.
An expedition to the Elk Plains is still more interesting,
but should only be undertaken with a native guide. The road
descends for two miles to the iron bridge over the Nanuoya, a
river which rises near the top of 'Pedro,' and after flowing
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 60?
through the Newera-Eliya Lake leaps onward in successive cataracts
to the village which bears its name. The first of the falls is
spanned by a mossy bridle-path bridge, and before it was made many
an early colonist had to choose between crossing the swollen river
on foot at the peril of his life or passing the night amidst the
corresponding dangers of the lonely forest. A rugged path ascends
to the Lady's "Waterfalls, two lovely cascades foaming down from
steep cliffs, and spreading out like snowy fans on vast sheets of
grey rock at the base. Higher up lies the Black Pool, a lonely
tarn overshadowed by forest trees, with a gurgling stream pouring
into it from above. Retracing our steps to the bridle-road, we
ascend in half an hour to the Elk Plains, which extend in silent
solitude before us. Here we are in the absolute wilderness of
upland Ceylon, where the virgin beauty and freshness of Nature
unspoilt by man instils a new sensation into every soul which
vibrates to her mysterious voice. The rolling green patenas are
cut off sheer and straight from the encircling belts of jungle as
though measured off by human hands, a striking feature of these
elevated regions which has never been satisfactorily explained.
The mountain ranges which enclose the grassy plains are clothed
from base to summit with primeval forest, heavily draped with
moss which forms a green fringe hanging from every bough. An
appalling loneliness broods over the scene, no song of bird stirs
the silence, and the death-like hush which reigns over the gloomy
forest is unbroken even by the rustle of a leaf; for noon is the
midnight of the tropics, and the black depths of the haunted
jungle are wrapped in spellbound sleep. At nightfall the lithe
cheetah glides stealthily through the shadows, and couches for his
prey among the crowding trees. The branching antlers of the
elk rise above the tangled undergrowth, and the moose-deer
browses in the shade of the mossy boughs along which the wild-
cat creeps, while the savage boar roots among the fallen leaves.
When the rising moon illuminates the lonely landscape, herds of
wild elephants emerge from the dark jungle and roam over the
vast expanse of desolate country which still renders the interior
of Ceylon almost an unknown land. The elephant grass, which
breaks the uniformity of the undulating plain with rustling
sheaves of long green spears, is the forage for which the stragglers
of the herd scour the patenas, and many Cingalese superstitions
linger round this elevated tableland. . The recent spoor of an
elephant marks our track, and ceases at a deep pool known to be
608 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
a favourite drinking-place of the wild animals which haunt the
jungle. A deaf elephant frequently perambulates the Elk Plains ;
he is supposed to be sacred to Buddha and therefore invulnerable,
no sportsman having hitherto succeeded in piercing his hide — a
fact probably due to the great age of the animal.
The spice of danger which attends this excursion gives it a
strange fascination. Who can tell what unknown terrors are
lurking within the black walls of forest which gradually encroach
upon the narrowing patena until it becomes merely a green glade
between the dense masses of impenetrable jungle? Before the
rough track enters the forest which fills up the foreground the
deepening gloom and oppressive silence impress the Cingalese
guide with a sudden sense of danger, and he counsels a speedy
return. The spoor of the elephant seems, in the first instance, to
have excited his fears ; but the native mind moves slowly, and his
sluggish imagination has only just grasped the possibility of being
chased by some infuriated animal. The happy unconsciousness of
definite peril is destroyed at a blow, and a graphic description of
the different modes of attack adopted by elephant and wild-boar
scarcely tends to reassure us. The boundary-line of prudence has
evidently been passed, although we escape unmolested; for the
wild beasts are asleep in their lairs, and our quickened footsteps
soon travel back to civilisation. On the confines of the Elk Plains
we pause to contemplate the silent scene, which suggests such a wide
range of novel ideas. These pastures, on which elk and elephant
feed and fatten, are about to lose their wild and melancholy charm
owing to the formation of a syndicate for prospecting the upland
patenas in search of sapphires, rubies, gold and tin. The elephants
are so numerous on the higher plateaux beyond the forest that
a small rest-house within twenty miles of Newera-Eliya, being left
for a few weeks without a custodian, was battered down by a dis-
approving herd. The barbaric-looking Veddas, recognised as the
true aborigines of Ceylon, though fast dying out before the march
of advancing civilisation, are still to be found encamped amid the
fastnesses of nature on the highest and loneliest points, and
especially near a spot known as ' The World's End,' beyond the
loftiest range of patenas. This tremendous precipice overlooks
the rich and fertile country seven thousand feet beneath, flourish-
ing with every industry of Eastern life and European civilisation,
but separated from the great upland solitudes by an impassable
abyss which but few human eyes have ever looked across. The
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 609
infinite variety of Cingalese scenery can only be fully realised by
a visit to these elevated plains, almost untrodden save by European
sportsmen or native hunters.
Heavy clouds are gathering over the summer sky, and the low
roll of distant thunder echoes across the mysterious wilderness as
a vivid flash of lightning disturbs our reverie and necessitates
instant departure. Crowds of coolies are hurrying away from the
tea-estates in the valley to seek shelter from the approaching
storm, carrying their weekly dole of rice just distributed from
heavily-laden waggons roofed with palm-leaf thatch. A black
pall, riven by red arrows of lightning, now shrouds the heavens
and darkens the earth, deafening peals of thunder reverberate
through the mountain glens, and as we reach Newera-Eliya the
tempest bursts with tropical fury in sheets of rain and hurricanes
of wind, which rave across the open plains and tear up forest trees,
revealing those terrible forces of nature which often sleep until
their existence is forgotten under the cloudless blue of equatorial
skies.
IV.
ANAEADHUPUEA.
The historic past of Ceylon recedes into that twilight of
dreamland and myth which veils the infancy of the world in a
golden haze of mystery, but the monumental memorials of the
island authenticate the stirring drama of national life centred in
Anaradhupura, ' the magnificent/ once the mighty capital of an
ancient civilisation. The ruined city was buried for ages in an
ever-increasing wilderness of jungle, which gradually effaced
every vestige of human habitation. The lofty monoliths and
columns were concealed by overarching boughs of forest trees, or
strangled in the embrace of matted creepers which flung trailing
wreaths and clasping tendrils in wild luxuriance round broken
arch and ruined pillar, weaving inextricable meshes of verdure,
and even transforming the cyclopean daghobas into the sem-
blance of forest-clad hills. Litera scripta manet, and when
in 1830 the deep green grave of equatorial vegetation yielded up
its dead, it also disclosed the archives of the buried city, im-
perishably graven in the stones of her temples and palaces, and
preserved from decay by the dense curtain of tropical greenery
which excluded air and light. The discoverer of the architectural
VOL. XXI. — NO. 126, N.S. 28
610 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
marvels hidden in the forest depths of the central province was
one Lieutenant Skinner, an English engineer, who during his
survey of the interior cut his way through the jungle, and in
felling a tree which obstructed his operations stripped a tangled
mass of foliage from a sculptured capital which rose above the
thick undergrowth. As the little band of pioneers advanced
farther into the woods their axes rang against the stone walls of
numerous enclosures, startling the wild animals from their lairs
among ruined colonnades and deserted palaces, for centuries the
undisturbed haunts of elephant, leopard, and deer. Peacocks
trailed their gorgeous plumage along the stone pavement of
flower-wreathed halls, and rosy clouds of flamingoes flew away
with shrill cries from sculptured tanks where pelicans waded and
fished in the shallow water. The report of the English engineers
resulted in a special archaeological survey, and the buried city was
at length disinterred from her verdant tomb. The efforts of anti-
quarians were crowned with unexpected success, the numerous
inscriptions being deciphered and explained, every onward step
revealing fresh wonders to the scientific society which, with the
sanction of the English Government, commenced and continued a
systematic investigation of the extensive ruins. Corresponding
instances of antiquarian discovery may be found in those Etruscan
excavations of Northern Italy which proved the existence of for-
gotten dynasties in prehistoric times ; but though the unknown
story of Etruria remains an inscrutable mystery, the historical annals
of Anaradhupura are preserved by indisputable ' sermons in stones.'
The journey from Kandy to the buried city is now easily ac-
complished by a branch line which runs through groves of
cocoa-nut palms to Matale, a straggling native town in the
midst of tea and coffee plantations. The early departure of the
coach on the following morning necessitates a halt for the night
at a little rest-house for travellers, and the remaining hours
of daylight are occupied by a visit to the rock temple of Aluwi-
hara, an ancient Buddhist shrine three miles away, containing
two curious sanctuaries hewn out of the solid rock. A painted
Buddha of colossal size and unutterable ugliness is exhibited with
triumphant satisfaction by two yellow-robed monks, who escort us
up rocky stairs and rude ladders to the topmost crag, which
commands a fine panorama of blue mountains and waving woods.
The roofs and walls of the yawning caverns which honeycomb the
cliffs are lined with hundreds of huge bats, which cling to the
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 611
rock and hang in dark masses overhead, flapping their leathern
wings with a noise like the whizzing of a steam-engine. The simple-
minded monks decline our proffered gratuity with the courteous
remark that they wish to give pleasure to the strangers, but not
to be paid for doing so. The genuine kindliness of these rural
ascetics shows a higher ideal of religious duty than that of their
brethren in places where contact with the world has rubbed off
the bloom from the tender fruit of faith, and the gentle reproof
surprises us with the fact that Buddhism, as well as Christianity,
accepts the maxim that ' it is more blessed to give than to receive.'
A green lane through which we return to Matale is a flowery vista
of tropical loveliness, bordered and canopied by high hedges of
datura trees, which meet overhead, swinging a thousand creamy
bells and scenting the air with narcotic perfume. The tempta-
tion to break off the flower-laden branches would prove irresistible
but for the repeated injunctions of an inexorable little guide, who
pronounces the delicate blossoms to be poisonous if carried in the
hand. At daybreak the lumbering coach starts for Anarad-
hupura, fifty miles farther along the great highway to Jaffua, the
northern sea-port of Ceylon, and the usual landing-place of the
Tamil coolies who migrate from Southern India to labour on the
tea and coffee plantations of the island. The completeness of
English organisation is exemplified on this great coolie route of
more than two hundred miles. The improvident Tamil, destitute
of all the appliances of civilisation, and taking no thought for the
morrow, would often perish on the way, either from hunger or
exposure to a vertical sun and tropical storms, but for the pro-
tection of the Government, which establishes rest-houses for
coolies at intervals of ten miles, where shelter can be obtained
and their scanty needs supplied. A coolie hospital, with an
attendant European doctor, may be found every fourteen miles, and
at these medical stations the sick are detained and tended, each
immigrant undergoing strict examination, stringent precautions
being taken to prevent the introduction of any infectious disease
from India into Ceylon.
The long, straight road traverses the gloomy depths of the
primeval forests, which extend for scores of miles on both sides.
Shadowy paths, which lead to native villages buried in the dark
recesses of the mysterious jungle, wind through the black mazes
of interlacing trees, and in the monotonous grandeur of the rolling
woods we realise that mystic charm peculiar to the wild solitudes
28—2
612 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
of untrammelled nature. The loneliness of the forest is occa-
sionally varied by a rustic town which borders the road with
palm-thatched huts and quaint stores of rude pottery, fruit, and
tea. The rural population assemble to witness the arrival of the
Royal Mail, with the slender budget of letters for English civilians
of the provincial and forest departments. Sometimes a native
messenger rushes breathlessly from the jungle to carry off the
post to some distant forest camp from the coach, which is the
solitary link with the outside world now that we are beyond the
region of railways. A few clearings at the roadside give glimpses
of bright green rice-fields, and crops of tobacco sheltered by
curtains of rustling bananas. The monotony of the long drive is
only broken by the constant change of the dilapidated team and
the invariable difficulty of getting the new steeds under way, the
whole complement of passengers being frequently required to
descend and lend a hand either for pushing or pulling. The
merry little party, consisting of an Indian officer, an English
surveyor of village tanks, and a Portuguese burgher employed in
the Civil Service as a ranger of forests, evidently appreciate the
fun ; but a native servant of the Governor, accompanying his
master's baggage to Jaffua, now in dire straits of famine, declines
to leave his treasures even for a moment. Anaradhupura has
lately been inaccessible to visitors, owing to the furniture of the
Government rest-house being requisitioned for the forest camp
of the Austrian Archduke during his elephant-hunt in the pro-
vince, where he has shocked the susceptibilities of Cingalese
sportsmen by shooting a ' herder ' instead of a ' rogue ' — a faux
pas equivalent in their eyes to aiming at a milch-cow in a farm-
yard. As his Imperial Highness has shot six thousand head of
game in the course of the previous year his skill cannot be called
in question, though his knowledge may be at fault ; and, happily
for us, having slain his elephant, such as it is, the great man has
broken up his camp and returned to the low country.
Slowly the day wears on ; the sunset-light turns the great
thickets of yellow daisies into a flame of colour, and glitters on the
curious white and scarlet leaves, fried by the natives as vegetables,
which relieve the dark green of the tropical woods. A black snake,
sunning himself on the road, glides swiftly into the jungle, and as
the glow fades from the sky, and the great stars shine out like
lamps through the purple darkness of the Eastern night, the coach
stops at a bungalow hemmed in by black walls of forest, and a long
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 613
row of lofty columns, looming mysteriously through the shadows,
shows that we have at last reached the end of our journey. The
little Government rest-house — cool, clean, and comfortable — is a
welcome haven after the heat of the weary day, and we think
pityingly of our Cingalese companion, with the prospect of two
days and nights in the ramshackle coach before it can arrive at
Jaffua. The flush of dawn still reddens the sky as we survey our
surroundings next morning from the wide verandah. The rest-
house stands in the midst of a verdant and park-like expanse,
shaded by noble trees and bordered by dark aisles of forest. At
intervals tall grey monoliths rise from masses of rich vegetation
which clothe the base of every soaring column and crumbling wall
with the branching fronds of fern and those boldly-cut leaves
which make the commonest tropical weed a thing of beauty. The
kind English judge of the district simplifies the exploration of
the ruins by lending me his picturesque red cart, drawn by two
beautiful white bullocks, and driven by a brown native, airily clad
in a white handkerchief and turban. An expedition under the
blazing sun of the hottest place in Ceylon would otherwise be a
terrible ordeal, notwithstanding the delicious shade of the forest
trees. The ruins are divided into an outer and an inner circle,
and several quarters of the ancient city still lie buried beneath
the heavy pall of tropical verdure, though many square miles have
been cleared from the superincumbent masses of trees and para-
sites which weave their intricate network of root, branch, and
stem round the monuments of forgotten creeds and vanished
dynasties. The cyclopean daghobas, erected when Anaradhupura
accepted the tenets of Buddhism, are the most marvellous of her
existing relics ; but traces of a much earlier creed have been dis-
covered in this city of almost fabulous antiquity, where, according
to ancient Pali documents, one hundred and sixty-five kings
reigned in succession. The primitive religion seems to have been
a species of sun-worship, firmly established., by the growth of
centuries, and consequently so difficult of eradication that it even
permeated the later Buddhism, the sunward march of Buddhist
processions and the inculcations to sunward worship being observed
at a date when the original faith was professedly abandoned.
In the year B.C. 400 Anaradhupura covered an area of 2,563
square miles, and the measured distance from the northern to the
southern gate of the city was sixteen miles. This ancient Cin-
galese metropolis was built upon a level plain, the brown sand of
614 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
the causeways being clearly defined against the white sand of the
streets. The important thoroughfares described as Great King
Street, Sun, and Moon Streets in ancient Pali manuscripts, written
on the imperishable leaves of the talipot palm, sound curiously
familiar to modern ears, and the fact of special suburbs being
assigned to fakirs and to the worshippers of snakes and demons
suggests an advanced stage of religious toleration. In the Great
Brazen Palace a thousand priests occupied a monastery nine stories
high, each story being assigned to a different grade of the nine-
fold order. This rule necessitated the monks of highest eccle-
siastical rank inhabiting the cells immediately beneath the brazen
tiles of the lofty roof — a dubious honour for the aged and infirm
in an equatorial climate. Six hundred granite pillars supported
the Brazen Palace, surrounded by eight hundred brazen elephants,
and containing a golden image of the sun and a silver figure of
the moon beneath the white stone umbrella regarded as the
Eastern symbol of sovereignty.
The broken colonnades which still remain formed but a small
part of the original edifice ; green garlands twine round carved
lintel and decorated entablature, and long sprays of scarlet flowers
climb over the stone canoes placed outside the gateway to receive
the offerings of rice and saki made by faithful worshippers for the
support of the priesthood. The Peacock Palace of the Kings
occupies the original centre of the city, and the royal birds sculp-
tured on arch and cornice retain the sharpness of their chiselled
outlines, though nearly two thousand years have rolled away since
the last scion of Anaradhupura's sovereign line was slain upon the
battle-field. A large artificial lake forms the commencement of a
chain of ancient tanks extending for more than fifty miles, and
utilised as the present water supply of villages in the interior.
Numerous bathing-tanks, in wonderful preservation, have been
cleared from the jungle, which buried the ornamental scroll-work
and carving of their balustraded stairways and terraces. The
royal bathing-place bears a stone inscription, in the ancient
Cingalese language, derived from a Sanscrit root, stating that the
tank is for the exclusive use of the king. The remains of the
royal elephant-stables, also authenticated by an inscription, stand
near the spot, and at a respectful distance from the king's bath
we see eight large bathing-tanks and two smaller pools, divided
by a grassy terrace and a granite balustrade. The hoary statues
of kings and saints which rise on every side, in devotional attitudes,
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 615
from the green tangle of luxuriant foliage testify to the religious
character of Anaradhupura. In the year B.C. 307 the city
accepted Buddhism at the hands of Mahindo, a royal missionary
from the Indian peninsula, and the mighty daghobas which still
tower above the forests became the outward expression of a
deepening spiritual life. These bell-shaped shrines, built for the
reception of sacred relics and costly offerings, were surmounted by
the tall spire known as a tee. The subsequent mode of access to
each daghoba was only revealed to the priesthood, and the great
reliquaries were held in special reverence by the multitude, who
wreathed the sacred domes on festivals with ropes of flowers — a
task still performed by the hand of nature during the perpetual
feast of blossoms which she celebrates in this tropical land.
In the year B.C. 161 King Diitughurimu deposited the relics
in Kuanweli, or ' the Daghoba of Grolden Dust,' now a massive
dome of red brick covered with trees seeded by wandering birds,
and surrounded by ruins of elephants in creamy chunam smooth
as polished marble, and formerly enriched by tusks of real ivory.
The dying king was carried round this daghoba, and laid on a
carpet before it, in order that his last glance might rest upon the
shrine which he had built. The priests by whom the monarch
was enslaved endeavoured to calm his fears of the unknown
future by extolling the meritorious work which he had accom-
plished ; but his only comfort in the hour of death was the recol-
lection of some simple deeds of kindness shown to the poor and
needy. The daghoba had been erected as an act of atonement for
eating a curry, with its accompanying chilis and sambals, without
setting aside the prescribed portion for the priests. The foundation-
stones of the shrine were trodden down by elephants wearing
leathern shoes to protect their tender feet, and the fourfold super-
structure was composed of clay, cement, sandstone, and brass, a
glass tee crowning the summit in order to avert the lightning. A
slab of granite marks the spot where the royal penitent expired,
and his traditional tomb faces the shrine. The Abayagirya
daghoba, fifty feet higher than St. Paul's Cathedral, covers an area
of eight acres, enclosed by the ruined cells and chapels of a priestly
college. On the crescent-shaped ' moonstones ' of the ancient
portals the seven-headed cobra, a Cingalese emblem of vigilance,
is represented amidst garlands of flowers. This daghoba was
built to commemorate the expulsion of the Malabar invaders, and
the recovery of the throne by the hereditary line. The gigantic
616 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
dome was tunnelled by order of the Government, in search of an
ancient religious library supposed to be hermetically sealed within
the walls, but nothing was discovered beyond some strings of rude
beads, probably the rosaries common to all historic creeds as the
memoria technica of the uneducated. A flight of rugged steps
ascends through tangled verdure to the summit of the daghoba,
which commands a noble view of park and forest scenery, dotted
with granite monoliths and broken columns, which extend beyond
a line of tanks to the blue peaks of distant mountains.
In the green recesses of the gloomy forest stands the great
Thuparama daghoba, the ' Delight tof the Gods,' venerated as a
shrine of extraordinary sanctity. The usual spiral tee here gives
place to seven umbrellas of carven stone, tapering upward in
diminishing stories, and signifying the royal supremacy of this
imposing structure — the mighty casket built to contain a collar-
bone of Buddha. A tall Palmyra palm • and a temple-tree laden
with a perfumed wealth of snowy blossom have seeded themselves
on the green mound, adding to the pyramidal form of the noble
daghoba. One hundred and thirty white pillars, with richly-
carved capitals, stand out in bold relief from a dark background of
forest trees, and mark the site of a second ecclesiastical college as
large as many an English county town, the vicinity of the
Thuparama daghoba to the monastery being regarded as an
inestimable religious privilege. An additional consecration was
bestowed on this hallowed spot in A.D. 311, when the ruined
temple opposite the shrine was selected for the first resting-place
of Buddha's Sacred Tooth, carried in solemn procession to the
mountain sanctuary of distant Kandy by roads strewn ankle-deep
in fragrant flowers. Anaradhupura contains seven cyclopean
daghobas, and the three described above, and commonly known as
the shrines of preaching, prayer, and adoration, take precedence
of all others. The smaller daghobas scattered over the vast area
of the ruined city contained the ashes of cremated monks and
nuns reverenced as Buddhist saints. The forest-clad mountains
of brickwork, with the exception of the brazen Ruanweli daghoba,
were originally faced with costly chunam, composed of burnt
oyster-shells pounded in cocoa-nut water, mixed with the gum of
fruit-trees, and the marble purity of the snowy domes soaring into
the deep blue of the tropical sky produced an effect of dazzling
magnificence as they reflected the radiance of the sun from every
polished surface. Various animals and birds are represented with
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 617
life-like accuracy on architrave and pediment, where the lion,
elephant, horse, and bullock alternate with the royal peacock and
the sacred geese, universally reverenced by Eastern nations, though
the origin of the cult is lost in antiquity. The lotus occupies the
same position in the decorative treatment of column and corbel as
the acanthus in Greek architecture. The luxuriant growth of
these sacred flowers, which open their rose and azure chalices by
thousands in every tank and pool, probably results from the
immense demand for the symbolical blossom in the bygone days
of Anaradhupura's power and pride. Traces of sun-worship linger
in the veneration of the lotus, sacred to Buddhist and Brahmin
as to the early Egyptians, whose mystic rites correspond in
numerous details with the various religious systems of India. The
mysterious flower, which sinks below the water at sunset and rises
to the surface with the earliest beam of returning light, was
inseparably connected in the Oriental mind with those ideas of
Divine power and magnetic influence ascribed to the sun as the
sovereign ruler of the natural and spiritual worlds.
This ancient cultus culminated in the tropics, where the omni-
presence of the god of day was an incontrovertible fact impressed
upon the consciousness of the people with overwhelming force.
We find that in B.C. 288 a golden lotus was carried in an ark
to the sacred Bo-Tree of Anaradhupura, and that the priestly
procession worshipped sunward beneath the quivering leaves of
the green canopy overhead. This venerable tree, believed to be
the most ancient in the world and planted 2,183 years ago, was a
branch from the sacred peepul-tree of Buddha-Grya, and was
brought hither by Mahindo, the apostle of Buddhism, in B.C. 307.
The gnarled boughs of the original trunk, thinly veiled by a
fluttering cloud of triangular leaves terminating in sharp points,
rise in the midst of a thick grove sprung from the parent stock.
The Bo-Tree is still a centre of pilgrimage, and native groups are
now encamped before it, each family party sheltered by a gigantic
palm-leaf which serves as a tent, the yellow fronds, curiously
ribbed and fluted, forming fantastic curves and angles above the
dark faces of the gaily-clad pilgrims. The stone terraces and sculp-
tured steps of the paved enclosure, adorned with granite statues of
Buddha, were royal gifts offered in honour of the holy tree ; and
the sacred monkeys which from time immemorial have frequented
the grove were always maintained at the expense of the reigning
monarch, The Bo-Tree is held in such profound veneration that
2.8-3
618 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON,
every bough broken off by the wind is borne in solemn procession
round the enclosure, and finally cremated with elaborate funeral
ceremonies.
Notwithstanding the vigilance of the yellow-robed custodian
who follows me round the grove, I yield to the temptation of
gathering a few leaves as souvenirs of the living monument to
the early light which dawned upon the spiritual darkness of the
Eastern world. The young priest looks aghast at the temerity of
the unbeliever, and lays a restraining hand on mine as I raise it
to the sacred bough, but his indignant glance melts into a com-
passionate smile as I carefully place the treasures already secured
in a blotting-book. Perhaps further reflection suggests the
possibility of some occult virtue emanating from the consecrated
foliage with sufficient power to sanctify the sacrilege and convert
the heretic. A rock temple in a range of crags at the end of a
green glade contains curious chapels, approached by bamboo
ladders and bridges of palm-trees which climb dizzy heights and
span deep chasms. Several granite coffins lie outside the ruined
houses of the priests, flanked by the mystic ' yoga stones ' used
as mediums of divination and prophecy. Oil and sandalwood
were placed in the central hole and kindled into a flame, before
which the seer sat in rapt abstraction, until his fixed gaze pene-
trated beyond the blaze of sacred fire into the mysteries of those
upper and under worlds invisible to the natural man, but
revealed to the eye of faith. A steep cliff, wreathed with vines and
creepers, was the ancient citadel of Anaradhupura, and the caverns
originally used as the magazines and guard-rooms of this almost
impregnable fortress are now occupied by Buddhist hermits,
supported by doles of rice from the pilgrims, who place their
offerings in iron bowls left for the purpose on a ledge of rock
outside the caves.
The noonday heat descends almost in visible and palpable form
upon this ruined city of the jungle. The quivering atmosphere
waves and dances like a floating veil between heaven and earth,
while an unearthly hush steals over the forest, where foliage droops
and flowers close their petals under the intolerable glare. Only
the snakes which abound in fever-stricken Anaradhupura can brave
the white heat of the tropical furnace, and sun themselves during
the noontide hours with undisturbed security, while the patient
oxen lie panting in their stalls, and the most enthusiastic explorers
are compelled to take a siesta until the heat declines. Soon after
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 619
3 P.M. the leaves begin to whisper in their dreams, and a
faint, indefinable sense of waking life just stirs the drowsy silence
of the slumbering woods. The afternoon expedition round the
outer circle is an ideal sylvan drive. The rough cart-track pene-
trates the green depths of the shadowy forests, where perpetual
twilight broods beneath the sombre foliage of the stately ebony,
and golden sunbeams gleam through the pale-green branches of
slender satin-wood trees which relieve the gloom of the woodland
verdure with the smooth whiteness of their glistening stems.
Thickets of maidenhair spring from an emerald carpet of velvet
moss and choke the murmuring brooks which glide between
flowery banks and vanish amid the myriad trees, where the
intense hush is emphasised rather than broken by rippling stream
and fluttering leaf. The white bullocks drawing the red cart
beneath interlacing boughs harmonise with the rural loveliness of
the forest landscape, and in each green dell and woodland glade
ruined temples, kneeling statues, and overthrown columns hallow
the wilderness of tropical vegetation with countless memorials
of the mysterious past. At the roadside a colossal Buddha, black
with age and impressive as the Sphinx, smiles across the endless
leagues of forest in the unbroken calm of more than two thousand
years. A wreath of faded flowers and some ashes of burnt
camphor at the base of the statue show that a native peasant has
recently laid his simple offering before the hoary monument,
which bears eternal witness to the faith of bygone generations,
countless as the leaves whirled away on the breath of the storm.
The old religion, though not extinct, has degenerated from the
comparative purity of the stream at its source, and at the present
time a Buddhist monk, forbidden by the rule of his order to slay
even the gnat which stings him, is being tried by the provincial
judge for the murder of one of his brethren.
These impenetrable forests often aid the culprit to defeat the
ends of justice, and the native assassin who can thread the
labyrinths of the jungle generally contrives to baffle pursuit, and
to support himself on the wild fruits and berries of the woods until
beyond the reach of his accusers.
In the coolness of the sunset hour we ascend the Thuparama
daghoba by the rough steps and narrow paths which wind up to
the summit of the gigantic cone through tangled brushwood and
feathery fern. A flight of granite stairs gives access to the stone
galleries above the dome which command a full view of Mahintole,
620 JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON.
a forest-clad hill to which Mahindo was traditionally transported
through the air. A Via Sacra extended hither from Anaradhu-
pura, a distance of eight miles, the road being lined with temples,
shrines, and monasteries. The daghoba of Mahintole contains a
single hair plucked from the eyebrow of Buddha, and enclosed in
a mass of brickwork one hundred feet high. A perilous ledge on
the mountain-top is reverenced as Mahindo's bed; and a large
seven-headed cobra carved in the rock, and known as the Snake
Bath, marks the site of a sacred fountain. Eock chambers and
monastic ruins cover the hill, and the picturesque stairs, which
ascend through a grove of ironwood and tamarind-trees, bear
numerous inscriptions in Pali and Sanscrit, commemorating super-
natural favours experienced by pilgrims to this famous sanctuary.
Beyond Mahintole the grey cliffs of Trincomalee stand out in
sharp silhouette against the golden afterglow ; but the swiftly
falling night compels a hasty descent from our airy perch, and,
with a hurried glance at the recent excavations below the daghoba,
we regain the bullock-cart with frantic speed, rushing through the
long grass in terror of possible snakes, forgotten until the guide
alarms us with a realistic imitation of the hissing tic polonga, in
order to quicken loitering footsteps.
The gradual decay of Anaradhupura dates from the introduc-
tion of Tamil troops from Malabar into Ceylon, as supplementary
reinforcements of the native army. These hired mercenaries
overran the country, rebelled against the Cingalese kings, and
finally conquered the capital. They were in turn routed by the
native troops ; but the nucleus of the Tamil population remained
in Anaradhupura, and the alien race gradually regained its former
status. The Cingalese monarch was at length slain in a revolu-
tionary disturbance, and in A.D. 300 the royal race of the ' Children
of the Sun ' became extinct ; the city again fell into the hands of
the enemy, and a Tamil sovereign ascended the throne. Four
centuries later perpetual warfare raged in Anaradhupura between
the rival creeds of Buddhism and Brahminism, in consequence of
the Tamil usurpers inculcating the doctrines of their national
religion. The city became such a hotbed of fanaticism that
political interests were at a discount, and the king, after vainly
endeavouring to quell the strife, deserted Anaradhupura, and fixed
his capital at Pollonarua, in the south of the island. The adop-
tion of this stringent measure failed to secure peace, and the
religious contest was continued in the new metropolis until the
JANUARY DAYS IN CEYLON. 621
Portuguese invasion. This was succeeded by the Dutch occupa-
tion, followed in turn by the French and English rule, the fourfold
European race absorbing many of the native characteristics, and
gradually welding the mixed nationalities of Ceylon into cohesive
form.
On the return journey from Anaradhupura we halt to see the
five celebrated rock temples of Dambool, the typical Buddhist
sanctuary of Ceylon. Quaint frescoes of religious processions adorn
the walls of the principal temple, and long rows of yellow Buddhas,
interspersed with coloured figures of ancient Cingalese kings,
brighten the dim twilight of the cavernous interior. A recumbent
image hewn in the living rock looms in gigantic proportions from
the depths of this shadowy crypt, and is repeated in each of the
minor temples. Monastic cells perforate the cliffs, and a steep
path over slippery sheets of granite affords a final glimpse of the
mountains and forests which separate Anaradhupura from the
world. The golden light of evening suffuses the sky, and the
chirping of the little jungle-birds, those ' clocks of the forest 'which
for half an hour at dawn and sunset wake the woods with music,
now fills the air. Between glossy hedges of coffee a bullock-
waggon lumbers heavily along, laden with a gorgeous parasite
dreaded here as a noxious weed, but cherished in England as a
precious exotic. We utter an involuntary exclamation of horror
as the snowy clusters of velvety blossoms, with vivid scarlet
hearts, are tossed in huge heaps on the roadside and left to wither
in the sun.
As we descend the rocks the veil of night falls over the beauty
of the remote province so rich in mighty memories. We look
back regretfully on the shrine of that antique civilisation which
existed long before the predestined conquerors of Ceylon emerged
from the darkness of barbarism into the glimmering dawn, as it
stole through the benighted West with the pale promise of coming
day.
622
TWILIGHT.
A CLEAR pale sky — serene and autumn-cold ;
Thin floats the buoyant crescent silver keen
Through luminous far-drawn spaces, faintly green
Save for one long, low, lingering streak of gold ;
Blue mists the hushed and supine land enfold,
And dim the winding little river's sheen
Where, darkly clustered, shadowy willows lean,
And chill and heavy lie on plain and wold.
Now as the daylight's eager voices fade
And life is narrowed to a shrinking span,
A twilight breadth of calm and peace and shade,
Now on the hot and restless heart of man,
From individual hopes and fears set free,
A quiet touch from out the unknown is laid —
The thought of compassing Eternity !
623
A THORN IN THE FLESH.
WHEN the Rev. Stephen Broughton was instituted to the rectory
of Holydale we, the souls of his cure, congratulated ourselves
upon the fact that Providence seemed at last to have sent us an
ideal parish priest. No one quite knew where Mr. Broughton
came from, nor what were his antecedents, but it was commonly
reported that a rich relation had bought the next presentation of
the living for him, and that he himself was blessed with that
most excellent thing in a clergyman, * private means.' The only
other fact that was known about him was that he had been
locum tenens in an out-of-the-way Yorkshire parish for some
months before he came to Holydale. But our new Rector was
not a man who needed introductions or testimonials, at least not
when he had once been seen and heard. His first sermon will
long be remembered in the village. He kept the men wide-
awake, and he reduced half the women to tears. When we came
out we asked one another indignantly what the Government
could be thinking about not to have made him a bishop ?
It is no exaggeration to say that our new Rector combined the
fervid eloquence of a brilliant Irishman with the lucidity and
logic of a shrewd and rational Englishman. His views were
orthodox, but tempered by such perfect charity that he never
gave offence to any section of his congregation. The men liked
him because he was practical and large-minded; the women
because he gave them emotions. The poor people declared that
he * preached the Gospel,' which meant that, having a sincere
and sympathetic temperament, he was enabled to persuade them
of the truth of his doctrines, and to play upon their better
feelings, as a good musician brings melody out of a long-disused
instrument.
Mr. Broughton's oratory was by no means his only recom-
mendation. He was most energetic in house-to-house visitation,
had an admirable sick-room manner, seemed really to enjoy
teaching in the schools, and lost no time in starting a workman's
club, mothers' meetings, classes for adults, and other excellent
institutions which Holydale had hitherto lacked, our last pastor
having been of the order of King Log.
624 A THORN IN THE FLESH.
Mr. Broughton was benevolent of aspect, with an expression
of intense spirituality, stooping shoulders, and nearly white hair,
though we understood that he was not more than forty-five years
old. His fine thin face was worn and deeply-lined, no doubt by
much study and constant fasting. Of course the new Hector and
his wife formed the chief topic of conversation at all the social
gatherings in Holydale for many weeks after their arrival. \Ve —
that is, the aristocracy of the parish — were in the habit of
dropping in to Dr. Giles's on Sunday afternoons after church, and
discussing parish politics and local gossip in his pleasant shady
garden. On one of these occasions there was nearly a quarrel
between Mrs. Lucas, the solicitor's wife, and the Doctor's little
daughter Jenny, who perhaps does express her opinions with
overmuch freedom for her seventeen years. Jenny was the only
woman in the place who refused to rave about Mr. Broughton.
' I don't know how it is,' she remarked on the occasion in
question, at the conclusion of a high-flown eulogium by Mrs.
Lucas upon the Eector. * I really believe Mr. Broughton is a
good man, and I am sure he is kind ; yet I never like to be near
him. I am not even quite happy in the same room with him.
I suppose he must be antipathetic to me.'
* How can you let that child talk such nonsense, Doctor ? '
said Mrs. Lucas, getting quite hot. ' And about an excellent man
who is old enough to be her father, too.'
The Doctor laughed. * I never dare correct Jenny,' he said,
* because I feel that she is young enough to be infallible. You
see she judges by instinct, which is such a much more trust-
worthy guide than reason or experience. Personally, I would not
presume to give an opinion on a man's character, any more than
I would poke his fire, until I had known him seven years.'
'Are you equally cautious where women are concerned,
Doctor ? ' I asked.
* Oh, I would poke a woman's fire the first time I went into
her house,' he replied, * because I know she could not do it
properly for herself. But I would not offer an opinion on her
character, even if I had known her seventy times seven years.'
* Talking of women,' put in young Marsden, the Doctor's
assistant, * I wonder why Mrs. Broughton always looks so melan-
choly. She gives one the idea of a person who has committed
the unpardonable sin, and is continually brooding over her
prospects of eternal punishment,'
A THORN IN THE FLESH. 625
Young Marsden is not a favourite of mine. He is apt to
mistake flippancy for wit, and gives himself the airs of a literary
character, because he once had an article rejected by the Spectator.
' It would be a good thing if some people brooded over their
prospects of eternal punishment more frequently and with better
cause,' I remarked.
I always feel irresistibly compelled to snub young Marsden,
but I am not often quite so severe as that. I thought, however,
that he had spoken very improperly of Mrs. Broughton, who was
an extremely interesting woman, and would have been an even
more attractive one had she been less melancholy in manner and
appearance. She always reminded me of a picture I had seen
somewhere of a Mater Dolorosa, by Carlo Dolce, I think. There
was the same mournful droop at the corners of the mouth, and
the same brownish-red shadows round the slightly-swollen eyes,
that seemed to accentuate the pallor of the rest of the face. On
her cheek-bones was that curious glaze which some of the old
masters have caught so well, and which is only seen in real life
when a woman has eaten the bread of bitterness and watered it
with the tears of affliction. Her eyes were of a peculiar shade of
grey that looked as if it had once been blue, but had had all the
colour washed out by much weeping. She never laughed and
seldom even smiled, which was an error of judgment on her part,
since she had perfect teeth.
I always felt vaguely sorry for Mrs. Broughton, though it was
difficult to see what cause she had for dejection. A good and
devoted husband, a lovely little five-year-old daughter, apparently
money enough for all reasonable wants, what could a woman
desire more ? I came to the conclusion at last that she must be
naturally of a lachrymose disposition, and that she really enjoyed
the 'luxury of woe.' I believe there are some women who. would
rather forego their afternoon tea than their tears. The poor
people adored her, and always described her as ' a lady as was a
lady.' They are proverbially difficult to please, but her gentle
manners, and still more her liberality with her small change,
quite won their hearts. Of course she was constantly imposed
upon, but most ladies seem to prefer being humbugged to having
their eyes opened to the iniquity of the world.
I took a good deal of interest in the family at the rectory, partly
because we are next-door neighbours, and partly because I have the
misfortune to be churchwarden. I try to get out of it every year,
626 A THORN IN THE FLESH.
but as I am supposed to have less to do than any other man in
the parish, I am always persuaded into taking the post. After all,
it is less trouble for a lazy man to do what he is asked than to
refuse and give his reasons why. The office really involves no small
responsibility. If the church is not properly warmed, or anything
goes wrong with the organ, or the boys behave badly, or the
offertories are small, everybody seems to think it is my fault.
Still, under the reign of Mr. Broughton, matters worked so
smoothly that I had very little trouble. He possessed a positive
talent for organisation, and so much tact that he could actually
criticise the performance of the choir without giving them offence.
The only human weaknesses that he showed during his first
summer at Holydale were a slight infirmity of memory, and an
occasional absence of mind. Mrs. Broughton explained this by
the fact that he had had a severe attack of influenza some months
previously, from which he had never entirely recovered. This
gave us all an opportunity, of which we were not slow to avail
ourselves, of relating our own and our friends' experiences of the
fell disease. I told my favourite story of the man who turned
bright blue after the influenza. I believe it is perfectly true — at
least, I read it in the newspaper.
One Sunday morning the Kector forgot to read the Ten Com-
mandments, and was very penitent in consequence. However,
his dearly beloved brethren assured him afterwards that it was
really of no importance. If he had forgotten to give out a hymn
the choir would have been annoyed, and if he had omitted the
sermon we should all have been up in arms, but nobody is very
keen about the Ten Commandments on a hot Sunday morning
when the church is full of wasps attracted by the hair of the
lower classes. After all, the eleventh commandment is the only
one that seems to be of much consequence nowadays.
Early in September we had a most unwonted piece of dissipa-
tion at Holydale, namely, a grand concert in the reading-room of
the workmen's club. The Broughtons undertook the whole trouble
of the entertainment, and unlike most affairs of the kind it was a
complete success. The room was packed, the piano was in tune,
the performers all turned up, and what was even more remark-
able, not one of them broke down. In short, the whole thing
went off without a hitch. It must have cost the Broughtons a
good deal of worry and anxiety, however, for Mrs. Broughton
looked even more depressed than usual, and the Rector was
A THORN IN THE FLESH. 627
evidently nervous and harassed, for he kept going in and out of
the room in a restless manner, while, as the evening wore on, the
lines in his face seemed to become deeper, and his voice, when he
gave out the names of the pieces, more husky. As soon as l (rod
save the Queen ' had been sung, the people at the bottom of the
room began to push aside the benches and make for the door.
But when it became apparent that the Hector was going to ' say a
few words,' most of the occupants of the front seats remained in
their places, though it was difficult to hear much owing to the
clatter made by the impatient ones.
With an air and manner of almost portentous solemnity, Mr.
Broughton began, in somewhat rambling fashion, to move a vote
of thanks to the performers. I was sitting near the platform, so
I could hear most of his remarks, and I remember marvelling
that such an admirable pulpit orator should make such a poor
platform speaker. I seconded the motion, and hoped that was the
end of the matter. But the Eector had^not done with us yet.
He proceeded to apologise for not having himself contributed
anything towards the evening's entertainment, and then told us
an anecdote about the first and last time that he appeared as a
singer, which was in his college days. It was rather a funny
story, as far as I could hear, and when it came to an end a few
members of the audience laughed and applauded. The speaker
stopped short and smiled. It was a curiously sudden and uncon-
trolled smile compared with the abnormal gravity of the expres-
sion that had preceded it. Then, to my astonishment, he began
to tell the same story over again in precisely the same words.
The sound of scraping benches and clumping boots ceased, and a
sudden silence fell on the room. I fancy that the general idea
was that the Eector intended to be very funny, though it was
difficult to see where the joke came in. He had only uttered a
few sentences, however, when I noticed Mrs. Broughton whisper
something to her little girl Brenda. The child at once slipped off
her chair, clambered on the platform, and taking hold of her
father's hand, said softly :
' Father, I'm so sleepy ; I want to go to bed.'
The Hector's manner changed instantly.
6 So you shall, my darling ; so you shall,' he exclaimed, as he
caught up the child in his arms and kissed her. It was a pretty
act, and so spontaneously done that I was not surprised to hear
some subdued applause, or to notice that the eyes of some of the
628 A THORN IN THE FLESH.
women grew moist at the sight of that benevolent figure with the
grey head bent so tenderly over the child's golden hair. I glanced
at the little girl as her father set her down, and was rather taken
aback to see her shudder slightly, and to mark an expression of
passive endurance upon her small face. This child was an enigma
to me. I can generally get on with young things, but my
blandishments always seemed thrown away upon Brenda. True,
she received my attentions with perfect civility, but I could
seldom succeed in waking one of those dimples that sleep in all
childish cheeks. She gave one the impression that she had been
born with a knowledge of good and evil, and all the tragic mys-
teries of life and death. However, thanks to Brenda, we had no
more speech-making that evening, and for a week afterwards
everybody one met was full of the praises of the entertainment.
It must have been about this time that I involuntarily over-
heard something which gave me only too good reason to suspect
that the domestic life at the rectory was not quite so harmonious
and unclouded as it appeared upon the surface. I must explain
that the rectory garden is only divided from mine by a paling,
which, on my side, is bordered by a nut-walk. Here there is a
small arbour, where I sometimes sit and smoke an after-dinner
pipe. One warm September evening I was sitting in this arbour
when I heard the sound of steps coming down the path on the
other side of the paling. They were slow and rather heavy steps.
' The Eector,' I said to myself, and I was just going to get up and
wish him * Good-evening,' when I heard other steps, light, rapid
ones this time, hurrying along the path.
' Stephen,' said Mrs. Broughton's voice in curiously vibrating
tones, ' Stephen, where are you going ? '
* To the reading-room, my dear,' replied the Eector's voice,
which sounded, as it often did, rather husky.
' Oh, not to-night,' pleaded his wife. Stop at home to-night ;
Brenda wants you to hear her say her hymn. You are tired and
poorly, and,' here her voice faltered, ' remember Jack Denver is
always there, and others like him. Don't go to-night.'
I felt myself placed in rather an awkward position. I had no
desire to overhear what was not meant for me, but under the
circumstances it would be rather embarrassing for my neighbours
as well as myself if I were to reveal my presence. I was hesitating
whether to cough, or to get up and walk away, when the Eector
replied in somewhat pompous style —
A THORN IN THE FLESH. 629
* My dear, I am at a loss to know what you mean by speaking
to me in this way. Pray what harm can a man like Jack Denver
do me, even though he is a socialist and a dissenter ? You really
seem to think I am not capable of taking care of myself. I am
perfectly well, though perhaps a little tired, and unable to stand
much worry.'
' Oh, Stephen ! ' said the woman, and I could hear from her
voice that she was crying, which made me feel very uncom-
fortable. Old bachelors never can bear to hear a woman cry ; I
suppose married men get used to it. ' Oh, Stephen ! ' she went on,
' I can't help it ; don't be angry with me. Think of all we have
gone through together; think of the child. And now when
everything looks so bright, when we seem to have a chance of
happiness, now to ' Her voice broke, and there was a
moment's silence. Then the Rector spoke in tones out of which
all the pompousness had gone, though the huskiness remained.
* I know, I know,' he said piteously. * I am a weak miserable
wretch, and I have spoilt your life. But I promise you, Elizabeth,
I swear before Grod that I will never '
He stopped suddenly, and I guessed that a hand had been
placed over his mouth.
* Don't swear — don't swear,' moaned his wife. * Come back to
the house and lie down. You are over-tired and nervous this
evening.'
He made no further resistance, and the footsteps retreated in
the direction of the house. I had sat on thorns during the latter
part of this colloquy, scarcely daring to breathe, lest my presence
should be discovered. I mentally inveighed against the incredible
stupidity of people who come and make scenes in their gardens,
when they cannot possibly tell who may be the other side of the
paling. We know that walls have ears, but little birds are much
more dangerous auditors. I determined, of course, to keep what
I had heard strictly to myself. It is always a mistake to repeat
anything in a country village, but people will do it, because there
is nothing else to do.
From that day forward I naturally felt uneasy about the family
at the rectory, though for some time nothing occurred to confirm
any suspicions I might have formed. The parochial organisation
continued to work with miraculous smoothness, and the Brouehtons
' O
gained, day by day, fresh popularity with all classes. Though
they lived very quietly they always seemed able and willing to
630 A THORN IN THE FLESH.
relieve such of their neighbours as were afflicted in body or estate.
They seemed to have no desire or object in life beyond the welfare
of the parish. One never met the Rector without a little following
of children at his heels, looking up expectantly for the pennies of
which he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply. People were
fond of comparing him to the Vicar of Wakefield, and, indeed, as
regards unworldliness, benevolence, and perfect charity, he seemed
not far behind Dr. Primrose. It was only too clear, however, that
our pastor was overtaxing his strength. He aged rapidly in
appearance, and was at times curiously inconsequent, while his
memory became more defective. But these slight infirmities were
readily forgiven him for the sake of his practical piety, no less than
for the eloquence that held us all entranced.
Early in November, however, an incident occurred which caused
me a return of uneasiness, and, in fact, made me feel as if we
were living on a volcano, which might at any moment become
unpleasantly active. I must explain that we have a little whistT
club in the village, the members of which meet once a week at
one another's houses during the winter. On the occasion in ques-
tion, we -had spent the evening at the Lucas's. No irrelevant
conversation is allowed during the rubbers, but over the sand-
wiches and marsala, with which we usually conclude the evening,
I remember that Mrs. Lucas waxed eloquent on the subject of the
manifold perfections of our spiritual pastor.
' Have you heard the latest about dear Mr. Broughton ? ' she
inquired of the company generally. ' Yesterday he found old
James Lincoln digging over his bit of garden, and groaning
because his back was so bad with rheumatism. Well, the Rector,
who is far from strong, as I always tell Mrs. Broughton, took the
old man's spade, and dug over the whole of the garden with his
own hands ? What do you think of that ? '
'A most practical argument against disestablishment,' re-
marked her husband, who seldom lost an opportunity of throwing
cold water upon his wife's rhapsodies.
* And it was the back-garden,' continued the lady. * No one
would have known if James Lincoln hadn't mentioned it. And
he wasn't a bit grateful, but thought " Parson might have given
him something to plant it with." Then, only the other day, Mr.
Broughton saw Widow Martin toiling home with her parish allow-
ance, a stone of flour. She is lame, you know, so she can't get
along very fast. Well, he insisted on carrying the sack, and,
A THORN IN THE FLESH. 631
besides, gave her his arm all the way home. And she is not at all
a clean-looking old woman.'
'Let us hope they met a dissenter,' observed the Doctor;
then added, half-un willingly : ' All the same, I acquit the Rector
of any desire to be ostentatious. I happen to know that your
hero's acts of kindness are too many to be hid under a bushel.'
My way home from the Lucas's house lay past the church. I
was surprised, considering it was already eleven o'clock, to see a
faint glimmer of light issuing from the chancel windows. Think-
ing that a lantern must have been left in the church by accident,
I went up to the chancel door, and found that it was ajar. I
pushed it noiselessly open, and peeped round the felt curtain that
hung in front of it. By the dim light of a small lantern that
stood on one of the window-sills, I perceived that a man was lying
upon the altar-steps. His face was hidden on his arms ; but I
recognised the fine head, and the long grey hair that reached
almost to the bowed shoulders. It was the Rector. He had not
heard me come in, and, all unconscious of any human ear, was
praying aloud with a self-abandonment that is only possible under
conditions of the profoundest mental agony.
' Oh, my God,' I heard him moan, ' is there no help in heaven,
no hope upon earth? Oh, let this temptation pass from me, for
it is heavier than I can bear. Grant me strength in my weakness,
0 Lord, for I have no power of myself to help myself.'
These words, adapted no doubt unconsciously from the Book he
knew so well, were followed by a paroxysm of weeping so despair-
ing and so heartrending that it seemed to turn the blood in my
veins to cold water. I hastily retreated, and drew the door gently
to behind me. I went home and pondered over the scene I had
just witnessed. It was clear that the sooner Mrs. Broughton took
her husband away for a much-needed holiday the better, and I
decided that I would speak to her about it myself at the earliest
opportunity. I was strengthened in this decision by the fact, which
came to my ears for the first time, that there was already what Holy-
dale people vaguely but expressively term ' talk ' about the family
at the rectory. Of course, ' talk ' is never anything very pleasant
or agreeable, or to the credit of the persons talked about. The
Rector's popularity was far too genuine with both rich and poor to
be easily talked away, but it is only natural that the dissenters
should seize any and every opportunity of throwing a little mud at
the much-hated, deeply-envied 'cloth.'
632 A THORN IN THE FLESH.
I timed my next visit to Mrs. Broughton at an hour when I
knew her husband was always engaged at the school. She was
not a woman whom it was easy to hint things to, for she seerm-d
of late to have acquired a habit of standing on the defensive.
However, I ventured to suggest that the Rector had been looking
poorly of late, and I was afraid his devotion to his work was
proving too much for him. Would not a holiday and thorough
change be likely to prove beneficial ?
* Yes, you are quite right,' Mrs. Broughton had replied. * I
have been trying to persuade my husband for some time past to
take a holiday. But, you see, there are many difficulties in the
way. It is no light matter to find a locum tenens who can carry
on the work satisfactorily, even for a short time. But a more
insuperable obstacle to our leaving just now is the condition of
poor Ellen Bartram. You know she has lately come home from
London in a rapid decline. It appears she has not led a very good
life, and the poor girl has a mortal terror of death. When she is
at her worst my husband is the only person who can soothe her, or
induce her to take any comfort in the promises of Scripture. He
goes to see her every day, and I am sure he will not leave the
place till her sufferings are over. It cannot be long, and then I
shall persuade him to go to the sea. He really ought to see a
nerve specialist ; his nervous system was quite shattered by that
dreadful influenza.'
She held up her head and looked me straight in the face with
her candid eyes, in a manner that was superb in its audacity. I
have always noticed that when really truthful sincere persons feel
themselves compelled to lie, they do it much more successfully
than the habitually untruthful, who fritter away their inventive
powers upon the small matters of daily life.
In answer to Mrs. Broughton's remarks I feebly murmured
that I had always heard electricity was good for the nerves, and
then the subject dropped. I had long ceased to wonder at the
glaze upon my hostess's cheeks, or at the Carlo Dolce shadows round
the grey eyes that should have been blue.
Winter came early that year, and before the end of November
the whole country was seized in the iron grasp of a black wind-
frost. The flickering life-flames of the old and the sick were
blown out by the first breath of the inexorable north-easter.
About ten days after my interview with Mrs. Broughton I heard
with much relief that one of the obstacles that prevented the
A THORN IN THE FLESH. 633
Rector from leaving Holydale had been removed. Ellen Bartram,
in spite of her terror of death — or rather of judgment, and her
frantic clinging to life — had gone out, though not, unfortunately
for her, like the snuff of a candle. There had been a painful scene
at the end, a 'hard death' as the poor people said with genuine
sympathy, tempered by undisguised pleasure in all the ghastly
details. The Rector had knelt by the girl's bedside all through
the long night, soothing her fears, and supporting her with the
consolations of Scripture and the promises of mercy held out to
penitent sinners, until, with the first glimmer of the cold winter
dawn, the terrified spirit at length took its flight ' for worlds un-
known,' and the agonised struggling body was at rest. It was
reported that the Rector, who was quite broken down and worn
out by the horror of the scene, had engaged a clerical friend to
take the duty for some weeks, and would leave in the course of the
next few days for Bournemouth.
The night before the intended departure of my neighbours
was one of the coldest of the whole year. I found it almost im-
possible to keep warm in my study, with the shutters closed,
the curtains drawn, and a fire of pine-logs. My fox-terrier, Rip,
kept getting into the fender, and tried hard to go to sleep there,
but at the end of three minutes was always compelled to go to
the other end of the room and gasp. This proceeding he repeated
at short intervals throughout the evening. I must have been
reading an interesting book, though I have not an idea what it
was about, for twelve o'clock found me still in my arm-chair. I
had just made up my mind to finish the volume, of which I had
only a few pages left, when I was startled by a sudden rapping
upon the window, an urgent, impatient rapping.
' Who is it ? ' I called ; * what is the matter ? '
The rapping grew louder and more urgent.
' Oh, let us in ! ' cried a woman's voice in piteous accents.
' For God's sake, open the window and let us in ! '
I did not recognise the voice, but I could not resist the appeal.
I hurried to the window, threw back the shutters, and admitted —
Mrs. Broughton and her child. It was Mrs. Broughton, though
not the quiet, proud, self-contained woman I had hitherto known.
There are moments, I suppose, in the lives of each one of us,
when the outward garb of custom and conventionality is thrown
aside, when even the question of sex disappears, and we stand
spiritually naked, but not ashamed.
VOL. XXI. — NO. 126, N.S. 29
634 A THORN IN THE FLESH.
For the moment Mrs. Broughton had dropped the mask of
polite disguises, and as she gazed with tragic eyes into my face,
she was no longer the Hector's wife, no longer the well-bred gentle-
woman— she was merely a frightened, desperate human being.
' He wanted to kill me,' she gasped, ' and he said" he would
kill the child. But we got away while he was looking for his
razor. He may be taking his own life at this moment. Oh ! go
to him — why do you stop here ? You can get in through the
drawing-room window.'
She paused, panting for breath. It has often been observed
that at a time of great mental excitement we are peculiarly apt
to notice trivial external details. While Mrs. Broughton was
speaking, I observed that she had only a ftir cloak thrown over
her night-dress, and loose slippers on her bare feet. Her brown
hair hung in a thick plait down her back, and a few strands
straggled over her forehead. I could never have imagined Mrs.
Broughton with untidy hair if my own eyes had not borne wit-
ness to the fact. The child was warmly bundled up in shawls
and a blanket. The little thing was not crying, but gazed at me
calmly from under her straight brows, and appeared as philosophic-
ally resigned as if she were in the habit, like a childish ghost, of
taking her walks abroad at midnight.
' Go to the fire and get warm,' I said to Mrs. Broughton,
* and put the child to bed on the sofa. I will go to your husband
directly I have sent a note to Dr. Giles. Wait here till I return.'
I hastily scribbled a line, roused my man, and sent him off
for the doctor, who lived not a stone's-throw away. Then, pro-
viding to a certain extent against emergencies by arming myself
with a loaded stick, I entered the rectory garden, and made my
way to the drawing-room window. I mentally vowed that if I got
safely out of this scrape, I would never, never again be deluded
into undertaking the church warden ship as long as I lived. It really
requires no small courage for a stout, harmless, elderly gentleman
to enter a room containing a man who is, to all intents and pur-
poses, a maniac with homicidal tendencies. As I passed up the stairs
1 could hear strange sounds from the direction of the Rector's bed-
room. A door in the passage flew suddenly open, giving me a fear-
ful start, and a woman's head tied up in red flannel was protruded.
' Oh, sir,' said the head, * thank goodness you're come. What-
ever is the matter, and what is master making such a dreadful
noise about ? '
A THORN IN THE FLESH. 635
'Hold your tongue, and go to bed,' I answered, in a more
savage tone than I ever thought to use to a woman. ' Your
master is not well/
I passed on to the Rector's door, which was partly open. A
lamp stood on a side-table, and I could discern a figure crouching
down in the darkest corner of the room, a figure that moaned and
mouthed and gesticulated. I had heard that in such a case one
should control the patient by the power of the eye. But it is
difficult to feel much faith in the power of an eye that one knows
to be small and twinkling, and ornamented with sandy eyelashes.
However, eyes or no eyes, my spiritual pastor seemed even more
alarmed at my appearance than I was at his.
* It is Beelzebub,' he exclaimed in excited tones. * The Grod of
Flies, the Father of Lies ! Which is it ? The room is full of them.
Lies, flies — they are blinding me, choking me, stifling me '
He broke off suddenly, put his hands over his face, and
cowered down in abject terror. He remained thus for a few
moments, then, looking up, said in calmer tones —
' What are those creatures coming down the chimney, and in
at the window, and under the door ? Ah, I know them ; they
are the beasts that came up out of the bottomless pit. Yes, it is
all true ; there are the locusts that have faces as the faces of men,
and hair as the hair of women, and tails like unto scorpions, and
there are stings in their tails. Don't let them come near me,'
he exclaimed, beginning to tremble again. ' Keep them away,
I say. Don't you see that one with a sword in his mouth ? Ab,
they are coming nearer — they are closing round me. I have
never harmed a living soul, nor turned away from a brother in
distress ; is there no mercy for me ? I tell you the poison was in
my blood, for when the fathers have eaten sour grapes the children's
teeth are set on edge/
At this moment I was relieved to hear a step upon the stair.
The man in the corner heard it too, for he sprang to his feet,
exclaiming —
' He is coming, he is coming ! It is the Prince of Darkness !
He will bind me hand and foot and cast me into outer darkness,
where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched/
On the last word his voice rose to an unearthly shriek. Before
I could stop him, or even guess his intention, he bounded across
the room and flung himself with all his force against the closed
window. Both glass and woodwork gave way before his frenzied
29—2
636 A THORl^ IN THE FLESH.
force like wet paper. There was a blast of icy air, a moment of
silent sickening suspense, then a dull thud on the frost-bound
earth below. At the same instant the Doctor entered the room.
* Where is he ? ' he asked, glancing round.
For all answer I pointed silently to the wrecked window. I
had often heard that medical men were callous, but I never knew
how callous Dr. Giles could be until that awful night. He walked
to the window, and looked out into the moonlight.
'I should judge, from the position in which he is lying, that
he has broken his neck,' he remarked coolly. * The best thing
the poor fellow could possibly have done.'
He turned and went down the stairs, while I followed as
quickly as I could upon a pair of very shaky legs. The Doctor's
diagnosis, made from an upper window, proved to be correct. We
carried what had been the Rector up to his room, and laid it
upon his bed. Then the Doctor closed the staring eyes, and bound
up the dropped jaw with a touch more gentle than his words. The
horror that a few moments before had distorted the features had
already given way to an expression of peace. The dead clay seemed
to have regained all its natural grandeur as soon as it was freed
from the spirit that had tortured, degraded, and destroyed it.
* He was a good man,' I said regretfully, as I touched the still
warm hand for the last time.
Somewhat to my surprise the Doctor agreed with me.
' Yes,' he said emphatically. * I do believe him to have been
a good man. Probably I know more of him and his work than
anyone else in Holydale. He and I have met in many a sick-
room, and have shared the watch beside more than one dying
bed. I tell you this man was a Christian, who, as far as in him
lay, lived up to his faith. The poor and the sick and the sorrowful
have this night lost not only their priest but their friend. In
spite of his weakness he has taught me more respect for his
order, and strengthened my belief in humanity.'
' But if that is your feeling about him,' I said, ' how is it that
you show neither grief nor horror at his tragic end ? '
' Because Fate was against him. Had he been the victim of
any other incurable disease, such as consumption, cancer, or
even leprosy, we should not have refused him our pity, and we
should surely have respected his sufferings. As it was — well, he
has done the best he could, both for himself and others. He
could not conquer Fate.'
637
CHARACTER NOTE.
THE OLD SCHOOL.
MY Lady is seventy years old. My Lady is little and stout, with
very white hair, very blue eyes, and a soft colour on her cheeks,
like a girl's. She is the widow of a knighted alderman — has been
a widow, perhaps, twenty years — and is still faithful to the
smallest and most unreasonable of the wishes he left behind him.
My Lady is not at all up to date. She was a girl at the time
when the young person worked samplers and copied out recipes.
There is a picture of her taken at this interesting period, on a
cabinet in the drawing-room, at eighteen years old, with a waist
scarcely so many inches round, sandal shoes, curls, and soft
shoulders peeping above her frock.
She has remained all her life quite simple, narrow, and old-
fashioned. If she is proud of anything, it is of her knowledge of
a culinary mystery called stock. She can, and does, repeat by
heart twenty-three different methods of dressing calves' head.
She trots — a stout trot now, but still an active one — in and out of
her kitchen. If her servants did not love her — which by reason
of her sweet goodness they cannot help doing — they would hate
her indeed. My Lady's blue eyes are quick to perceive a domestic
neglect or oversight. She dusts her priceless china — stored away
in the most barbarous of cabinets — with her own hands, which
are very plump, little, and delicate. She likewise attends herself
to the well-being of those waxen roses and camellias which she
modelled in the early days of her marriage, and which have been
since religiously preserved under glass shades, and are a memory
of that dead art called the Elegant Accomplishment.
My Lady's household is hedged about with immemorial rules
and customs. The drawing-room curtains, of a massive damask,
are nightly rolled up, and, as it were, put to bed. Sunday would
seem secular indeed unless there were kidneys for breakfast and
dinner at five. On Sunday evenings, too, My Lady in her old
voice sings hymns to herself at the grand piano. She has been
known, in her simple faltering tones, to take the ' Hallelujah
Chorus ' as a solo. She plays instrumental music softly to herself
638
CHARACTER NOTE.
in the firelight, being quite undaunted by the fact that she is too
stout to cross one hand over the other when the music so requires.
My Lady has a great many visitors — modern, enlightened
visitors, in the shape of great nieces and nephews for the most
part — who find the house an exceedingly trying one to stay in,
and are yet perpetually staying in it. There is a brown sweet-
ness about the sherry and a solemn heaviness about the port
which has nearly — but not quite — turned them into teetotallers.
One of them, who is entirely pert and up to date, finds it neces-
sary to bury her fashionable head deep in the sofa cushion during
family prayers.
' Auntie, you know,' says Up to Date, ' can't have the ghost of
a sense of humour. Who ever heard of thanking Providence for
balmy air with the thermometer at zero, and praying for the
children of the household when there aren't any ? '
It is very likely true that My Lady's sense of the ridiculous is
not very keen. She reads a portion of Scripture nightly —
preferably some portion particularly unsuited for the edification of
a family — with her sweet face very grave, tender, and good.
Perhaps she thinks — who knows ? so many of My Lady's ideas
are effete and exploded — that because the Bible is the Bible there
can be no part of it not fit, suitable, and ennobling ; or perhaps her
gentle soul is so near heaven that it can be lifted there even by
an historical narrative or an illogical petition.
. Up to Date is further aggravated by My Lady's charities. My
Lady is wealthy — or would be wealthy if the world were not so
full of trouble, sickness, and, alas ! mendicity. Her relatives say
that she is horribly cheated. They may be right. She tries to
be just. She does not spare herself trouble to find out if her
pensioners are deserving. She toils asthmatically up flights of
stairs to see them. All the morning long she writes letters to get
persons into hospitals or asylums or homes. It is said that the
letters are not very well worded, and are even confusingly
expressed. The aspiring young lady of the Board School has, in
fact, received a far better education in such matters than My
Lady, whose highest literary endeavour is a daily reading of the
' Times,' in accordance with the desire of the late alderman.
My Lady, who thinks only of others, is herself thought for by
her maid — a maid who is roughly estimated to be about seventy-
six, and who has been in My Lady's service since she was seven-
teen, Anna, who wears three tight curls on each side of her face,
CHARACTER NOTE. 639
which the most vivid imagination cannot suppose to have ever
been beautiful, pours into My Lady's glass, with a shaking old
hand, the proper quantity of whisky ordered by the doctor,
' Lor', mum,' says Anna, ' you're none so young, and must do as
you're told.' Likewise, if My Lady does not eat what Anna
esteems a sufficient quantity, Anna is quite angry, trembling
and upset for the rest of the day. Anna helps My Lady to dress
in the morning, and My Lady kisses her when they say ' Good-
night.'
But the great love of My Lady's heart goes out to her nephew.
Why , God knows. Unless she fancies in her tender soul that the
baby who lay forty years ago for one brief day upon her breast
might have been, if he had lived, just such a fine, strong, hand-
some fellow.
Phil breaks into My Lady's solemn dining-room where she
sits at her orderly luncheon or dinner. Phil has an insolent
swagger about him which he mistakes — and other people mistake,
My Lady among them — for bonne camaraderie and frankness.
Phil leaves traces of his muddy boots upon My Lady's immaculate
carpets. When he talks to her — a familiar parlance in which he
usually addresses her as ' Old Sally ' — he beats the dust out of his
riding-breeches with his crop. My Lady listens to his hunting
stories, of which she understands, perhaps, scarcely a single word,
with the simplest and most attentive interest, and with a tender
little smile on her old face. Some of his anecdotes bring a little
blush into her cheeks ; and when he damns his friends, his luck,
or whatever seems to him to stand in most need of condemnation,
My Lady says ' Hush, Phil,' quite sternly, and forgives him at
once. My Lady forgives worse than that. When Phil is dis-
covered, flagrante delicto, embracing a housemaid, and defends
himself by saying ' Confound it, old lady, there's no harm in that,'
My Lady dismisses the housemaid with a stern reproof, and Phil
comes to dinner, as usual, the next week. Phil, moreover, has
debts which he takes his oath, old woman, he can't tell how he
incurred. If he went down on his knees to her and was abject,
suppliant, and repentant, My Lady might think twice before she
paid them. But she mistakes — she is not the first — insolence,
swagger, and bravado for openness, honesty, and that particularly
indefinite quality which is called a good heart. Phil shouts
rollicking hunting songs in the prim drawing-room, and My Lady
anxiously hastens her accompaniment to keep time with him.
640 CHARACTER NOTE.
She sometimes tries herself a verse or two of the comic melody he
is learning. My Lady, stout and innocent, singing the last slang
of a music-hall in her pretty old voice, with her tender, simple
face bent seriously over the music, has an effect strangely in-
congruous and odd, and Phil says ' Old Sally's going it ! Sally's
game, and no mistake.' And My Lady says, ' No bad words,
Phil,' which amuses Phil stupendously, and continues as before.
Phil, upon his oath as usual, assures My Lady one day in the
course of conversation that he is an excellent man of business.
My Lady says ' Are you, dear ? ' quite simply. She is making
tea in the drawing-room after dinner — a tea with a pretty
accompaniment of old china and the most solid and massive of
silver.
' Yes, by George ! ' says Phil, who has stretched himself upon
the sofa, where he is kicking about, unreproved, My Lady's best
worsted-work cushions. ' I could take a lot of trouble off your
hands, old woman, if you'd like me to.'
My Lady will think about it. She knows very little about
money matters, the alderman having arranged all those things for
her. But she does think about it, and Phil, who is nothing if
not good-natured, takes the trouble off her hands without a
murmur. Three months later he takes off himself and thirty
thousand pounds to South America. The lawyer whose duty it is
to inform My Lady of her ruin is surprised at the old woman's
courage and composure. The colour fades, indeed, out of her
cheeks, but her voice is quite firm and dignified, and she makes
arrangements for the future with a clearness and conciseness of
which in her prosperity she was incapable. When Anna is told
the pitiful story, and puts her tender, feeble arms round My
Lady's neck and cries, My Lady's own eyes are quite dry.
' Master Phil ! ' says Anna, with her curls shaking, ' as was
such a fine baby and all ! Master Phil ! ' But My Lady says
nothing. All that morning she sits at her writing-desk as usual,
and writes for many hours. She has to tell innumerable charities
that their faithful subscriber, who has taken their emotional
appeals au pied de la lettre, and believed that every fresh charity
is, as it declares itself, the most deserving in all London, must be
faithless to them at last. She writes also to many needy curates,
distressed gentlewomen, and reclaimed inebriates, whom she has
supported or helped. With what pangs in her kindly and trust-
ing heart who knows? Later is found among her papers the
CHARACTER NOTE. 641
rough draft of a letter in which she begs humbly the charity of a
rich relative for the most necessitous of such cases. On another
paper she has drawn up a system of expenditure, full of details the
most practical and domestic, for herself and a reduced household,
which may still leave her something to give away. After
luncheon, at which Anna sheds tears into the vegetable dishes,
and kisses My Lady spasmodically, My Lady interviews the, other
servants. The gardener, who has loved and cheated his mistress
for forty years, and is a person of plain and familiar speech, tells
her that she may give him warning if she likes, but that leave her
service he can't and won't. The old coachman, who has lorded it
over My Lady from the coachbox since he was one-and-twenty,
and has never permitted her to use the unwieldy carriage-horses
more than twice a week, inquires laconically, ' Wot's wages ? ' and
announces that 'osses or no 'osses he is going to stick by My
Lady. The cook — an emotional thing of five-and-forty — bursts
into fat tears, and for the first time My Lady's blue eyes are
momentarily wet.
' You have all,' she says gently, ' been very good to me, and I
thank you from my heart.'
Then they leave her alone. What thoughts keep her company
in that long twilight, none know. She has been rich for seventy
years, and is poor. She has lost affluence, which is bitter
perhaps, and an ideal, which has the bitterness of death. She
looks long at a picture of Phil which stands on her table — Phil as
a boy at school, bold, handsome, and daring — and she kisses him
with pale lips. It is a farewell. Phil has died to her for ever.
Anna dresses her as usual that night for dinner. My Lady,
with her sweet face framed in the soft frills of the widow's cap —
which she still wears in tender memory of the alderman — reads
the ' Times ' as usual by the lamplight in the drawing-room after-
wards. She plays a little on the piano. There are some of Phil's
songs lying among her music. She puts them away, with fingers
that scarcely tremble, in a portfolio by themselves. It is like a
burial.
Anna brings in the tea at nine. My Lady makes it with her
usual dainty precision. The emotional cook has evinced her
sympathy by toasting an especially fascinating muffin. My Lady
looks up at Anna with a little smile, and says she must not hurt
cook's feelings by leaving it. Almost as she says the words Anna
startles the house with a cry. My Lady has had a paralytic stroke.
642
CHARACTER NOTE.
Through a wider and wiser mercy than any which is of this
world, My Lady never recovers her memory. Sometimes she
fancies herself a girl again, white-frocked, auburn -haired, like her
picture in the drawing-room. At others she sends messages to
the kitchen a propos of the alderman's birthday dinner. Is
vaguely troubled, perhaps, for a moment that he does not come to
her, and the next, has forgotten him altogether. Once Anna,
stooping over her bed, hears her breathe Phil's fatal name softly
to herself. But My Lady's face is more tranquil than summer
starlight, and from her broken words it is gathered that she has
confused, in some God-given confusion, the living sinner with
the dead baby of five-and-forty years ago. And she dies with
Phil's name and a smile together upon her lips.
643
THE MODEST SCORPION.
You may perhaps have noticed that whenever any peculiarly
atrocious and cold-blooded murderer has been duly found guilty
by a jury of his peer?, and is about to be hanged, as he richly
deserves, in expiation of his offences, an immense number of his
humane and sympathetic fellow-citizens are always ready to come
forward and testify to his many excellent moral qualities, or to
declare that, if he really did commit the murder of which he has
been convicted, he must at least have done it in a moment of
temporary forgetfulness, which he would be the first to regret
in his calmer periods of self-possession. Well, that is some-
what the sort of kind office I want to perform to-day for the
much-abused and profoundly misunderstood scorpion. I will
admit at once, to be sure, that the defendant for whom I hold
a brief in this article doesn't by any means come into court with
clean hands, nor do I expect that he will leave it in the end
' without a stain on his character.' But I do assert, nevertheless,
that my unhappy client, instead of being, as everybody who
doesn't intimately know him imagines, of a peculiarly aggressive
and quarrelsome turn of mind, is in reality a quiet and retiring
private gentleman, who only wants to be left alone ; one whose
first idea it is, when strangers rudely disturb him in the privacy
of his own quarters, to run away and hide until they have disap-
peared— most certainly never to inflict himself voluntarily upon
anyone who is inclined to prefer his room to his company.
How does it come, then, you may ask, that so modest and re-
tiring a disposition should so often have been mistaken for quarrel-
someness and ill-temper ? Why, simply thus, as I understand the
matter. Ill-advised people have long been in the habit of sitting
down upon scorpions, or otherwise provoking them by violent and
injudicious personal interferences ; and the scorpions, thus attacked,
have not unnaturally retaliated, as is their wont, by instant reprisals.
Most people lose their tempers if you sit upon them ; and it isn't
reasonable to expect scorpions to show greater forbearance. But
that doesn't prove them to be aggressive or acrimonious. Now a
wasp, if you like, is an ill-tempered animal. He flies in your face,
unprovoked, and then proceeds to sting you for no better reason
644 THE MODEST SCORPION.
than because he hadn't the sense to look where he was going him-
self, and so to avoid running up against you needlessly. Such
conduct, I grant you, is really reprehensible ; whereas, the
inoffensive scorpion, unless attacked, never attempts to do any
spontaneous harm to anybody ; and I speak from experience in
this matter, having known him intimately in many of his varieties
in Europe, Africa, and the American tropics, ever since I began
to pay any attention at all to the animal creation. I may add,
indeed, that after many years' residence in scorpion-haunted
countries, I have never personally known of more than one case of
an actual scorpion sting, and that one case happened to my negro
' house-cleaner ' years ago in Jamaica. She incautiously put her
hand down on the exact point in space then and there occupied
by a large black scorpion, the consequence being that the
previous occupier very naturally stung her. It was merely done
by way of compensation for disturbance.
Scorpions, to say the truth, are by nature retiring animals
that shun the light, no doubt on the very sufficient ground that
their deeds are evil. As a class, they conceal themselves during
the day under stones and logs, or in crevices of buildings. If you
lift the stone beneath whose shelter they live, their first and only
idea seems to be to run away and hide themselves as quickly as
possible. Of course, if you obstruct their retreat, they will try to
sting you ; and if you have employed your finger as a suitable
in strument for obstruction , they will, no doubt, succeed in impressin g
you at once with a strong consciousness of the extreme unwisdom
of your hasty action. But if you leave them alone, and allow
them to scuttle off to their holes or retreats, unmolested, in their
own fashion, they will repay the compliment by leaving you alone
in turn and taking no further notice of your presence in any
way.
The fact is, your scorpion is a timid nocturnal animal, who only
ventures out after dark on the hunt for prey, and is as frightened
in the daytime as a bat or an owl found prowling about in the
light at unaccustomed hours. Like many other beasts of prey, he
prefers to take his quarry unawares in their sleep — an unsports-
manlike and extremely unfair proceeding if you will, but certainly
not one that marks an aggressive or unduly savage and bellicose
nature. The real difficulty, I have always found, is not to avoid
but to catch your scorpion, for the moment he is disturbed he
scuttles away so fast, in his vulgar anxiety to save his own bacon,
THE MODEST SCORPION. 645
without the faintest regard for the interests of science, that if you
don't grip him quickly with a pair of stout pincers, and hold him
fast when caught, he has disappeared into space, down his hole or
burrow, like a streak of lightning, before you've had time to add
him to the specimens in your collecting-bottle. He seems to
entertain a rooted objection, indeed, to spirits of wine, and to
prefer the obscurity of his native hillside to all the posthumous
glories of Westminster Abbey, or its practical insect equivalent,
the Natural History Museum. A very mean-spirited and unam-
bitious reptile !
I hasten, however, to add, in a hurried parenthesis, before my
familiar old enemies Dryasdust and Smellfungus have time to
drop down upon me, that I use the last word on this occasion in
its popular and unscientific sense only. Biologically speaking, of
course, a scorpion is not a reptile ; nor is it an insect either. It
is a homeless nondescript. It belongs, in fact, to no popularly
recognised division of the animal kingdom, being just one of those
poor waifs and strays of biological society that fall everywhere
between two stools, and are commonly described as neither fish,
flesh, fowl, nor good red herring. Scientifically it is regarded as
an arachnid, but not as an araneid — a spider-kind, in other words,
though not a thorough-going spider ; which is one of those deli-
cate distinctions that, as Mr. Silas Wegg observed, ' had better be
discussed in the absence of Mrs. Boffin.' It agrees with the
spiders in having eight legs, while all true insects have only six,
and also in several interesting points of internal structure which
I generously refrain from inflicting in full upon the reader's ears,
on the general ground that they can only be adequately described
in the scientific variety of the Latin language. If I am strong, I
am merciful. ' Details about maxillae and trochanters and didactyle
chelse are apt to pall after a time on the general reader ; nor does
he show that burning anxiety which, no doubt, he ought to do as
to the precise distinction between the cephalothorax and the
abdomen, or the falces and the antennae. Out of consideration for
his feelings, therefore, and for the purity of the English language,
I propose to discourse of scorpions in the mother tongue alone,
without any digression into the learned labyrinth of arthropod
terminology. I merely put in the last two words, indeed, as
explanatory examples, just to show you what I could do in that
way if I were so minded.
The scorpion, however, though not quite a true spider, is a
646 THE MODEST SCORPION.
very old and respectable member of the ancient and distinguished
family to which he belongs. We sometimes talk in our conceited
human way of ' the Antiquity of Man ; ' but man is indeed the
veriest mushroom of yesterday on the face of the globe by the
side of the immemorial and primaeval scorpion. Our boldest in-
vestigators have never yet dared to push the advent of humanity
on the globe one day further back than the Miocene period — and
even that is to most men of science a startling heresy. But the
Miocene comes only in the middle place of the tertiary age of
geology; and before the tertiary, of course, came the vastly
longer secondary age ; and before the secondary again, the still
longer and immeasurably remote primary epoch. Well, the coal-
measures belong to the primary formation ; and already in the
coal-measures, both in Europe and America, we find the skeleton
shapes of ancestral scorpions — not mere vague and uncertain
scorpion-like creatures, mark you well, but genuine unadulterated
when-you-ask-for-them-see-that-you-get-them scorpions of the
purest water. After the coal-measures, once more, come the
Permian deposits ; and then the whole range of the softer
secondaries, from the Devonshire red sandstone, through the lias
and the oolite, to the green sand and chalk that form the Surrey
hills and the undulating downs of Kent and Sussex. And after
those, again, in younger order, come the whole series of the ter-
tiaries of Eastern England. Yet, as long ago as those immensely
remote coal-measures, whose distance in time can hardly be meted
by millions of years, there were already scorpions, with stings
in their tails and pincers on their claws, and everything else
that goes to make up the picture of the perfect ideal scorpion, just
as good (or as bad, if you prefer to put it so) as at the present
moment. So early did the type arrive at the actual summit of
scorpioid excellence, and so soon did the young world learn from
bitter experience that it couldn't manage to do without stinging
reptiles.
There are spiders as well as scorpions in those same ancient
coal-measures ; and this is an important fact (though a careless
world may feel inclined to make little of it), because it shows that
even at that remote date the family of the arachnids had already
split up into the two great branches to which most of its members
still belong. But of these two great branches, the scorpions, I
should be strongly inclined to say, most nearly represent the
elder division of the family. I will even venture to tell you the
THE MODEST SCORPION. 647
reason why. The primitive ancestor of both branches — the hypo-
thetical ' father of all spiders,' as Orientals would call him — must
almost certainly have been a marine animal, a jointed crustacean,
more or less resembling in outer form the crayfishes, crabs, and
lobsters of our modern oceans. Indeed, the horseshoe-crabs of
America, and the king-crabs of the China seas, which are well-
known objects in most marine aquariums, have been shown by
Professor Kay Lankester to be surviving representatives, of this
now almost extinct half-crustacean group of ancestral scorpion-
spiders. But this hypothetical early progenitor of both divisions
must certainly have been a jointed creature, with all the seg-
ments of his body equally made up of separate pieces, as is still
the case with the vast majority of crustaceans and insects. Now,
the scorpions are so made up of separate joints throughout ;
whereas the spiders have almost all the parts of their body welded
together into two single masses, the breast and the abdomen,
while only the legs are divided into well-marked segments. This
difference in composition is due to the fact that in the modern
spiders the various rings or pieces composing the body and breast
of the ancestral type (like those which still make up the tail of a
lobster) have coalesced into a couple of large round sacs — the so-
called thorax and abdomen ; while, in the modern scorpions, they
still remain entirely distinct. Thus we see that the scorpions are
the older, or, what comes to the same thing, the less advanced and
developed branch of the family. For everywhere in nature the
oldest families are the lowest, and the newest families are the
best, the most intelligent, the biggest and the most dominant.
In the parliament of species, it is the youngest sons of the newest
families that sit as of right in the House of Peers ; and man him-
self, the latest comer in the field, and the most recent in every
way, takes his place, unchallenged, on the very woolsack.
Still, even at the present day, we have many intermediate
links between scorpions and spiders, some of which bridge over
the gap that divides them as perfectly as the most ardent evolu-
tionist could wish. For example, there are the book-scorpions
(so called from their studious habit of living among dusty old
bookshelves), which are spiders as to the body, but scorpions as to
the claws. These half-and-half creatures have lost their tails, and
consequently can't sting ; but they can give a sharp nip with their
keen small claws, and being diminutive mites, they have also in-
vented a very clever way of getting about from place to place
G48 THE MODEST SCORPION.
without any unnecessary expenditure of energy on their own part.
They cling by their little nippers to the legs of flies, which are
thus compelled to act, willy-nilly, as living hansoms or aerial navi-
gators for their cunning little parasites. From the book-scorpions,
again, a continuous line of more and more spiderlike creatures
leads us on direct, through the so-called harvest-men and other
allied intermediate forms, to types which would be spiders in
shape and organs for all but the trained scientific eye, and finally
to the true and undoubted spiders. Indeed, the outsider always
imagines that the great difficulty of the evolutionist is the con-
stant intervention, in his branching series of life, of ' missing
links.' The man of science knows the exact opposite. His real
difficulty in classification lies rather in the impossibility of drawing
lines — of finding any effectual point of demarcation between class
and class, or between species and species. Everything seems to
him to glide into everything else by such imperceptible gradations
that the task of setting up apparent barriers between them be-
comes at last positively tedious in its futility. Whenever you
begin to examine any large group of animals or plants over a wide
area, you find they merge into one another so gradually and so
provokingly that you get to think in the end nothing is anything
in« particular, and everything is something else extremely like it.
A familiar human example will make this general muddlinefs
and uncertainty of nature realisable to everyone. If we see a
negro in the streets of London we immediately recognise the
broad difference that marks him off from the common mass of
white men by whom he is surrounded. But that, of course, is only
because we take an individual instance. We say quite dog-
matically : ' This man is black, thick-lipped, flat-nosed ; I call him
a negro : these other men are white, thin-lipped, sharp-nosed ; I
call them Europeans.' Quite so ; that is true, relatively to the
small area and restricted number of cases you have then and there
examined. But, now, suppose you go on to the Soudan — a rather
difficult thing to manage just at present, Mr. Cook's through
bookings to Khartoum being temporarily suspended — and start
from thence down the Nile through Nubia to Alexandria. At first
on your way you would see few but thoroughly negroid faces —
black skins, thick lips, flat nose?, and so forth, according to
sample. As you moved northward into Egypt, however, you
would soon begin to find that, while the skin remained as black or
nearly as black as ever, the features were tending slowly on the
THE MODEST SCORPION. 649
average to Europeanise. Yet there would be nowhere a spot
where you could say definitely : ' Here I leave behind me the
Nubian type and arrive at the Egyptian ; ' never even could you
pick out three or four men quite certainly from a group on some
riverside wharf, overshadowed by doum-palms, and say on the evi-
dence of skin and features alone, ' These men are Soudanese, and
the remainder are Nubians.' Then, if you went on still through
Sinai and Palestine — the regular Eastern tour — you would find at
each step the tints getting lighter and the faces more Semitic.
Passing further through Constantinople, Athens, South Italy, you
would observe at each change a lighter complexion and more
European style ; till at last, as you crossed Provence and
approached Central France, you would arrive pretty well at the
familiar English type of face arid feature.
Now the thorough-going collector would do better than that.
Disregarding the petty restrictions of Governments and game
laws, he would shoot and preserve in spirits of wine a number
of illustrative specimens as he went, selecting them for the pos-
thumous honours of his museum on the evolutionary principle of
letting each type glide as easily and imperceptibly as possible
into its next neighbour. A collection of human specimens made
on this enlightened and unprejudiced principle would exhibit
an unbroken series of intermediate forms between negro and
Englishman. Instead of being troubled with ' missing links ' —
those exploded bugbears — we should actually have a perfect
plethora of connecting links of every sort with which to construct
a continuous chain from the coal-black negro to the fair-haired
European. And this is no fancy picture ; it is what was actually
done by Mr. Seebohm between Japan and England — not, to be
sure, in the case of the human species, which is protected all the
year round by a very strict and prohibitive * close season,' but in
that of certain small tomtits and buntings, which glide from
variety to variety and from species to species, in Japan, Siberia,
and Europe, with most perplexing continuity. So do also the
types of mankind in the same area, beginning with the true un-
adulterated Mongoloid, as exemplified in the person of our cheery
friend the Jap ; passing on through the Siberian tribes, the
Lapps, and the Finns ; and ending at last with the genuine Kuss,
who varies, as I have noticed, from the veriest broad-faced Tartar
type to the purest and most refined European cast of features and
expression. I will venture to add (though I am leaving the poor
VOL. XXI. — NO. 126, N.S. 30
650 THE MODEST SCORPION.
scorpions meanwhile long outside in the cold) that, for my own
part, I have botanised and beast- hunted for many years in various
parts of the world, and it is now my deliberate conviction that
there exists in nature no such thing as a well-defined and abso-
lute species, when you come to examine large areas together.
Species are only convenient bundles for lumping things into
groups for practical purposes, but they possess no natural or scien-
tific validity. In Europe, we know very well what we mean by
the words * horse ' and * donkey.' But the distinction is a conve-
nient commercial one alone, not a natural demarcation. In Central
Asia and South Africa there are groups of connecting varieties
which glide so imperceptibly from the Arab to the ass that not
even the committee of the Jockey Club itself — I appeal, you will
observe, outright to the highest conceivable authority — could
decide on any rational ground where equinity ended and asininity
began. But this is a parenthesis.
The true scorpions, then, to return from our digression, may
be most conveniently distinguished from their stingless cousins
the spiders and quasi-spiders by their possession of a tail. It is
this tail, too, of course, that has given them all their celebrity
in history and in proverbial philosophy. For the sting is in the
tail ; and where would the scorpion be as a literary property with-
out his sting ? He would be no more remarkable than all the
other practically anonymous arachnid* animals which can boast of
nothing but a scientific Latin name. For myself, I'd just as lief
go absolutely nameless as be ushered into a drawing-room by Mr.
Jeames as a specimen of Homo sapiens, Linnaeus.
The true scorpions, for their own part, though fairly numerous
in species, stick all pretty close to one ancestral pattern. It is
the pattern they had invented as long ago as the days of the coal-
measures. It suits their purpose admirably, and therefore they
have never seen reason to alter it since save in unimportant
details. They have all a broad head, a body of seven rings, and a
tail of five pieces, ending in a very swollen bulb or round segment,
which is the seat of the poison-gland or actual sting-factory. In
front, near the face, are a pair of jointed nippers, in appearance
and use exactly like the big front claws of a lobster, so that large
specimens present at first sight a singularly fallacious lobsterlike
aspect. Indeed, Mr. Janson, the well-known dealer in strange
beasts near the British Museum, quite recently sent me a very
noble specimen of the big West African kind which rejoices in the
THE MODEST SCORPION. 651
significant name of Androctonus, or the man-slayer, whose
nippers would have afforded a good mouthful of scorpion-flesh to
any inquiring mind anxious to investigate the creature from the
culinary standpoint. This monster measured fully six inches from
head to sting, and looked capable of breaking every law in the
decalogue. I have seen lobsters no bigger exposed for sale at
London fishmongers'.
The eight legs with which the creature walks, or rather scurries
along, for his gait is ungraceful, come behind the nippers. These
last are used for catching and holding the prey alone. In the
evening, when all is quiet, then sally forth these sons of Belial,
flown with insolence and bane. They creep slowly and noiselessly
from behind, like eight-legged garrotters, upon the grubs, moths,
and flies which constitute their prey ; and as they do so, they
cock up their flexible tail over the back of their body, very much
after the fashion rendered familiar to us all by the attitude of
that common English beetle, the devil's coach-horse. By this
manreuvre, the scorpion manages to get his sting nearly as far
forward as the back of his head, and to bring it into position for
killing his expected booty. "When the prey is fairly reached, he
seizes it by the aid of his great claws, holds it fast in his grip,
and quickly stings it to death by an injection of poison.
The sting itself is an interesting object for examination, but
only when severed from the animal which originally possessed it.
In situ, and during life, it had best be carefully avoided. It con-
sists of a round swollen joint, containing two glands, both of
which alike secrete the poisonous liquid. It ends in a sharp-
pointed hook, sufficiently keen to pierce the skin even of consider-
able animals like sheep and antelopes. Sharp as it is, however,
the end is doubly perforated, a separate duct conveying the poison
from each of the glands to the point as if on purpose, so that
if one failed, the other might succeed in killing its quarry. So
beautifully does nature provide — but there ! I forget ; perhaps I
am looking' at the matter a little too exclusively from the point
of view of the scorpion.
In their domestic life, I regret to say, our present subjects do
not set a good example for the imitation of humanity. We may
* go to the ant ' for advice, but not so to the scorpion. Birds in
their little nests agree ; scorpions differ. Nay, more, if you put
two of them together under a single stone, they set to work at
once to fight out their differences, and the victor usually proceeds
30—2
652 THE MODEST SCORPION.
to kill and eat his vanquished opponent. Indeed, they are extra-
ordinarily solitary animals. During many years of scorpion-
hunting, I never remember to have seen two individuals living
together in amity ; and even their more tender relations are tainted
at times with the unamiable habit of cannibalism. The males
are decidedly smaller than their mates, whom they approach ac-
cordingly with the utmost caution. If the fair inamorata doesn't
like the looks of her advancing suitor, she settles the question
offhand by making a murderous spring at him, catching him in
her claws, stinging him to death, and making a hearty meal off
him. This is scarcely loverlike. On the other hand, if a dubious
wife, the female scorpion is a devoted mother. She hatches her
eggs in her own oviduct, brings forth her young alive (unlike her
relations the spiders), and carries them about on her back, to the
number of fifty, during their innocent childhood, till they are of
an age to shift for themselves in the struggle for existence.
Scorpions do not sting themselves to death with their own
tails when surrounded with fire. That silly and, on the very face
of it, improbable fable has been invented by savages, and repeated
by people who ought to know better, solely on the strength of the
curious way the creatures cock up their tails when attacked, in
the proper attitude for stinging. Some years ago, however, a
so-called * man of science,' who appears to have inherited his
methods of investigation from a Red Indian ancestry, subjected
several hundreds of these poor helpless brutes to most unnecessary
torture, for no other purpose on earth than to establish the truth
of this negative result, which sounds to me like a foregone con-
clusion. He burnt the unhappy animals with fire and acids, he
roasted them alive on hot stone, he scalded them with boiling oil,
he lavished upon them every form and variety of torment that a
diseased medigeval imagination could suggest ; but in the end he
found no ingenuity of the inquisitor could make the constant
scorpion take refuge in suicide. I merely mention this fact here,
very much against the grain, in the hope that it may save other
helpless scorpions from needless torture at the hands of such
amateur investigators.
Scorpions are mostly tropical animals, though two or three
species get as far north as Southern Europe. The largest of these,
whom I have seen as big as two inches long on Algerian hillsides,
and who attains about the same length in Sicily and Greece, rarely
grows bigger than three-quarters of an inch on the Riviera. The
THE MODEST SCORPION. 653
other common European kind is much smaller and less virulent.
He abounds at Mentone, if only you know where to look for him ;
and I have found him as far north as Meran, in the Tyrol. He is
even said to extend beyond the Alps into Bavaria and South
Germany ; but in these things I speak, as our old friend Hero-
dotus puts it, * not of my own knowledge, but as the priests have
told me.'
In any case, the malignity and venomousness of scorpions, I
think, have been immensely overestimated. Most people who
don't personally know the tropics have been prejudiced by the
familiar and foolish stories of the officer who is just going to pull
on his boots, when he finds a snake or a scorpion in them of such
gigantic dimensions that the British Museum would gladly pur-
chase it of him at a great price in golden sovereigns. Now, I
don't say such things never happen ; far be it from me to impugn
the veracity of the united services and the entire body of Indian
civilians. But I do say they are very rare and exceptional. As
I write these words, in my own study in a Surrey village, a great
blundering bumble-bee is flitting about the room with his hateful
buzz, and considerably incommoding me. I can honestly say he
has caused me more annoyance in five minutes than all the scor-
pions or venomous reptiles I have ever known have caused me in
nearly half a century. And, indeed, 1 think the average danger
from poisonous creatures in tropical countries is a trifle less than
the average danger in England from wasps or hornets, and consi-
derably less than the danger from bulls or oxen. I have known
one man killed by a hornet in England, and many men killed by
savage bulls ; but I have never known of my own experience a
case of a man killed by a snake or scorpion. The truth is, this is
a prosaic world. There is very little in it of romantic adventure.
If you want to find snakes or scorpions, you must go and look for
them. They certainly aren't going to put themselves out by
coming to look for you, in order to give you a chance of observing
them easily. Scorpions swarm under the stones at Mentone ; but
the ordinary visitor to the hotels in the town never finds them out
till the man to the manner born shows him where to look for them .
This is the manner of scientific scorpion-hunting. You go
forth for the fray armed with a wide-mouthed bottle and a pair of
pincers. You turn over every likely stone on the hillside till you
find your quarry. He runs away at once, without endeavouring
to show fight; for his sting is rather intended for killing his food,
654 THE MODEST SCORPION.
like the spider's venom, than for offence and pitched battle, like
the wasp's and hornet's. Then you seize him promptly with your
pincers, before he has time to scuttle away down his open burrow,
and transfer him at once to durance vile in the bottle. Once
corked and secured, you take him home at leisure, and kill him
painlessly by asphyxiation in the ordinary fashion. If he is re-
quired for dissection, you preserve him whole in spirits of wine ;
but if only his outer form or skeleton is wanted for a museum,
your best way is to lay him out entire on an ant's nest, especially
if it belongs to one of the large and very carnivorous species. In
a few days, the ants will have cleaned out every morsel of meat
there is in that creature's carcase, and left only the dry skin for
inclusion in your collection.
And now, I think, enough has been said concerning scorpions.
655
THE MAN WITH NO VOICE.
I.
WHEN the New Ebenezer Chapel was founded in a little front
parlour in a back street of Market Mumborough, John Wicks was
one of the first men to become a member of it. He went into it
heart and soul ; he was not satisfied to be only one of the con-
gregation; even going round with a plate and helping to take
collections did not satisfy him. He founded a Band of Hope, and
devoted a lot of his savings towards giving it an annual excursion.
He inaugurated a building fund with the object of erecting a real
chapel, and the fund grew and the chapel grew till in due course
the little parlour was abandoned in favour of the new and statelier
edifice. An organ was out of the question ; you can't have every-
thing at once ; but somebody presented a harmonium, then John
organised a powerful choir, and courageously put himself at the
head of it and led it.
But it did not follow him. It could not. He sung so per-
sistently out of time and tune that it could do nothing but sing
out independently of him and hope for the best. For though, in
the ordinary meaning of the word, John had the voices of three
men combined in one, in a musical sense he had no voice at all.
His only idea on the subject appeared to be that, as leader, it was
his duty to keep at least one note ahead of the choir. The choir
never seemed to understand this point, and would get up speed
and hurry on in a determined effort to overtake him ; he would
hear it coming, increase his own speed accordingly, and the result
was a sort of neck-and-neck race till the choir caught him up and
passed him, and left him a word and a half behind at the end of
the verse. Then he would try to make up for it in the next
verse ; he would start first, the others would come hurrying after,
and, finding they could not catch him up, would finish with a
rush and a skip, so as to come harmoniously in on the last note
with him all together. Then they would have to wait for the
congregation and the harmonium before they could go on again.
It was not a high-class style of singing, but as the congrega-
tion among themselves used also to sing very much on the ' go-
as-you-please' principle, none of them made any serious complaint.
The minister himself was not a musical critic, and though it did
occur to him now and then that something was the matter with
656 THE MAN WITH NO VOICE
the harmony, he put it down to the fact that he had ' no ear,' and
said nothing about it. The only person who really grumbled wa?
the gentleman who played the harmonium. And he was said to be
jealous because John's voice was so powerful and the choir so large
and loud, that he not only could not hear himself play, but the
congregation could not hear him either. That put him out more
than the singing, and he made so many complaints about it that,
at last, on the minister's suggestion, John reduced the choir.
Then there was not sufficient volume of sound in the reduced
choir to tone down the singing of John Wicks. His voice could
be heard above all the other voices, and there was nothing left to
cope with it on anything like equal terms except the harmonium.
And between John's voice and that instrument there began a
great struggle for pre-eminence. Every Sunday, morning and
evening, it was the same. The hymn would be given out, the
harmonium would have a prelude all to itself, then John's voice
would rise up and roar out triumphantly. But the harmonium
was after it at once, hand over hand, so to speak, caught it, lost
it, caught it again, grappled with it, wrestled, writhed, and strove
with it desperately, and sometimes the one was temporarily suc-
cessful, and sometimes the other, but no permanent victory could
be achieved by either.
This state of things could not always continue, but it lasted
for some six or seven years. Then Mr. Greorge B. Grraff moved
into the little town and joined the congregation. He had come
from London, and was a smart, energetic man who boasted that
he knew good singing when he heard it, and that he had led the
choir of his chapel in London. And when he heard John sing he
had no hesitation in saying it was the worst sample of vocal
melody that had ever come beneath his notice.
' It's the first time I've heard him, Mr. Miffin,' he said to the
gentleman who played the harmonium, as they walked away after
service, ' but, sir, my nerves are so sensitive that they are har-
rowed and torn by the sound.'
' Well, sir,' replied Mr. Miffin, glad to have found a partisan,
' I have been trying to stop it for some years past. I have spoken
to Mr. Wicks, but he seems to think I am actuated by personal
spite against himself. I have spoken to Mr. Nutt, our good
pastor, but he — well, you see, Mr. Wicks was almost the first to
join the chapel, he has taken a lot of interest in it, and done a
lot of work for it, and is very popular. He started the choir '
THE MAN WITH NO VOICE. 657
' But that's no reason why he should lead it when he's got no
voice to lead it with. No voice, sir. None at all,' said Mr. Graff,
impatiently. ' I've heard all the best singers in the world, male
and female, and such singing as his, sir, kills me — destroys me !'
' I know what it is, sir. You have a keen ear for music, like
myself,' said Mr. Miffin, ' and I have suffered as '
' Well, now, look here, we'll put a stop to it,' interrupted Mr.
Graff. ' We must have that choir reformed, sir ; half of it can't
sing. And it must have a new leader who '
' Why not lead it yourself, Mr. Graff, sir ? I'm sure it couldn't
have a better leader than yourself.'
' Well, I would do it, sir,' replied Mr. Graff, ' if they could not
find a better man.'
' Better ? Where are they going to find one so good ?'
'Well, anyhow,' cried Mr. Graff as they parted, 'you call for
me to-morrow evening, and we'll go and see Mr. Nutt about it.
Good night. Uncommonly intelligent man. that Mififin is,' he
added to his wife, after Mr. Miffin had left them ; ' knows vocal
talent when he hears it. Keen hearing. He picked out my voice
right across the building, my dear. My singing struck him, and
he looked round to see who it was. Very clever man he seems
to be.'
He went with Mr. Miffin on the following evening to see Mr.
Nutt, who received them affably in his neat little study.
' Sit down, gentlemen,' he said, beaming upon them through
his spectacles, ' I hardly expected visitors this evening. Sit down.'
' No, sir,' replied Mr. Graff, solemnly, ' but Mr. Miffin and I
thought we'd come and see you about a little matter connected
with the choir.'
' Yes ?' said Mr. Nutt inquiringly. ' Nothing wrong, I hope ?'
He had a horror of anything going wrong. He was an easy-
going, quiet, good man, whose chief fault was an over-anxiety to
please everybody. He was gentle and super-sensitive to such an
extent that he would put up with almost anything sooner than
hurt anyone's feelings with unpalatable truths it was not positively
his duty to utter.
' Well, it is something wrong,' answered Mr. Graff.
' Yes ? ' said Mr. Nutt again, inquiringly.
' Yes. It's about Mr. Wicks's singing, sir,' pursued Mr. Graff,
decisively, ' and that's all wrong.'
' Wrong ?' said Mr. Nutt, uneasily.
658 THE MAN WITH NO VOICE.
' Yes. Isn't a right note in it, sir. What do you say, Mr.
Miffin?' cried Mr. Graff.
Mr. Miffin said he was afraid it was very bad.
'Bad!' ejaculated Mr. Graff, 'I never heard anything worse.
Never. It is simply shocking. I don't like to say it's impious,
but it is very nearly.'
' Mr. Wicks is a very good man,' remarked the minister, feebly.
' Oh, it isn't him . If his voice was as good as he is — but it
isn't. He's got no voice. None at all, sir. He can't sing, and
he ought not to be allowed to lead that choir any longer. It —
well, it's disgraceful.'
' He's fond of his work. He does his best, Mr. Graff. And
he is really an earnest, good man,' said the minister.
' So are we all, I hope, sir,' cried Mr. Graff, rather indignantly.
' But it does not follow that we are all capable of leading choirs.
He's a good man, but has he got a good voice ? '
' There are some things that are better than a good voice,'
observed the minister, vaguely.
' The thing is, does he understand music ? ' continued Mr.
Graff.
' No !' ejaculated Mr. Miffin emphatically.
' No,' echoed Mr. Graff, ' he's got no voice and no ear. He
can't sing himself, and he has got people in the choir who can't
sing either. They shout, sir ; they don't sing. Now, sir, we want
to get as near perfection as we can, of course, and we came to
suggest that you should see Mr. Wicks and explain to him in
your own perfectly friendly manner that he ought to resign. We
give him all credit for starting the choir, but he shouldn't, try to
do more than he can do.'
The minister still vaguely and uneasily put forward the argu-
ment that Mr. Wicks was doing his best, and was really a very
good man, but he felt that he was beaten ; he was weak and
anxious to please, and yielded at last to the determined per-
suasions of his visitors, only asking, resignedly, who would take
Mr. Wicks's place if he resigned.
' The best man we can find, sir,' said Mr. Graff, promptly.
' Which is Mr. Graff himself, sir,' declared Mr. Miffin ; ' he is
a clever vocalist, a capable choirmaster — a '
Mr. Graff demurred. He said 'No, no;' but he meant yes,
yes, and Mr. Miffin knew what he meant, and would not listen
to a refusal ; he artfully contrived to draw the minister into the
THE MAN WITH NO VOICE. 659
discussion, and, out of mere politeness and a nervous desire to be
agreeable, Mr. Nutt hesitatingly uttered an approval of Mr. Miffin's
suggestion.
' That settles it then,' cried Mr. Graff. ' If you wish it, sir, of
course I will undertake the post. And you may rely upon it I
shall do my best.'
After they were gone Mr. Nutt reproached himself with his
own weakness. He had not desired the alteration, and yet some-
how he had not only consented to ask John Wicks to resign, but
had been led into authorising Mr. Graff to take John's place. He
lay awake at night worrying over it, but he had not courage to
undo what he had done, and for two days he had not even courage
to go and explain matters to John ; . but on the third day he felt
he must put it off no longer, for that evening the choir met for
practice. So he called at John's shop in the afternoon, and found
him alone behind the counter, gloomily weighing up moist sugar
into pound packets ; his usual genial buoyancy seemed to have
quite deserted him, and he shook hands with the minister without
saying a word.
' Well, John,' said Mr. Nutt, nervously, ' you — you don't seem
quite up to the mark, eh ? How — er — how is your mother ?'
' I met Mr. Miffin yesterday, sir,' John burst forth impetuously,
' and he said you wanted me to resign and — and — ' he could
hardly control his voice, and there were foolish tears coming into
his big, round eyes, ' and he said you wanted Mr. Graff to lead the
choir. I've led it, sir, these seven years. You never told me you
didn't like my style, sir.'
' No, John. No, my dear John,' faltered the minister. ' You
see '
' He said you thought I'd got no voice, sir '
' I never said so, John '
' What's the matter with my singing, sir?'
' Nothing, John. Very good singing, but I — you see — they '
' I thought you liked my singing, sir ? '
' I do, John. I do, indeed. I should miss your voice in the
place more than anyone's. You sing with all your heart, and I
hope you'll go on singing still, if not in the choir, why, then '
' No, I feel as if I couldn't, sir. I feel, somehow, that if my
voice is not good enough for one part of the chapel, it isn't good
enough for another. I feel it — it's a sort of disgrace like, sir. I
shall still come, but I — I can't sing.'
660 THE MAN WITH NO VOICE.
He looked so utterly miserable, with the tears standing in his
wide, troubled eyes, and his lips quivering, that the minister took
his hand and said what he could to comfort him. He made him
fully understand that it was not his wish that he should leave the
choir, but the wish of those musical experts, Mr. Graff and Mr.
Miffin, whose opinions in such matters could hardly be disputed.
At the same time he threw out indefinite hints that the alteration
might be only temporary, and that before long John would be
back in his old place leading the choir again. Then he tried to
turn the conversation on to general topics, but could not do it
successfully, and presently invented an excuse to hurry away, and
hurried away full of self-reproaches and regret.
II.
And next Sunday the new order of things came into operation.
Mr. Grraff had a well-trained voice, and certainly led the choir a&
it never had been led before. John sat amongst the congregation
with his mother, but he did not sing. How could he after what
had been said of him ? He was ashamed of his own voice, and
stood there silent and dejected. The older members of the con-
gregation and many of the younger sympathised with him, and
felt that he had been unfairly dealt with, and did not hesitate to
say so. Some of them during the next few days waylaid the
minister, and spoke to him about it in such reproachful terms
that he was reduced to making rambling excuses for his own share
in the transaction, and vague promises that he would see what
could be done. He was a conscientious man, but weak and easily
influenced, and he had to suffer on all hands for his weakness. He
felt that he had acted wrongly, but did not see how he was to
put matters right again now without a lot more unpleasantness.
Every Sunday, morning and evening, from his pulpit he could see
John there in his pew, looking hurt and downcast, joining in none
of the hymns, and taking but a listless interest in the whole
service. He missed John's voice too, genuinely missed it, and felt
and said that since he had grown mute the singing had lost all
its inspiring heartiness, and the choir had become merely a piece
of mechanism.
For you see John did not understand a note of music, so he
and his choir used to sing only the old tunes that everybody knew,
and that all the congregation could join in singing with immense
THE MAN WITH NO VOICE. 661
gusto and enjoyment. But Mr. Grraff set himself to improve all
this. He reorganised the choir, but still he could not get more
than two or three people into it who were able to read music. So
he had a choir meeting three times a week for practice, at which
he would sing and Mr. Miffin would play, and the choir would
follow them as best it could, and by slow perseverance master
pew tunes. But when the new tunes came to be sung on Sundays
of course the congregation could not join in singing them, and
every now and then even the choir would get the tune into such
a hopeless tangle that it broke down, and left Mr. Grraff to finish
a verse by himself as if he were performing a solo with harmonium
accompaniment.
John had such a paternal interest in the choir that far from
feeling any malicious joy in his successor's difficulties, the un-
satisfactory state of affairs was honestly a great trouble to him.
But what could he do ? They would not let him do anything.
All the congregation knew how it fretted and worried him ; he
was not proud enough to cloak his humiliation in offended silence,
but gave voice to his feelings on every opportunity, sure always
of the sympathy of his hearers. But all his old ardour had been
severely checked ; he did not take such hearty pleasure in the
Sunday services as he had taken formerly, and by degrees became
less regular in his attendance until he left off coming of an
evening almost entirely.
One Sunday evening when he was not there, just as the last
hymn was being sung, a man came hurrying along the aisle into
the choir, checked Mr. Grraff, brought him suddenly down from a
top note, and whispered hastily in his ear. The choir went on
singing, the harmonium went on playing, but Mr. Grraff dropped his
hymnbook, and, without waiting for his hat, rushed with a white,
terror-stricken face down the aisle, and out of the chapel like a
man suddenly gone mad. Mrs. Grraff started from her pew and
called to him as he passed, but he was gone as if he had not heard her.
Once in the street, Mr. Graff redoubled his speed, and ran as
he never ran in his life before. The messenger could scarcely
keep pace with him.
' Have — they — got — my — little — girl — out ?' Mr. Graff panted,
hoarsely.
' Dunno,' responded the messenger. And they ran on without
another word. They overtook and passed others running in the
same direction ; soon they could hear a confused uproar on ahead
662 THE MAN WITH NO VOICE.
of them, and suddenly turning a corner they came full in view of
Mr. Graff's house, which was nothing now, so far as they could see,
but a black mass of wreathing smoke, with a lurid heart of fire.
In a moment Mr. Graff was pushing through the crowd that
was standing strangely silent, gazing up earnestly into the smoke.
He saw at a glance an hysterical servant girl standing amongst
them, wringing her hands and looking up with the rest, and
grasped her arm and shook her roughly.
' Erne ? Where is Erne ?' he shouted wildly.
' Oh, sir ! ' cried the girl, in helpless terror, ' I'd put her to bed
upstairs, and '
He was gone; he had his latch-key out of his pocket, and
dashed wildly under that choking canopy of smoke, and up the
few steps to the front door. But at the same instant an inarticu-
late roar burst from the entire crowd, three or four men were after
him, and seized him and dragged him back by main force, shout-
ing frantically : ' She's here ! He's got her ! Hurrah ! Look !
There he is ! Hurrah ! '
The whole crowd was simply crying and sobbing and shouting
all together. And looking up, dazed and bewildered, Mr. Graff
saw dimly the figure of a man coming down a ladder through that
blinding, suffocating smoke, with a little child in his arms. Before
the man had reached the ground Mr. Graff broke from the men
who held him, rushed forward, snatched the child into his own
arms, and held it close as if he could not assure himself even yet
that it was safe. But the crowd swarmed down upon the rescuer,
cheering and making frantic grabs at him. If he had had a
hundred hands every man in that crowd would have shaken every
one of them twice over. They would not let him get away ; they
pressed about him, and would not leave him alone. His face was
all blackened with the smoke, he had been singed and scorched
by the fire, but they knew him, they knew him in spite of it all,
God bless him ! It was John Wicks. And the crowd rolled on
before him, as he went away, and beside him and after him,
cheering and grasping his hand until at last he escaped into his
own house, and shut the door on them. Then they ran back to
the scene of the fire, and found the fire-engine hard at work and
the fire-escape just arriving.
Early next morning, soon after John had opened his shop, Mr.
Graff came quietly in, looking nervous and depressed. His old,
blatant self-assurance seemed to have quite failed him ; he shook
THE MAN WITH NO VOICE. 663
John's hand warmly, and seemed as if he wanted to say something,
and did not know how to begin. John, just to break the awkward
silence, said how sorry he was for the great loss Mr. Graff must
have suffered by the fire, when Mr. Grraff interrupted him :
' All insured,' he said, with an effort ; ' don't matter a bit.
"Tisn't that, sir. Mr. Wicks,' he continued brokenly, after a mo-
mentary pause, ' she — she — is our — only one, sir, and '
He gave it up. He dropped his arms on the counter, and hid
his face in them, and sobbed in a way that was pitiful to hear.
John did not know what to do. He ran his fingers through his
singed hair, and stammered awkwardly that it was all right and
didn't matter, when suddenly Mr. Grraff appeared to conquer him-
self. He stood upright, cleared his throat vigorously, began to
say something, stopped, leaned across the counter, and grasping
John's hand again, huskily ejaculated, ' (rod bless you ! ' and turned
at once and bolted out of the shop. Two days after he came in
again ; but this time he had got himself well under control. He
spoke with his old self-confidence, his old air of imperative deci-
sion. And having thanked John in easy, conventional phrases
for saving his little one's life, he continued :
' And now I'm going to ask you to do me a favour, Mr. Wicks.
I am too much upset to attend to the choir at present ; in fact,
between ourselves, I can make nothing of it. Knew I couldn't
before I started, but — well, they would have me try it ; and I've
tried it and failed, sir, and I know of no one so capable of leading
it as yourself. You led it successfully before — will you, as a per-
sonal kindness to me, take it on again?'
' But I thought,' said John innocently, taken pleasantly by
surprise, ' you thought I had — I had no -voice, sir ?'
' Me ? Not me. Oh, no ! ' cried Mr. Grraff, emphatically, ' I
believe, now you mention it, Mr. Miffin seemed to have some such
impression ; but Mr. Miffin is no judge, sir. He does not under-
stand the voice. His forte is the harmonium. You mustn't mind
what he says. They wanted you to retire temporarily, and let
me try, and I've tried and — and made a mess of it, and I've done
with it. There ! So if you won't take it up again the chapel will
have to do without a choir, that's all.'
In this way John's former belief in his own voice was aroused,
and began to reassert itself within him. It was nice to feel that
they couldn't get on without him, and wanted him back, and he
was the last man in the world to dream of avenging the slight
664 THE MAN WITH NO VOICE.
that had been put upon him by refusing to go. And when Mr.
Graff had been to the minister, and the minister came and pressed
John, with genuine and delighted earnestness, to resume his old
duties, John yielded gladly, only feeling somehow just a little
sorry that Mr. Graff had failed, until he was assured that Mr. Graff
was in no wise sorry for himself.
He led the choir on the very next Sunday, and the whole
congregation heartily and with all its might joined in the old,
familiar hymns again, and sang out of time and out of tune with
him, and enjoyed the singing and the whole service to the utmost.
Everybody seemed glad to have him back again — everybody but
Mr. Miffin, who complained about it as he was walking towards
home with Mr. and Mrs. Graff, and was still complaining about it
when the minister overtook them.
' I was saying, sir, how I enjoyed the singing this morning,'
cried Mr. Graff, heartily.
' Yes,' assented Mr. Nutt, with equal warmth, ' it did me good.
It was splendid. How heartily everyone joined in ! That is as it
should be.'
' Yes,' cried Mr. Graff, generously, ' there's no doubt Mr. Wicks
is the man for the place. You made a mistake, sir, in putting him
out of it. His singing is infectious. It makes everyone else sing.
There's such a hearty sound in it ; it warms you only to hear it.
He's a fine fellow. Powerful voice ! Little untrained, but powerful.'
Mr. Miffin didn't know what to make of it. He could not
understand why Mr. Graff should desert him in this manner. That
his gratitude to John should deafen him to the horrors of John's
voice was unreasonable, scarcely even Christian, and to pretend that
the change of opinion was wrought by real conviction and not by
gratitude was a barefaced wickedness. Mr. Miffin was put out.
O -*-
' His voice is the same as it always was,' he declared ; ' there's
no tune in it '
* Yes, there is,' interrupted Mr. Graff, unblushingly. ' What if
there isn't? He's a good fellow. He's got a good heart, even if
he hasn't got a good voice.'
' Aha ! ' chuckled the minister, glancing at Mr. Graff with a
sidelong smile, ' and after all there are some good things that are
better than a good voice.'
' That's it. There are,' declared Mr. Graff, ' and he's got them.
He's got 'em all, sir, and he sings with every one of them, and —
that's what makes his singing good. God bless him ! '
C76
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