Prose Of Yesterday Dickens To Galsworthy

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THE SCHOLAR'S LIBRARY
General Editor: Guv BOAS, M.A.

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

THE SCHOLAR'S LIBRARY

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NOKTHANGER ABBEY. By

JANE AUSTEN. Edited by Mis.

F. S. BOAS.
DR. JOHNSON: A Str.EcnoN

FROM BOSWELL'S BIOGRAPHY.

Kdited by M. ALDERTON

A TALE'OF TWO CITIES. u y

CHARLKsDiCKKNs. With I ntro-
duction by G. K. CHKSTKRION
and Notes by Guv BOAS.

SYBIL. By BENJAMIN DISRAKLI.
Edited by VICTOR COHEN.

EIGHT ESSAYISTS. Selcr ted
and Edited by A. S. CAIRN-

FACTAND FICTION. An An-
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by A. S. CAIRNCROSS.

SELECTIONS FROM THE
WRITINGS OF SIR JAMKS
FRAZER. Edited by Dr. S. G.
OWEN.

FAR FROM THE MADDING
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Edited by C. ALDKKD.

THE MAYOR OF CASTER-
BRIDGE. By THOMAS HARDY.
Edited by VIVIAN DE SOLA

PlN'lO.

THE RETURN OF THE
NATIVE. ByTnoMAs HARDY.
Edited by C. Ai DRED. With
Introduction by SYLVIA LYNO.

STORIES AND POEMS OF
THOMAS HAK DY. Selected
and Edited by N. V. MEEKHS.

'IHE TRUMPET-MAJOR. By
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MODERN POETRY 1922-11^4-

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MODERN SHORT STORIES.

Selected and Edited by A. J.

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PEPYS : SFLEC i IONS. Edited

by N. V. M KERBS.
POEMS FOR YOUTH. Selected

and Edited by A. S. CAIKN-

CROSS.

POEMS OLD AND NEW : AN
ANTHOLOGY. Selected and
Edited by A. S. CAIRNCROSS.

LONGER POEMS OLD AND
NEW: An Anthology. Selected
and Edited by A S. CAIRN-

PROSE'OF YESTERDAY.

DICK HNS to GAISWORTHY.
Selected and Edited by GUY

A "PUNCH" ANTHOLOGY.

Compiled and Edited by GUY

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AN ANTHOLOGY OF WIT.

Selected and Edited by GUY

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QUKST AND CONQUEST : AN

ANTHOLOGY OF PKRSONAL Au-

VBN I URRS. Compiled by E. V.

ODLE.
READINGS FROM THE

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I dited by EDWARD MASON
SHORT MODERN PLAYS.

Selected and Edited by GUY

BOAS.
KIDNAPPED. By ROBERT Louis

STEVENSON. Edited by JAN

STKUTHER.
TREASURE ISLAND. By

KOHFRT Louis STEVENSON.

Edited by Mrs. F. S. BOAS.
" THE TIMES": AN ANTHOLOGY.

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY
DICKENS TO GALSWORTHY

Selected and Edited by
GUY BOAS, M.A.

Headmaster of Shane School, formerly
Senior English Master, St. Paul's School

MAGMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1937

COPYRIGHT

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
BY R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, EDINBURGH

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE compiler wishes to acknowledge his indebted-
ness to the following, who have kindly given permis-
sion for the use of the copyright material contained in
this volume: Messrs. J. W. Arrowsmith (London), Ltd.,
for " Packing," from Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome
K. Jerome ; the Executors of the late Arnold Bennett
for " The Potter's Craft," from Anna of the Five'Towns ;
Messrs. Jonathan Cape, Ltd., for " The Rights of
Animals," from Erewhon, by Samuel Butler ; the
Trustees to the Conrad Estate and Messrs. Wm.
Blackwood & Sons, Ltd., for " Jim," from Lord Jim ;
Messrs. Constable & Co., Ltd., for " The Punishment
of Shahpesh," from The Shaving of Shagpat, by George
Meredith ; Messrs. Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd.,
for " The Great Forest," from After London , by Richard
Jefferies ; the Executors of the late Sir Arthur Gonaii
Doyle and Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., for
" Pterodactyls," from The Lost World ; the Executors
of the late John Galsworthy and Messrs. Wm. Heine-
mann, Ltd., for " The Hondekoeter," from On Forsyte
Change ; the Executors of the late Thomas Hardy for
" Egdon Heath," from The Return of the Native ; the
Trustees to the Jowett Estate and the Clarendon
Press, Oxford, for " The Future Life," from the Intro-
duction to the Phaedo ; Messrs. Longmans Green & Co.,
Ltd., for " The Battle of Cannae," from Carthage and
the Carthaginians, by R. Bosworth Smith ; Mr. Lloyd
Osbournc for " The Yellow Paint," from Fables, by

v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Robert Louis Stevenson ; the representatives of
Walter Pater for "La Gioconda," from The Renaissance \
the Proprietors of Punch for " The Happy Thinker is
Galled," from Happy Thoughts^ by Sir Francis Burnand ;
and Mr. Henry T. Weyman and Messrs. John Murray
for " The King's Stratagem," from In Kings' Byways,
by the late Stanley Weyman.

FOREWORD

To the celebrated reaction against all things Vic-
torian, including Victorian literature, another reaction
has now set in. Perhaps we have learnt the lesson
of becoming modesty. Perhaps when we survey what
the twentieth century has been able to write in the way
of books, now that a third of that century has already
passed, we begin to see the magnitude of the Victorian
literary achievement in its proper light. " There
were giants in the earth in those days." It is true that
the reigns of Edward VII and George V saw the pub-
lication of some classic works, but it is a further cause
for modesty that even these classics were mostly the
work of writers whose initial success was while the
Queen was still alive. No one would think of Kipling
or Galsworthy or Arnold Bennett, or even Thomas
Hardy, as Victorian : yet no one of them was born
after 1867, and the Queen did not die till 1901.

Not only were there giants then, but Titans too,
and even mere mortals, such as Anna Sewell, Francis
Burnand, Jerome K. Jerome, Thomas Hughes,
Stanley Weyman, Conan Doyle, who, if they hardly
rank as great masters of literature, were capable of
writing books which have an obstinate knack of sur-
viving the profusion of immortal masterpieces which,
according at any rate to the advertisements, have
been pouring from the printing-press ever since.

The books written in every generation must
naturally and rightly make a special appeal to the

vii

FOREWORD

members of their own generation : only by reading
our proper share of current literature can we keep our
minds fresh and abreast of the times. But our know-
ledge cannot be very deep, or our power of literary
discrimination just, unless we found our experience
and taste upon the classics, and the purpose of this
small collection of prose extracts is to emphasise how
securely our Victorian prose stands among the classics
and how many are the Victorian prose-writers, both
greater and less, who contributed to establishing that
classical era. Not only did Dickens create his im-
mortal troupe of characters, but Hughes created
Tom Brown, Lewis Carroll Humpty Dumpty, Conan
Doyle Sherlock Holmes, Galsworthy Soames Forsyte.
Ruskin was a master of style, but so also were Pater
and Froude. George Meredith was a daring thinker,
but so also was Samuel Butler. Charles Kingsley
was not the only master moralist, Benjamin Jowett
was a master too. Charles Reade, Hardy, and Steven-
son were master story-tellers, and so was Stanley
Weyman. Macaulay was not the only historian who
was a stylist : Bosworth Smith could also spare time
from his duties as a Harrow housemaster to be both
historian and stylist. In fact, in consequence of the
giants, there was " God's plenty " in those days, with
a good deal to teach us if we aspire to produce
anything like a measure of plenty in these days of
our own.

It is true that some qualities of the work are not quite
as we would have them now : the over-emphasised
piety of Tom Brown dates, the dialogue of Charles
Reade walks on stilts together with that of Conan
Doyle, the solution to the plots of Stanley Weyman falls
a trifle pat. Nevertheless, in these great mortals as
in the giants the spirit is there : the eternal fire burns
which neither the War nor anti- Victorian prejudice
could quench.

viii

FOREWORD

For nearly fifty years we have listened to anti-
Victorian chatter and to excited enthusiasm for the
smart, clever, enlightened literature of the twentieth
century. Caught in the whirl of current ecstasy, we
have read this and that daily masterpiece, at the
bidding of publishers, critics, and even the authors
themselves, in reverent wonder ; wonder induced not
only by the cleverness of the books for many of
them are very clever but the thought that anyone
could ever have been content with the narrow,
complacent, didactic, moralising days of Victorian
letters. And then one's eyes wander perchance over
one's favourite bookshelves : the shelf, for instance, in
reach of one's bed, which holds the favourite literary
night-caps. These shelves must be bulging by this
time with new masterpieces and post-War classics.
Or have we lent them to someone ? Or did we only
borrow them from the Library ? Or did we only
read them in the train and leave them there ? Any-
way, something has happened, for the books we see
are not they : some of their covers are rather
tattered, and the pages are thumbed. And the names
of the books ? That is my Pickwick, and that is the
copy of Alice in Wonderland I had with me in the War,
and that's the Sherlock Holmes I had at school, and I
was given that copy of Black Beauty when I was ten.
And that's Happy Thoughts : Haven't you read it ?
I always think it's one of the funniest books ever
written. No, I'm afraid I can't lend you any of these,
because I'm always reading them. Anyway they're
only old books : if you come downstairs I've got
several splendid new books which only came out this
season ; I'd love you to borrow them ; and it doesn't
really matter about letting me have them back.

G. B.

IX

CONTENTS

Nurse's Stories

The Uncommercial
Traveller

Charles Dickens
(1812-1870)

i

The Bear

The Cloister and
the Hearth

Charles Reade
(1814-1884)

13

The Future Life

Introduction to the
Phaedo

Benjamin Jowett
(1817-1893)

20

A Reading from
" Coriolanus "

Shirley

Charlotte Bronte
(1816-1855)

21

Death of Mr.
Earnshaw

Wuthering
Heights

Emily Bronte
(1818-1848)

27

England's For-
gotten Worthies

Short Studies on
Great Subjects

J. A. Froude
(1818-1843)

28

Attack on the
Stockade

Westward Ho !

Charles Kingsley
(1819-1875)

30

Mr. Poulter

The Mill on the
Floss

George Eliot
(1819-1880)

36

Stubb Kills a
Whale

Moby Dick

Herman Melville
(1819-1891)

44

Effect of Moun-
tain Scenery
on Shakespeare

Modern Painters

John Ruskin
(1819-1900)

50

An old War
Horse

Black Beauty

Anna Sewell
(1820-1878)

63

The Fight

Tom Brown's
School Days

Thomas Hughes
(1822-1896)

68

xi

CONTENTS

A Fire at Sea

The Life-boat

R. M. Ballantyne
(1825-1894)

PAGE
82

The Great
Winter

Lorna Doone

R. D. Blarkmore
(1825-1900)

94

Rounding Cape
Horn

Historical Sketches
of the Reign of
George II

Mrs. Oliphant
(1828-1897)

103

The Punishment
of Shahpcsh

The Shaving of
Shagpat

George Meredith
(1828-1909)

IIO

The Mock
Turtle's Story

Alices Adventures
in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll
(1832-1898)

117

The Rights of
Animals

Erewhon

Samuel Butler
(1835-1902)

120

The Happy
Thinker is
Called

Happy Thoughts

Sir Francis Bur-
nand (1836-
1917)

128

La Gioconda

The Renaissance

Walter Pater
(1839-1894)

132

The Battle of
Cannae

Carthage and the
Carthaginians

R. Bosworth
Smith (1839-
1908)

134

Egdon Heath

The Return of the
Native

Thomas Hardy
(1840-1928)

144

The Great
Forest

After London

Richard Jefferies
(1848-1887)

147

The Yellow
Paint

Fables

Robert Louis
Stevenson

'57

(1850-1894)

The King's
Stratagem

In Kings 9 Byways

Stanley Weyman
(1855-1928)

1 60

Jim

Lord Jim

Joseph Conrad
(1857-1924)

175

Packing

Three Men in a
Boat

Jerome K.
Jerome (1859-
1923)

1 80

Xll

Pterodactyls

The Potter's
Craft

The Honde-
kocter

CONTENTS

The Lost World

Anna of the Five
'Towns

On Forsyte Change

Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle
(1859-1930)

Arnold Bennett
(1867-1931)

John Galsworthy
(1867-1933)

1 88

199

Xlll

NURSE'S STORIES

THERE are not many places that I find it more
agreeable to revisit when I am in an idle mood, than
some places to which I have never been. For, my
acquaintance with those spots is of such long standing,
and has ripened into an intimacy of so affectionate a
nature, that I take a particular interest in assuring
myself that they are unchanged.

I never was in Robinson Crusoe's Island, yet I
frequently return there. The colony he established
on it soon faded away, and it is uninhabited by any
descendants of the grave and courteous Spaniards, or
of Will Atkins and the other mutineers, and has
relapsed into its original condition. Not a twig of its
wicker houses remains, its goats have long run wild
again, its screaming parrots would darken the sun
with a cloud of many flaming colours if a gun were
fired there, no face is ever reflected in the waters of the
little creek which Friday swam across when pursued
by his two brother cannibals with sharpened stomachs.
After comparing notes with other travellers who have
similarly revisited the Island and conscientiously in-
spected it, I have satisfied myself that it contains no
vestige of Mr. Atkins's domesticity or theology, though
his track on the memorable evening of his landing
to set his captain ashore, when he was decoyed about
and round about until it was dark, and his boat was
stove, and his strength and spirits failed him, is yet
plainly to be traced. So is the hill-top on which
Robinson was struck dumb with joy when the rein-
IE i

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

stated captain pointed to the ship, riding within half
a mile of the shore, that was to bear him away, in
the nine-and-twentieth year of his seclusion in that
lonely place. So is the sandy beach on which the
memorable footstep was impressed, and where the
savages hauled up their canoes when they came
ashore for those dreadful public dinners, which led
to a dancing worse than speech-making. So is the
cave where the flaring eyes of the old goat made such
a goblin appearance in the dark. So is the site of the
hut where Robinson lived with the dog and the parrot
and the cat, and where he endured those first agonies
of solitude, which strange to say never involved
any ghostly fancies ; a circumstance so very remark-
able, that perhaps he left out something in writing his
record ? Round hundreds of such objects, hidden in
the dense tropical foliage, the tropical sea breaks
evermore ; and over them the tropical sky, saving in
the short rainy season, shines bright and cloudless.

Neither was I ever belated among wolves, on the
borders of France and Spain ; nor did I ever, when
night was closing in and the ground was covered with
snow, draw up my little company among some felled
trees which served as a breastwork, and there fire a
train of gunpowder so dexterously that suddenly we
had three or four score blazing wolves illuminating
the darkness around us. Nevertheless, I occasionally
go back to that dismal region and perform the feat
again ; when indeed to smell the singeing and the
frying of the wolves afire, and to see them setting one
another alight as they rush and tumble, and to behold
them rolling in the snow vainly attempting to put
themselves out, and to hear their howlings taken up
by all the echoes as well as by all the unseen wolves
within the woods, makes me tremble.

I was never in the robbers' cave, where Gil Bias
lived, but I often go back there and find the trap-

NURSE'S STORIES

door just as heavy to raise as it used to be, while that
wicked old disabled Black lies everlastingly cursing in
bed. I was never in Don Quixote's study, where he
read his books of chivalry until he rose and hacked
at imaginary giants, and then refreshed himself with
great draughts of water, yet you couldn't move a
book in it without my knowledge, or with my consent.
I was never (thank Heaven) in company with the
little old woman who hobbled out of the chest and
told the merchant Abudah to go in search of the Talis-
man of Oromanes, yet I make it my business 'to know
that she is well preserved and as intolerable as ever.
I was never at the school where the boy Horatio
Nelson got out of bed to steal the pears : not because
he wanted any, but because every other boy was
afraid : yet I have several times been back to this
Academy, to see him let down out of window with a
sheet. So with Damascus, and Bagdad, and Brob-
dingnag (which has the curious fate of being usually
misspelt when written), and Lilliput, and Laputa, and
the Nile, and Abyssinia, and the Ganges, and the
North Pole, and many hundreds of places I was
never at them, yet it is an affair of my life to keep
them intact, and I am always going back to them.

But, when I was at Dullborough one day, revisiting
the associations of my childhood, my experience in this
wise was made quite inconsiderable and of no account,
by the quantity of places and people utterly im-
possible places and people, but none the less alarm-
ingly real that I found I had been introduced to by
my nurse before I was six years old, and used to be
forced to go back to at night without at all wanting
to go. If we all knew our own minds (in a more
enlarged sense than the popular acceptation of that
phrase), I suspect we should find our nurses respon-
sible for most of the dark corners we are forced to go
back to, against our wills.

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

The first diabolical character who intruded himself
on my peaceful youth (as I called to mind that day
at Dullborough) was a certain Captain Murderer.
This wretch must have been an offshoot of the Blue
Beard family, but I had no suspicion of the con-
sanguinity in those times. His warning name would
seem to have awakened no general prejudice against
him, for he was admitted into the best society and
possessed immense wealth. Captain Murderer's mis-
sion was matrimony, and the gratification of a canni-
bal appetite with tender brides. On his marriage
morning, he always caused both sides of the way to
church to be planted with curious flowers ; and when
his bride said, " Dear Captain Murderer, I never saw
flowers like these before : what are they called ? "
he answered, " They are called Garnish for house-
lamb," and laughed at his ferocious practical joke in
a horrid manner, disquieting the minds of the noble
bridal company, with a very sharp show of teeth,
then displayed for the first time. He made love in a
coach and six, and married in a coach and twelve, and
all his horses were milk-white horses with one red
spot on the back which he caused to be hidden by the
harness. For, the spot would come there, though every
horse was milk-white when Captain Murderer bought
him. And the spot was young bride's blood. (To
this terrific point I am indebted for my first personal
experience of a shudder and cold beads on the fore-
head.) When Captain Murderer had made an end
of feasting and revelry, and had dismissed the noble
guests, and was alone with his wife on the day month
after their marriage, it was his whimsical custom to
produce a golden rolling-pin and a silver pie-board.
Now, there was this special feature in the Captain's
courtships, that he always asked if the young lady
could make pie-crust ; and if she couldn't by nature
or education, she was taught. Well. When the

NURSE'S STORIES

bride saw Captain Murderer produce the golden
rolling-pin and silver pie-board, she remembered this,
and turned up her laced-silk sleeves to make a pie.
The Captain brought out a silver pie-dish of immense
capacity, and the Captain brought out flour and butter
and eggs and all things needful, except the inside of
the pie ; of materials for the staple of the pie itself,
the Captain brought out none. Then said the lovely
bride, " Dear Captain Murderer, what pie is this to
be ? " He replied, " A meat pie." Then said the
lovely bride, " Dear Captain Murderer, I see no
meat." The Captain humorously retorted, " Look in
the glass." She looked in the glass, but still she saw
no meat, and then the Captain roared with laughter,
and suddenly frowning and drawing his sword, bade
her roll out the crust. So she rolled out the crust,
dropping large tears upon it all the time because he was
so cross, and when she had lined the dish with crust
and had cut the crust all ready to fit the top, the
Captain called out, " / see the meat in the glass ! "
And the bride looked up at the glass, just in time to
see the Captain cutting her head off ; and he chopped
her in pieces, and peppered her, and salted her, and
put her in the pie, and sent it to the baker's, and ate
it all, and picked the bones.

Captain Murderer went on in this way, prospering
exceedingly, until he came to choose a bride from two
twin sisters, and at first didn't know which to choose.
For, though one was fair and the other dark, they
were both equally beautiful. But the fair twin loved
him, and the dark twin hated him, so he chose the
fair one. The dark twin would have prevented the
marriage if she could, but she couldn't ; however, on
the night before it, much suspecting Captain Mur-
derer, she stole out and climbed his garden wall, and
looked in at his window through a chink in the shutter,
and saw him having his teeth filed sharp. Next day

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

she listened all day, and heard him make his joke
about the house-lamb. And that day month, he had
the paste rolled out, and cut the fair twin's head off,
and chopped her in pieces, and peppered her, and
salted her, and put her in the pie, and sent it to the
baker's, and ate it all, and picked the bones.

Now, the dark twin had had her suspicions much
increased by the filing of the Captain's teeth, and again
by the house-lamb joke. Putting all things together
when he gave out that her sister was dead, she
divined the truth, and determined to be revenged.
So, she went up to Captain Murderer's house, and
knocked at the knocker and pulled at the bell, and
when the Captain came to the door, said : " Dear
Captain Murderer, marry me next, for I always loved
you and was jealous of my sister." The Captain
took it as a compliment, and made a polite answer,
and the marriage was quickly arranged. On the
night before it, the bride again climbed to his window,
and again saw him having his teeth filed sharp. At
this sight she laughed such a terrible laugh at the
chink in the shutter, that the Captain's blood curdled,
and he said : " I hope nothing has disagreed with
me ! " At that, she laughed again, a still more
terrible laugh, and the shutter was opened and search
made, but she was nimbly gone, and there was no
one. Next day they went to church in a coach and
twelve, and were married. And that day month,
she rolled the pie-crust out, and Captain Murderer
cut her head off, and chopped her in pieces, and
peppered her, and salted her, and put her in the pie,
and sent it to the baker's, and ate it all, and picked
the bones.

But before she began to roll out the paste she had
taken a deadly poison of a most awful character, dis-
tilled from toads' eyes and spiders' knees ; and Cap-
tain Murderer had hardly picked her last bone, when

6

NURSE'S STORIES

he began to swell, and to turn blue, and to be all over
spots, and to scream. And he went on swelling and
turning bluer, and being more all over spots and
screaming, until he reached from floor to ceiling and
from wall to wall ; and then, at one o'clock in the
morning, he blew up with a loud explosion. At the
sound of it, all the milk-white horses in the stables
broke their halters and went mad, and then they
galloped over everybody in Captain Murderer's house
(beginning with the family blacksmith who had filed
his teeth) until the whole were dead, and then they
galloped away.

Hundreds of times did I hear this legend of Captain
Murderer, in my early youth, and added hundreds of
times was there a mental compulsion upon me in bed,
to peep in at his window, as the dark twin peeped,
and to revisit his horrible house, and look at him in
his blue and spotty and screaming stage, as he reached
from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall. The young
woman who brought me acquainted with Captain
Murderer had a fiendish enjoyment of my terrors,
and used to begin, I remember as a sort of introduc-
tory overture by clawing the air with both hands,
and uttering a long low hollow groan. So acutely
did I suffer from this ceremony in combination with
this infernal Captain, that I sometimes used to plead
I thought I was hardly strong enough and old enough
to hear the story again just yet. But, she never spared
me one word of it, and indeed commended the awful
chalice to my lips as the only preservative known
to science against " The Black Cat " a weird and
glaring-eyed supernatural Tom, who was reputed to
prowl about the world by night, sucking the breath of
infancy, and who was endowed with a special thirst
(as I was given to understand) for mine.

This female bard may she have been repaid my
debt of obligation to her in the matter of nightmares

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

and perspirations ! reappears in my memory as the
daughter of a shipwright. Her name was Mercy,
though she had none on me. There was something
of a shipbuilding flavour in the following story. As
it always recurs to me in a vague association with
calomel pills, I believe it to have been reserved for
dull nights when I was low with medicine.

There was once a shipwright, and he wrought in a
Government Yard, and his name was Chips. And his
father's name before him was Chips, and his father's
name before him was Chips, and they were all Chipses.
And Chips the father had sold himself to the Devil for
an iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny nails and half
a ton of copper and a rat that could speak ; and Chips
the grandfather had sold himself to the Devil for an
iron pot and a bushel of tenpenny nails and half a
ton of copper and a rat that could speak ; and Chips
the great-grandfather had disposed of himself in the
same direction on the same terms ; and the bargain
had run in the family for a long long time. So, one
day, when young Chips was at work in the Dock Slip
all alone, down in the dark hold of an old Seventy-
four that was haled up for repairs, the Devil presented
himself, and remarked :

" A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And /'ll have Chips ! "

(I don't know why, but this fact of the Devil's express-
ing himself in rhyme was peculiarly trying to me.
Chips looked up when he heard the words, and there
he saw the Devil with saucer eyes that squinted on a
terrible great scale, and that struck out sparks of blue
fire continually. And whenever he winked his eyes,
showers of blue sparks came out, and his eyelashes
made a clattering like flints and steels striking lights.
And hanging over one of his arms by the handle was

8

NURSE'S STORIES

an iron pot, and under that arm was a bushel of ten-
penny nails, and under his other arm was half a ton
of copper, and sitting on one of his shoulders was a
rat that could speak. So, the Devil said again :

" A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And /'ll have Chips ! "

(The invariable effect of this alarming tautology on
the part of the Evil Spirit was to deprive me of my
senses for some moments.) So, Chips answered never
a word, but went on with his work. " What are you
doing, Chips ? " said the rat that could speak. " I
am putting in new planks where you and your gang
have eaten old away," said Chips. " But we'll eat
them too," said the rat that could speak ; " and we'll
let in the water and drown the crew, and we'll eat
them too." Chips, being only a shipwright, and not
a Man-of-war's man, said, " You are welcome to it."
But he couldn't keep his eyes off the half a ton of
copper or the bushel of tenpenny nails ; for nails
and copper are a shipwright's sweethearts, and ship-
wrights will run away with them whenever they can.
So, the Devil said, " I see what you are looking at,
Chips. You had better strike the bargain. You
know the terms. Your father before you was well
acquainted with them, and so were your grandfather
and great-grandfather before him." Says Chips, " I
like the copper, and I like the nails, and I don't
mind the pot, but I don't like the rat." Says the
Devil, fiercely, " You can't have the metal without
him and he's a curiosity. I'm going." Chips, afraid
of losing the half a ton of copper and the bushel of
nails, then said, " Give us hold ! " So, he got the
copper and the nails and the pot and the rat that could
speak, and the Devil vanished. Chips sold the copper,
and he sold the nails, and he would have sold the pot ;

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

but whenever he offered it for sale, the rat was in it,
and the dealers dropped it, and would have nothing
to say to the bargain. So, Chips resolved to kill the
rat, and, being at work in the Yard one day with a
great kettle of hot pitch on one side of him and the
iron pot with the rat in it on the other, he turned
the scalding pitch into the pot, and filled it full.
Then, he kept his eye upon it till it cooled and
hardened, and then he let it stand for twenty days,
and then he heated the pitch again and turned it back
into the kettle, and then he sank the pot in water for
twenty days more, and then he got the smelters to
put it in the furnace for twenty days more, and then
they gave it him out, red hot, and looking like red-
hot glass instead of iron yet there was the rat in it,
just the same as ever ! And the moment it caught his
eye, it said with a jeer :

" A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And ril have Chips ! "

(For this Refrain I had waited since its last appearance,
with inexpressible horror, which now culminated.)
Chips now felt certain in his own mind that the rat
would stick to him ; the rat, answering his thought,
said, " I will like pitch ! "

Now, as the rat leaped out of the pot when it had
spoken, and made off, Chips began to hope that
it wouldn't keep its word. But, a terrible thing
happened next day. For, when dinner-time came,
and the Dock-bell rang to strike work, he put his
rule into the long pocket at the side of his trousers,
and there he found a rat not that rat, but another
rat. And in his hat, he found another ; and in his
pocket-handkerchief, another ; and in the sleeves of
his coat, when he pulled it on to go to dinner, two
more. And from that time he found himself so fright-

10

NURSE'S STORIES

fully intimate with all the rats in the Yard, that they
climbed up his legs when he was at work, and sat on
his tools while he used them. And they could all
speak to one another, and he understood what they
said. And they got into his lodging, and into his
bed, and into his teapot, and into his beer, and into
his boots. And he was going to be married to a
corn-chandler's daughter ; and when he gave her a
workbox he had himself made for her, a rat jumped
out of it, and when he put his arm round her waist,
a rat clung about her ; so the marriage was broken
off, though the banns were already twice put up
which the parish clerk well remembers, for, as he
handed the book to the clergyman for the second time
of asking, a large fat rat ran over the leaf. (By this
time a special cascade of rats was rolling down my
back, and the whole of my small listening person was
overrun with them. At intervals ever since, I have
been morbidly afraid of my own pocket, lest my explor-
ing hand should find a specimen or two of those
vermin in it.)

You may believe that all this was very terrible to
Chips ; but even all this was not the worst. He
knew besides, what the rats were doing, wherever they
were. So, sometimes he would cry aloud, when he
was at his club at night, " Oh ! Keep the rats out of
the convicts' bury ing-ground ! Don't let them do
that ! " Or, " There's one of them at the cheese
downstairs ! " Or, u There's two of them smelling
at the baby in the garret ! " Or, other things of
that sort. At last, he was voted mad, and lost his
work in the Yard, and could get no other work.
But King George wanted men, so before very long
he got pressed for a sailor. And so he was taken off
in a boat one evening to his ship, lying at Spithead,
ready to sail. And so the first thing he made out in
her as he got near her, was the figure-head of the old

ii

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Seventy-four, where he had seen the Devil. She was
called the Argonaut, and they rowed right under the
bowsprit where the figure-head of the Argonaut, with
a sheepskin in his hand and a blue gown on, was
looking out to sea ; and sitting staring on his forehead
was the rat who could speak, and his exact words
were these : " Chips ahoy ! Old boy ! We've pretty
well eat them too, and we'll drown the crew, and will
eat them too ! " (Here I always became exceedingly
faint, and would have asked for water, but that I
was speechless.)

The ship was bound for the Indies ; and if you don't
know where that is, you ought to, and angels will
never love you. (Here I felt myself an outcast from a
future state.) The ship set sail that very night, and
she sailed, and sailed, and sailed. Chips's feelings
were dreadful. Nothing ever equalled his terrors.
No wonder. At last, one day he asked leave to speak
to the Admiral. The Admiral giv' leave. Chips went
down on his knees in the Great State Cabin. " Your
Honour, unless your Honour, without a moment's
loss of time, makes sail for the nearest shore, this is a
doomed ship, and her name is the Coffin ! " " Young
man, your words are a madman's words." " Your
Honour, no ; they are nibbling us away." " They ? "
" Your Honour, them dreadful rats. Dust and
hollowness where solid oak ought to be ! Rats
nibbling a grave for every man on board ! Oh !
Does your Honour love your Lady and your pretty
children ? " " Yes, my man, to be sure." " Then,
for God's sake, make for the nearest shore, for at this
present moment the rats are all stopping in their
work, and are all looking straight towards you with
bare teeth, and are all saying to one another that you
shall never, never, never, never, see your Lady and
your children more." " My poor fellow, you are a
case for the doctor. Sentry, take care of this man ! "

12

THE BEAR

So, he was bled and he was blistered, and he was
this and that, for six whole days and nights. So, then
he again asked leave to speak to the Admiral. The
Admiral giv' leave. He went down on his knees in
the Great State Cabin. " Now, Admiral, you must
die ! You took no warning ; you must die ! The rats
are never wrong in their calculations, and they make
out that they'll be through, at twelve to-night. So,
you must die ! With me and all the rest ! " And so
at twelve o'clock there was a great leak reported in
the ship, and a torrent of water rushed in and nothing
could stop it, and they all went down, every living
soul. And what the rats being water-rats left of
Chips, at last floated to shore, and sitting on him was
an immense overgrown rat, laughing, that dived when
the corpse touched the beach and never came up.
And there was a deal of seaweed on the remains.
And if you get thirteen bits of seaweed, and dry them
and burn them in the fire, they will go of! like in these
thirteen words as plain as plain can be :

" A Lemon has pips,
And a Yard has ships,
And /'ve got Chips ! "

CHARLES DICKENS

THE BEAR

DENYS and Gerard walked silently, each thinking of
the separation at hand ; the thought checked trifling
conversation, and at these moments it is a relief to do
something, however insignificant. Gerard asks Denys
to lend him a bolt. " I have often shot with a long-
bow, but never with one of these ! "

" Draw thy knife and cut this one out of the cub,"
said Denys slily.

13

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Nay, nay, I want a clean one."

Denys gave him three out of his quiver.

Gerard strung the bow, and levelled it at a bough
that had fallen into the road at some distance. The
power of the instrument surprised him ; the short
but thick steel bow jarred him to the very heel as it
went off, and the swift steel shaft was invisible in its
passage ; only the dead leaves, with which Novem-
ber had carpeted the narrow road, flew about on the
other side of the bough.

" Ye aimed a thought too high," said Denys.

" What a deadly thing ! no wonder it is driving out
the long-bow to Martin's much discontent."

" Ay, lad," said Denys triumphantly, " it gains
ground every day, in spite of their laws and their
proclamations to keep up the yewen bow, because,
forsooth, their grandsires shot with it, knowing no
better. You see, Gerard, war is not pastime. Men
will shoot at their enemies with the hittingest arm
and the killingest, not with the longest and missingest."

" Then these new engines I hear of will put both
bows down ; for these with a pinch of black dust, and
a leaden ball, and a child's finger, shall slay you Mars
and Goliath, and the Seven Champions."

" Pooh ! pooh ! " said Denys warmly ; " petrone
nor harquebuss shall ever put down Sir Arbalest.
Why, we can shoot ten times while they are putting
their charcoal and their lead into their leathern smoke
belchers, and then kindling their matches. All that
is too fumbling for the field of battle ; there a soldier's
weapon needs be aye ready, like his heart."

Gerard did not answer, for his ear was attracted
by a sound behind them. It was a peculiar sound,
too, like something heavy, but not hard, rushing
softly over the dead leaves. He turned round with
some little curiosity. A colossal creature was coming
down the road at about sixty paces distance.

'4

THE BEAR

He looked at it in a sort of calm stupor at first, but
the next moment he turned ashy pale.

" Denys ! " he cried. " Oh, God ! Denys ! "

Denys whirled round.

It was a bear as big as a cart-horse.

It was tearing along with its huge head down, run-
ning on a hot scent.

The very moment he saw it Denys said in a sicken-
ing whisper

" THE CUB ! "

Oh ! the concentrated horror of that one word,
whispered hoarsely, with dilating eyes ! For in that
syllable it all flashed upon them both like a sudden
stroke of lightning in the dark the bloody trail, the
murdered cub, the mother upon them, and it. DEATH.

All this in a moment of time. The next, she saw
them. Huge as she was, she seemed to double herself
(it was her long hair bristling with rage) : she raised
her head big as a bull's, her swine-shaped jaws opened
wide at them, her eyes turned to blood and flame, and
she rushed upon them, scattering the leaves about her
like a whirlwind as she came.

" Shoot ! " screamed Denys, but Gerard stood
shaking from head to foot, useless.

" Shoot, man ! ten thousand devils, shoot ! too
late ! Tree ! tree ! " and he dropped the cub,
pushed Gerard across the road, and flew to the first
tree and climbed it. Gerard the same on his side ;
and as they fled, both men uttered inhuman howls
like savage creatures grazed by death.

With all their speed one or other would have been
torn to fragments at the foot of his tree ; but the bear
stopped a moment at the cub.

Without taking her bloodshot eyes off those she was
hunting, she smelt it all round, and found, how her
Creator only knows, that it was dead, quite dead.
She gave a yell such as neither of the hunted ones had

15

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

ever heard, nor dreamed to be in nature, and flew
after Denys. She reared and struck at him as he
climbed. He was just out of reach.

Instantly she seized the tree, and with her huge
teeth tore a great piece out of it with a crash. Then
she reared again, dug her claws deep into the bark, and
began to mount it slowly, but as surely as a monkey.

Denys's evil star had led him to a dead tree, a mere
shaft, and of no very great height. He climbed faster
than his pursuer, and was soon at the top. He looked
this way and that for some bough of another tree to
spring to. There was none ; and if he jumped down,
he knew the bear would be upon him ere he could
recover the fall, and make short work of him. More-
over, Denys was little used to turning his back on
danger, and his blood was rising at being hunted.
He turned to bay.

" My hour is come," thought he. " Let me meet
death like a man." He kneeled down and grasped a
small shoot to steady himself, drew his long knife,
and clenching his teeth, prepared to job the huge
brute as soon as it should mount within reach.

Of this combat the result was not doubtful.

The monster's head and neck were scarce vulner-
able for bone and masses of hair. The man was going
to sting the bear, and the bear to crack the man like a
nut.

Gerard's heart was better than his nerves. He saw
his friend's mortal danger, and passed at once from
fear to blindish rage. He slipped down his tree in
a moment, caught up the cross-bow, which he had
dropped in the road, and running furiously up, sent
a bolt into the bear's body with a loud shout. The
bear gave a snarl of rage and pain, and turned its
head irresolutely.

" Keep aloof ! " cried Denys, " or you are a dead
man."

16

THE BEAR

" I care not " ; and in a moment he had another
bolt ready and shot it fiercely into the bear, scream-
ing, " Take that ! take that ! "

Denys poured a volley of oaths down at him.
" Get away, idiot ! "

He was right : the bear finding so formidable and
noisy a foe behind him, slipped growling down the
tree, rending deep furrows in it as she slipped.
Gerard ran back to his tree and climbed it swiftly,
but while his legs were dangling some eight feet from
the ground, the bear came rearing and struck with
her fore paw, and out flew a piece of bloody cloth
from Gerard's hose. He climbed, and climbed ;
and presently he heard as it were in the air a voice
say, " Go out on the bough ! " He looked, and there
was a long massive branch before him shooting up-
wards at a slight angle : he threw his body across it,
and by a series of convulsive efforts worked up it to
the end.

Then he looked round panting.

The bear was mounting the tree on the other side.
He heard her claws scrape, and saw her bulge on both
sides of the massive tree. Her eye not being very
quick, she reached the fork and passed it, mounting
the main stem. Gerard drew breath more freely.
The bear either heard him, or found by scent she was
wrong : she paused ; presently she caught sight of
him. She eyed him steadily, then quietly descended
to the fork.

Slowly and cautiously she stretched out a paw and
tried the bough. It was a stiff oak branch, sound as
iron. Instinct taught the creature this : it crawled
carefully out on the bough, growling savagely as it
came.

Gerard looked wildly down. He was forty feet
from the ground. Death below. Death moving
slow but sure on him in a still more horrible form.

17

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

His hair bristled. The sweat poured from him. He
sat helpless, fascinated, tongue-tied.

As the fearful monster crawled growling towards
him, incongruous thoughts coursed through his mind.
Margaret : the Vulgate, where it speaks of the rage
of a she-bear robbed of her whelps Rome Eternity.

The bear crawled on. And now the stupor of death
fell on the doomed man ; he saw the open jaws and
bloodshot eyes coming, but in a mist.

As in a mist he heard a twang : he glanced down ;
Denys, white and silent as death, was shooting up
at the bear. The bear snarled at the twang, but
crawled on. Again the cross-bow twanged, and the
bear snarled, and came nearer. Again the cross-bow
twanged ; and the next moment the bear was close
upon Gerard, where he sat, with hair standing stiff
on end, and eyes starting from their sockets, palsied.
The bear opened her jaws like a grave, and hot blood
spouted from them upon Gerard as from a pump.
The bough rocked. The wounded monster was reel-
ing ; it clung, it stuck its sickles of claws deep into the
wood ; it toppled, its claws held firm, but its body
rolled off, and the sudden shock to the branch shook
Gerard forward on his stomach with his face upon one
of the bear's straining paws. At this, by a convulsive
effort, she raised her head up, up, till he felt her hot
fetid breath. Then huge teeth snapped together
loudly close below him in the air, with a last effort of
baffled hate. The ponderous carcass rent the claws
out of the bough, then pounded the earth with a
tremendous thump. There was a shout of triumph
below, and the very next instant a cry of dismay, for
Gerard had swooned and, without an attempt to save
himself, rolled headlong from the perilous height.

Denys caught at Gerard, and somewhat checked
his fall ; but it may be doubted whether this alone
would have saved him from breaking his neck, or a

18

THE BEAR

limb. His best friend now was the dying bear, on
whose hairy carcass his head and shoulders descended.
Denys tore him off her. It was needless. She panted
still, and her limbs quivered, but a hare was not so
harmless ; and soon she breathed her last ; and the
judicious Denys propped Gerard up against her, being
soft, and fanned him. He came to by degrees, but
confused, and feeling the bear all around him, rolled
away, yelling.

" Courage," cried Denys, " le diable est mort."

" Is it dead ? quite dead ? " inquired Gerard from
behind a tree ; for his courage was feverish, and the
cold fit was on him just now, and had been for some
time.

" Behold," said Denys, and pulled the brute's ear
playfully, and opened her jaws and put in his head,
with other insulting antics ; in the midst of which
Gerard was violently sick.

Denys laughed at him.

" What is the matter now ? " said he ; " also, why
tumble off your perch just when we had won the day ? "

" I swooned, I trow."

" But why ? "

Not receiving an answer, he continued, " Green girls
faint as soon as look at you, but then they choose time
and place. What woman ever fainted up a tree ? "

" She sent her nasty blood all over me. I think the
smell must have overpowered me. Faugh ! I hate
blood."

" I do believe it potently."

" See what a mess she has made me ! "

" But with her blood, not yours. I pity the enemy
that strives to satisfy you."

" You need not to brag, Maitre Denys ; I saw you
under the tree, the colour of your shirt."

" Let us distinguish," said Denys, colouring ; " it is
permitted to tremble for a friend."

19 c

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Gerard, for answer, flung his arms round Denys's
neck in silence.

" Look here," whined the stout soldier, affected by
this little gush of nature and youth, " was ever aught
so like a woman ? I love thee, little milksop go to.
Good ! behold him on his knees now. What new
caprice is this ? "

" Oh, Denys, ought we not to return thanks to
Him who has saved both our lives against such fearful
odds ? " And Gerard kneeled, and prayed aloud.
And presently he found Denys kneeling quiet beside
him, with his hands across his bosom after the custom
of his nation, and a face as long as his arm. When
they rose, Gerard's countenance was beaming.

CHARLES READE

THE FUTURE LIFE

IT is well also that we should sometimes think of the
forms of thought under which the idea of immortality
is most naturally presented to us. It is clear that to
our minds the risen soul can no longer be described,
as in a picture, by the symbol of a creature half-bird,
half-human, nor in any other form of sense. The
multitude of angels, as in Milton, singing the Almighty's
praises, are a noble image, and may furnish a theme
for the poet or the painter, but they are no longer an
adequate expression of the kingdom of God which is
within us. Neither is there any mansion, in this world
or another, in which the departed can be imagined
to dwell and carry on their occupations. When this
earthly tabernacle is dissolved, no other habitation or
building can take them in : it is in the language of
ideas only that we speak of them.

First of all there is the thought of rest and freedom
from pain ; they have gone home, as the common

20

A READING FROM " GORIOLANUS "

saying is, and the cares of this world touch them no
more. Secondly, we may imagine them as they were
at their best and brightest, humbly fulfilling their daily
round of duties selfless, child-like, unaffected by the
world ; when the eye was single and the whole body
seemed to be full of light ; when the mind was clear
and saw into the purposes of God. Thirdly, we
may think of them as possessed by a great love of
God and man, working out His will at a further stage
in the heavenly pilgrimage. And yet we acknowledge
that these are the things which eye hath not seen nor
ear heard and therefore it hath not entered into the
heart of man in any sensible manner to conceive them.
Fourthly, there may have been some moments in our
own lives when we have risen above ourselves, or been
conscious of our truer selves, in which the will of God
has superseded our wills, and we have entered into
communion with Him, and been partakers for a brief
season of the Divine truth and love, in which like
Christ we have been inspired to utter the prayer, " I in
them, and thou in me, that we may be all made perfect
in one." These precious moments, if we have ever
known them, are the nearest approach which we can
make to the idea of immortality. (Phaedo, i. 182.)

BENJAMIN JOWETT

A READING FROM " CORIOLANUS "

CRADLED at last in blissful self-complacency, she
took her knitting, and sat down tranquil. Drawn
curtains, a clear fire, a softly-shining lamp, gave now
to the little parlour its best its evening charm. It is
probable that the three there present felt this charm ;
they all looked happy.

" What shall we do now, Caroline ? " asked Mr.
Moore, returning to his seat beside his cousin.

21

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" What shall we do, Robert ? " repeated she play-
fully. " You decide."

" Not play at chess ? "

" No. "

" Nor draughts, nor backgammon ? "

" No, no ; we both hate silent games, that only
keep one's hands employed don't we ? "

" I believe we do. Then, shall we talk scandal ? "

" About whom ? Are we sufficiently interested in
anybody to take a pleasure in pulling their character
to pieces ? "

" A question that comes to the point. For my part
unamiable as it sounds I must say, ' No '."

" And I, too. But it is strange, though we want no
third fourth, I mean " (she hastily and with contri-
tion glanced at Hor tense) " living person among us,
so selfish we are in our happiness, though we don't
want to think of the present existing world, it would be
pleasant to go back to the past ; to hear people that
have slept for generations in graves that arc perhaps
no longer graves now, but gardens and fields, speak to
us and tell us their thoughts, and impart their ideas."

" Who shall be the speaker ? What language shall
he utter French ? "

" Your French forefathers don't speak so sweetly,
nor so solemnly, nor so impressively as your English
ancestors, Robert. To-night you shall be entirely
English ; you shall read an English book."

" An old English book ? "

" Yes, an old English book one that you like ;
and I will choose a part of it that is toned quite in
harmony with something in you. It shall waken
your nature, fill your mind with music : it shall pass
like a skilful hand over your heart, and make its
strings sound. Your heart is a lyre, Robert ; but
the lot of your life has not been a minstrel to sweep it,
and it is often silent. Let glorious William come near

22

A READING FROM " GORIOLANUS "

and touch it ; you will see how he will draw the English
power and melody out of its chords."

" I must read Shakespeare."

" You must have his spirit before you ; you must
hear his voice with your mind's ear ; you must take
some of his soul into yours."

" With a view to making me better ; is it to operate
like a sermon ? "

" It is to stir you to give you new sensations. It
is to make you feel your life strongly, not only your
virtues, but your vicious, perverse points."

" Dieu ! que dit-elle ? " cried Hor tense, who hither-
to had been counting stitches in her knitting, and had
not much attended to what was said, but whose ear
these two strong words caught with a tweak.

" Never mind her, sister ; let her talk : now just
let her say anything she pleases to-night. She likes
to come down hard upon your brother sometimes ; it
amuses me, so let her alone."

Caroline who, mounted on a chair, had been
rummaging the bookcase, returned with a book.

" Here's Shakespeare," she said, " and there's
Coriolanus. Now, read, and discover by the feelings
the reading will give you at once how low and how
high you are."

" Gome, then, sit near me, and correct when I
mispronounce."

" I am to be the teacher, then, and you my pupil ? "

" Ainsi, soit-il ! "

" And Shakespeare is our science, since we are
going to study ? "

" It appears so."

" And you are not going to be French, and sceptical,
and sneering ? You are not going to think it a sign
of wisdom to refuse to admire ? "

" I don't know."

" If you do, Robert, I'll take Shakespeare away,

23

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

and I'll shrivel up within myself, and put on my bonnet
and go home."

" Sit down ; here I begin."

" One minute, if you please, brother," interrupted
Mademoiselle, " when the gentleman of a family
reads, the ladies should always sew. Caroline, dear
child, take your embroidery ; you may get three
sprigs done to-night."

Caroline looked dismayed.

" I can't see by lamp-light ; my eyes are tired, and
I can't do two things well at once. If I sew, I cannot
listen ; if I listen, I cannot sew."

" Fi, done ! Quel enfan tillage ! " began Hortense.

Mr. Moore, as usual, suavely interposed.

" Permit her to neglect the embroidery for this
evening. I wish her whole attention to be fixed on
my accent, and to ensure this, she must follow the
reading with her eyes ; she must look at the book."

He placed it between them, reposed his arm on the
back of Caroline's chair, and thus began to read.

The very first scene in Coriolanus came with smart
relish to his intellectual palate, and still as he read
he warmed. He delivered the haughty speech of
Caius Marcius to the starving citizens with unction ;
he did not say he thought his irrational pride right,
but he seemed to feel it so. Caroline looked up at
him with a singular smile.

" There's a vicious point hit already," she said ;
" you sympathise with that proud patrician who does
not sympathise with his famished fellow-men, and
insults them : there, go on."

He proceeded. The warlike portions did not rouse
him much ; he said all that was out of date, or should
be ; the spirit displayed was barbarous, yet the en-
counter single-handed between Marcius and Tullus
Aufidius he delighted in. As he advanced, he forgot
to criticise ; it was evident he appreciated the power,

24

A READING FROM " CORIOLANUS "

the truth of each portion ; and stepping out of the
narrow line of private prejudices, began to revel in
the large picture of human nature, to feel the reality
stamped upon the characters who were speaking from
that page before him.

He did not read the comic scenes well, and Caroline,
taking the book out of his hand, read these parts for
him. From her he seemed to enjoy them, and indeed
she gave them with a spirit no one could have ex-
pected of her, with a pithy expression, with which
she seemed gifted on the spot, and for that brief
moment only. It may be remarked, in passing, that
the general character of her conversation that evening,
whether serious or sprightly, grave or gay, was as
of something untaught, unstudied, intuitive, fitful ;
when once gone, no more to be reproduced as it had
been, than the glancing ray of the meteor, than the
tints of the dew-gem, than the colour or form of the
sunset cloud, than the fleeting and glittering ripple
varying the flow of a rivulet.

Goriolanus in glory ; Goriolanus in disaster ; Corio-
lanus banished, followed like giant shades one after
the other. Before the vision of the banished man
Moore's spirit seemed to pause. He stood on the
hearth of Aufidius's hall, facing the image of greatness
fallen, but greater than ever in that low estate. He
saw " the grim appearance," the dark face " bearing
command in it," " the noble vessel with its tackle
torn." With the revenge of Caius Marcius Moore
perfectly sympathised ; he was not scandalised by it ;
and again Caroline whispered :

" There I see another glimpse of brotherhood in
error."

The march on Rome, the mother's supplication, the
long resistance, the final yielding of bad passions to
good, which ever must be the case in a nature worthy
the epithet of noble, the rage of Aufidius at what he

25

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

considered his ally's weakness, the death of Coriolanus,
the final sorrow of his great enemy all scenes made of
condensed truth and strength came on in succession,
and carried with them in their deep, fast flow the heart
and mind of reader and listener.

" Now, have you felt Shakespeare? " asked Caroline,
some ten minutes after her cousin had closed the book.

" I think so."

" And have you felt anything in Goriolanus like
you ? "

" Perhaps I have."

" Was he not faulty as well as great ? "

Moore nodded.

" And what was his fault ? What made him hated
by the citizens ? What caused him to be banished by
his countrymen ? "

" What do you think it was ? "

" I ask again :

' Whether 'twas pride,

Which out of daily fortune ever taints

The happy man ? whether defect of judgment,

To fail in the disposing of those chances

Which he was lord of? or whether nature,

Not to be other than one thing ; not moving

From the casque to the cushion, but commanding
peace

Even with the same austerity and garb

As he controlled the war ? '"

" Well, answer yourself, Sphinx."

"It was a spice of all : and you must not be proud
to your workpeople ; you must not neglect chances of
soothing them, and you must not be of an inflexible
nature, uttering a request as austerely as if it were a
command."

CHARLOTTE BRONTE

26

, DEATH OF MR. EARNSHAW

DEATH OF MR. EARNSHAW

BUT the hour came, at last, that ended Mr. Earn-
shaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair
one October evening, seated by the fireside. A high
wind blustered round the house, and roared in the
chimney ; it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not
cold, and we were all together I, a little removed
from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph
reading his Bible near the table (for the servants
generally sat in the house then, after their work was
done) . Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her
still ; she leaned against her father's knee, and Heath-
cliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap.
I remember the master, before he fell into a doze,
stroking her bonny hair it pleased him rarely to see
her gentle and saying

" Why canst thou not always be a good lass,
Cathy ? " And she turned her face up to his, and
laughed, and answered, " Why cannot you always be
a good man, father ? " But as soon as she saw him
vexed again, she kissed his hand, and said she would
sing him to sleep. She began singing very low, till
his fingers dropped from hers, and his head sank on
his breast. Then I told her to hush, and not stir,
for fear she would wake him. We all kept as mute as
mice a full half-hour, and should have done longer,
only Joseph, having finished his chapter, got up and
said that he must rouse the master for prayers and
bed. He stepped forward, and called him by name,
and touched his shoulder ; but he would not move ;
so he took the candle and looked at him. I thought
there was something wrong as he set down the light ;
and seizing the children each by an arm, whispered
them to " frame upstairs, and make little din they
might pray alone that evening he had summat to do."

27

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" I shall bid father good-night first," said Catherine,
putting her arms round his neck, before we could
hinder her. The poor thing discovered her loss
directly she screamed out, " Oh, he's dead, Heath-
cliff ! he's dead ! " And they both set up a heart-
breaking cry.

I joined my wail to theirs, loud and bitter ; but
Joseph asked what we could be thinking of to roar
in that way over a saint in heaven. He told me to put
on my cloak and run to Gimmerton for the doctor and
the parson. I could not guess the use that either
would be of, then. However, I went, through wind
and rain, and brought one the doctor back with
me ; the other said he would come in the morning.
Leaving Joseph to explain matters, I ran to the
children's room : their door was ajar, I saw they had
never lain down, though it was past midnight ; but
they were calmer, and did not need me to console
them. The little souls were comforting each other
with better thoughts than I could have hit on : no
parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beauti-
fully as they did, in their innocent talk ; and, while I
sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we
were all there safe together.

EMILY BRONTE

ENGLAND'S FORGOTTEN WORTHIES

THOSE five volumes of Hakluyt may be called the
Prose Epic of the modern English nation. They con-
tain the heroic tales of the exploits of the great men
in whom the new era was inaugurated ; not mythic,
like the Iliads and the Eddas, but plain broad narra-
tives of substantial facts, which rival legend in interest
and grandeur. What the old epics were to the royally
or nobly born, this modern epic is to the common

28

ENGLAND'S FORGOTTEN WORTHIES

people. We have no longer kings or princes for chief
actors, to whom the heroism like the dominion of the
world had in time past been confined. But, as it was
in the days of the Apostles, when a few poor fisher-
men from an obscure lake in Palestine assumed, under
the Divine mission, the spiritual authority over man-
kind, so, in the days of our own Elizabeth, the seamen
from the banks of the Thames and the Avon, the
Plym, and the Dart, self-taught and self-directed, with
no impulse but what was beating in their own royal
hearts, went out across the unknown seas fighting,
discovering, colonising, and graved out the channels,
paving them at last with their bones, through which
the commerce and enterprise of England has flowed
out over all the world. We can conceive nothing,
not the songs of Homer himself, which would be read
among us with more enthusiastic interest than these
plain massive tales ; and a people's edition of them
in these days, when the writings of Ainsworth and
Eugene Sue circulate in tens of thousands, would
perhaps be the most blessed antidote which could
be bestowed upon us. The heroes themselves were
the men of the people the Joneses, the Smiths, the
Davises, the Drakes ; and no courtly pen, with the
one exception of Raleigh, lent its polish or its varnish
to set them off. In most cases the captain himself, or
his clerk or servant, or some unknown gentleman
volunteer, sat down and chronicled the voyage which
he had shared ; and thus inorganically arose a collec-
tion of writings which, with all their simplicity, are
for nothing more striking than for the high moral
beauty, warmed with natural feeling, which displays
itself through all their pages. With us, the sailor is
scarcely himself beyond his quarter-deck. If he is
distinguished in his profession, he is professional
merely ; or if he is more than that, he owes it not to
his work as a sailor, but to independent domestic

29

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

culture. With them, their profession was the school
of their nature, a high moral education which most
brought out what was most nobly human in them ;
and the wonders of earth, and air, and sea, and sky,
were a real intelligible language in which they heard
Almighty God speaking to them.

J. A. FROUDE

ATTACK ON THE STOCKADE

ALL day long a careful watch was kept among the
branches of the mighty ceiba-tree. And what a tree
that was ! The hugest English oak would have seemed
a stunted bush beside it. Borne up on roots, or rather
walls, of twisted board, some twelve feet high, between
which the whole crew, their ammunitions, and pro-
visions, were housed roomily, rose the enormous trunk
full forty feet in girth, towering like some tall light-
house, smooth for a hundred feet, then crowned with
boughs, each of which was a stately tree, whose top-
most twigs were full two hundred and fifty feet from
the ground. And yet it was easy for the sailors to
ascend ; so many natural ropes had kind Nature
lowered for their use, in the smooth lianas which
hung to the very earth, often without a knot or leaf.
Once in the tree, you were within a new world,
suspended between heaven and earth, and as Gary
said, no wonder if, like Jack when he climbed the
magic beanstalk, you had found a castle, a giant,
and a few acres of well-stocked park, packed away
somewhere amid that labyrinth of timber. F'lower-
gardens at least were there in plenty ; for every limb
was covered with pendent cactuses, gorgeous orchises,
and wild pines ; and while one-half the tree was
clothed in rich foliage, the other half, utterly leafless,
bore on every twig brilliant yellow flowers, around

30

ATTACK ON THE STOCKADE

which humming-birds whirled all day long. Parrots
peeped in and out of every cranny, while, within the
airy woodland, brilliant lizards basked like living
gems upon the bark, gaudy finches flitted and chir-
ruped, butterflies of every size and colour hovered
over the topmost twigs, innumerable insects hummed
from morn till eve ; and when the suri went down,
tree-toads came out to snore and croak till dawn.
There was more life round that one tree than in a
whole square mile of English soil.

And Amy as, as he lounged among the branches, felt
at moments as if he would be content to stay there for
ever, and feed his eyes and ears with all its wonders
and then started sighing from his dream, as he recol-
lected that a few days must bring the foe upon them,
and force him to decide upon some scheme at which
the bravest heart might falter without shame. So
there he sat (for he often took the scout's place him-
self), looking out over the fantastic tropic forest at
his feet, and the. flat mangrove-swamps below, and
the white sheet of foam-flecked blue ; and yet no sail
appeared ; and the men, as their fear of fever sub-
sided, began to ask when they would go down and
refit the ship, and Amyas put them off as best he
could, till one noon he saw slipping along the shore
from the westward, a large ship under easy sail, and
recognised in her, or thought he did so, the ship
which they had passed upon their way.

If it was she, she must have run past them to La
Guayra in the night, and have now returned, perhaps,
to search for them along the coast.

She crept along slowly. He was in hopes that she
might pass the river's mouth : but no. She lay too
close to the shore ; and, after a while, Amyas saw two
boats pull in from her, and vanish behind the man-
groves.

Sliding down a liana, he told what he had seen.

3 1

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

The men, tired of inactivity, received the news with a
shout of joy, and set to work to make all ready for
their guests. Four brass' swivels, which they had
brought up, were mounted, fixed in logs, so as to
command the path ; the musketeers and archers
clustered round them with their tackle ready, and
half a dozen good marksmen volunteered into the
cotton-tree with their arquebuses, as a post whence
" a man might have very pretty shooting." Prayers
followed as a matter of course, and dinner as a matter
of course also ; but two weary hours passed before
there was any sign of the Spaniards.

Presently a wreath of white smoke curled up from
the swamp, and then the report of a caliver. Then,
amid the growls of the English, the Spanish flag ran
up above the trees, and floated horrible to behold
at the mast-head of the Rose. They were signalling
the ship for more hands ; and, in effect, a third boat
soon pushed off and vanished into the forest.

Another hour, during which the men had thoroughly
lost their temper, but not their hearts, by waiting ;
and talked so loud, and strode up and down so wildly,
that Amyas had to warn them that there was no need
to betray themselves ; that the Spaniards might not
find them after all ; that they might pass the stockade
close without seeing it ; that, unless they hit off the
track at once, they would probably return to their
ship for the present ; and exacted a promise from them
that they would be perfectly silent till he gave the
word to fire.

Which wise commands had scarcely passed his lips,
when, in the path below, glanced the head-piece of a
Spanish soldier, and then another and another.

" Fools ! " whispered Amyas to Gary ; " they are
coming up in single file, rushing on their own death.
Lie close, men ! "

The path was so narrow that two could seldom come

32

ATTACK ON THE STOCKADE

up abreast, and so steep that the enemy had much
ado to struggle and stumble upwards. The men
seemed half unwilling to proceed, and hung back
more than once ; but Amyas could hear an authori-
tative voice behind, and presently there emerged to
the front, sword in hand, a figure at which Amyas
and Gary both started.

" Is it he ? "

" Surely I know those legs among a thousand,
though they are in armour."

"It is my turn for him now, Gary, remember !
Silence, silence, men ! "

The Spaniards seemed to feel that they were leading
a forlorn hope. Don Guzman (for there was little
doubt that it was he) had much ado to get them on
at all.

" The fellows have heard how gently we handled
the Guayra squadron," whispers Gary, " and have no
wish to become fellow-martyrs with the captain of
the Madre Dolorosa."

At last the Spaniards get up the steep slope to
within forty yards of the stockade, and pause, suspect-
ing a trap, and puzzled by the complete silence.
Amyas leaps on the top of it, a white flag in his hand ;
but his heart beats so fiercely at the sight of that hated
figure, that he can hardly get out the words :

" Don Guzman, the quarrel is between you and me,
not between your men and mine. I would have sent
in a challenge to you at La Guayra, but you were
away ; I challenge you now to single combat."

" Lutheran dog, I have a halter for you, but no
sword ! As you served us at Smerwick, we will serve
you now. Pirate and ravisher ! you and yours shall
share Oxenham's fate, as you have copied his crimes,
and learn what it is to set foot unbidden on the
dominions of the King of Spain."

" The devil take you and the King of Spain

33

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

together ! " shouts Amyas, laughing loudly. " This
ground belongs to him no more than it does to me,
but to the Queen Elizabeth, in whose name I have
taken as lawful possession of it as you ever did of
Caraccas. Fire, men ! and God defend the right ! "

Both parties obeyed the order ; Amyas dropped
down behind the stockade in time to let a calivcr
bullet whistle over his head ; and the Spaniards
recoiled as the narrow face of the stockade burst into
one blaze of musketry and swivels, raking their long
array from front to rear.

The front ranks fell over each other in heaps ; the
rear ones turned and ran ; overtaken, nevertheless, by
the English bullets and arrows, which tumbled them
headlong down the steep path.

" Out, men, and charge them. See ! the Don is
running like the rest ! " And scrambling over the
abattis, Amyas and about thirty followed them fast ;
for he had hope of learning from some prisoner his
brother's fate.

Amyas was unjust in his last words. Don Guzman,
as if by miracle, had been only slightly wounded ;
and seeing his men run, had rushed back and tried to
rally them, but was borne away by the fugitives.

However, the Spaniards were out of sight among
the thick bushes before the English could overtake
them ; and Amyas, afraid lest they should rally and
surround his small party, withdrew sorely against his
will, and found in the pathway fourteen Spaniards,
but all dead. For one of the wounded, with more
courage than wisdom, had fired on the English as he
lay ; and Amyas's men, whose blood was maddened
both by their desperate situation and the frightful
stories of the rescued galley-slaves, had killed them all
before their captain could stop them.

" Are you mad ? " cries Amyas, as he strikes up one
fellow's sword. " Will you kill an Indian ? "

34

ATTACK ON THE STOCKADE

And he drags out of the bushes an Indian lad of
sixteen, who, slightly wounded, is crawling away like
a copper snake along the ground.

" The black vermin has sent an arrow through my
leg ; and poisoned too, most like."

" God grant not : but an Indian is worth his weight
in gold to us now," said Amy as, tucking his prize under
his arm like a bundle. The lad, as soon as he saw
there was no escape, resigned himself to his fate with
true Indian stoicism, was brought in, and treated
kindly enough, but refused to eat. For which, after
much questioning, he gave as a reason, that he would
make them kill him at once ; for fat him they should
not ; and gradually gave them to understand that the
English always (so at least the Spaniards said) fatted
and ate their prisoners like the Garibs ; and till he
saw them go out and bury the bodies of the Spaniards,
nothing would persuade him that the corpses were not
to be cooked for supper.

However, kind words, kind looks, and the present
of that inestimable treasure a knife, brought him to
reason ; and he told Amyas that he belonged to a
Spaniard who had an " encomienda " of Indians some
fifteen miles to the south-west ; that he had fled from
his master, and lived by hunting for some months
past ; and having seen the ship where she lay moored,
and boarded her in hope of plunder, had been sur-
prised therein by the Spaniards and forced by threats to
go with them as a guide in their search for the English.
But now came a part of his story which filled the soul
of Amyas with delight. He was an Indian of the
Llanos, or great savannas which lay to the southward
beyond the mountains, and had actually been upon
the Orinoco. He had been stolen as a boy by some
Spaniards, who had gone down (as was the fashion of
the Jesuits even as late as 1 790) for the pious purpose
of converting the savages by the simple process of

35 D

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

catching, baptizing, and making servants of those
whom they could carry off, and murdering those who
resisted their gentle method of salvation. Did he
know the way back again ? Who could ask such a
question of an Indian ? And the lad's black eyes
flashed fire, as Amyas offered him liberty and iron
enough for a dozen Indians, if he would lead them
through the passes of the mountains, and southward
to the mighty river, where lay their golden hopes.
Hernando dc Serpa, Amyas knew, had tried the same
course, which was supposed to be about one hundred
and twenty leagues, and failed, being overthrown
utterly by the Wikiri Indians ; but Amyas knew
enough of the Spaniards' brutal method of treating
those Indians, to be pretty sure that they had brought
that catastrophe upon themselves, and that he might
avoid it well enough by that common justice and
mercy toward the savages which he had learned from
his incomparable tutor, Francis Drake.

CHARLES KINGSLEY

MR. POULTER

THERE was a great improvement in Tom's bearing,
for example, and some credit on this score was due
to Mr. Poulter, the village schoolmaster, who, being
an old Peninsular soldier, was employed to drill Tom
a course of high mutual pleasure. Mr. Poulter,
who was understood by the company at the Black
Swan to have once struck terror into the hearts of the
French, was no longer personally formidable. He
had rather a shrunken appearance, and was tremulous
in the mornings, not from age, but from the extreme
perversity of the King's Lorton boys, which nothing
but gin could enable him to sustain with any firmness.
Still, he carried himself with martial erectness, had

36

MR. POULTER

his clothes scrupulously brushed, and his trousers
tightly strapped ; and on the Wednesday and Satur-
day afternoons, when he came to Tom, he was always
inspired with gin and old memories, which gave him
an exceptionally spirited air, as of a superannuated
charger who hears the drum. The drilling-lessons
were always protracted by episodes of warlike narrative,
much more interesting to Tom than Philip's stories
out of the Iliad ; for there were no cannon in the
Iliad, and besides, Tom had felt some disgust on
learning that Hector and Achilles might possibly never
have existed. But the Duke of Wellington was really
alive, and Bony had not been long dead therefore
Mr. Poulter's reminiscences of the Peninsular War
were removed from all suspicion of being mythical.
Mr. Poulter, it appeared, had been a conspicuous figure
at Talavera, and had contributed not a little to the
peculiar terror with which his regiment of infantry
was regarded by the enemy. On afternoons, when
his memory was more stimulated than usual, he
remembered that the Duke of Wellington had (in
strict privacy, lest jealousies should be awakened)
expressed his esteem for that fine fellow Poulter.
The very surgeon who attended him in the hospital
after he had received his gun-shot wound, had been
profoundly impressed with the superiority of Mr.
Poulter's flesh : no other flesh would have healed in
anything like the same time. On less personal matters
connected with the important warfare in which he had
been engaged, Mr. Poulter was more reticent, only
taking care not to give the weight of his authority to
any loose notions concerning military history. Any
one who pretended to a knowledge of what occurred,
at the siege of Badajos, was especially an object of
silent pity to Mr. Poulter ; he wished that prating
person had been run down, and had the breath
trampled out of him at the first go-off, as he himself

37

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

had he might talk about the siege of Badajos then !
Tom did not escape irritating his drilling-master
occasionally, by his curiosity concerning other mili-
tary matters than Mr. Poulter's personal experience.

" And General Wolfe, Mr. Poulter ? wasn't he a
wonderful fighter ? " said Tom, who held the notion
that all the martial heroes commemorated on the
public-house signs were engaged in the war with
Bony.

" Not at all ! " said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously.
" Nothing o j the sort ! . . . Heads up," he added,
in a tone of stern command, which delighted Tom,
and made him feel as if he were a regiment in his own
person.

" No, no ! " Mr. Poulter would continue, on coming
to a pause in his discipline. " They'd better not talk
to me about General Wolfe. He did nothing but die
of his wound ; that's a poor haction, I consider. Any
other man 5 ud have died o' the wounds I've had. . . .
One of my sword-cuts 'ud ha' killed a fellow like
General Wolfe."

" Mr. Poulter," Tom would say, at any allusion to
the sword, " I wish you'd bring your sword and do the
sword-exercise ! "

For a long while Mr. Poulter only shook his head
in a significant manner at this request, and smiled
patronisingly, as Jupiter may have done when
Semele urged her too ambitious request. But one
afternoon, when a sudden shower of heavy rain had
detained Mr. Poulter twenty minutes longer than
usual at the Black Swan, the sword was brought
just for Tom to look at.

" And this is the real sword you fought with in all
the battles, Mr. Poulter ? " said Tom, handling the
hilt. " Has it ever cut a Frenchman's head off ? "

" Head off? Ah ! and would, if he'd had three
heads."

38

MR. POULTER

" But you had a gun and bayonet besides ? " said
Tom. " / should like the gun and bayonet best,
because you could shoot 5 em first and spear 'em after.
Bang ! Ps-s-s-s ! " Tom gave the requisite panto-
mime to indicate the double enjoyment of pulling
the trigger and thrusting the spear.

" Ah, but the sword's the thing when you come to
close fighting," said Mr. Poulter, involuntarily falling
in with Tom's enthusiasm, and drawing the sword so
suddenly that Tom leaped back with much agility.

" Oh, but, Mr. Poulter, if you're going to do the
exercise," said Tom, a little conscious that he had not
stood his ground as became an Englishman, " let me
go and call Philip. He'll like to see you, you know."

" What ! the humpbacked lad ? " said Mr. Poulter,
contemptuously. " What's the use of his looking on ? "

" Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting,"
said Tom ; " and how they used to fight with bows
and arrows, and battle-axes."

" Let him come then. I'll show him something
different from his bows and arrows," said Mr. Poulter,
coughing, and drawing himself up, while he gave a
little preliminary play to his wrist.

Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his after-
noon's holiday at the piano, in the drawing-room,
picking out tunes for himself and singing them. He
was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous
bundle on the high stool, with his head thrown back,
his eyes fixed on the opposite cornice, and his lips
wide open, sending forth, with all his might, im-
promptu syllables to a tune of Arne's, which had hit
his fancy.

" Come, Philip," said Tom, bursting in ; " don't
stay roaring { la la ' there come and see old Poulter
do his sword-exercise in the carriage-house ! "

The jar of this interruption the discord of Tom's
tones coming across the notes to which Philip was

39

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

vibrating in soul and body, would have been enough
to unhinge his temper, even if there had been no
question of Poulter the drilling-master ; and Tom,
in the hurry of seizing something to say to prevent
Mr. Poulter from thinking he was afraid of the sword
when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this
proposition to fetch Philip though he knew well
enough that Philip hated to hear him mention his
drilling-lessons. Tom would never have done so in-
considerate a thing except under the severe stress of
his personal pride.

Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his
music. Then turning red, he said, with violent
passion

" Get away, you lumbering idiot ! Don't come
bellowing at me you're not fit to speak to anything
but a cart-horse ! "

It was not the first time Philip had been made angry
by him, but Tom had never before been assailed with
verbal missiles that he understood so well.

" I'm fit to speak to something better than you
you poor-spirited imp ! " said Tom, lighting up im-
mediately at Philip's fire. " You know I won't hit
you, because you're no better than a girl. But I'm
an honest man's son, and jour father's a rogue every-
body says so ! "

Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door
after him, made strangely heedless by his anger ;
for to slam doors within the hearing of Mrs. Stelling,
who was probably not far off, was an offence only to
be wiped out by twenty lines of Virgil. In fact, that
lady did presently descend from her room, in double
wonder at the noise and the subsequent cessation of
Philip's music. She found him sitting in a heap on
the hassock, and crying bitterly.

" What's the matter, Wakem ? What was that noise
about ? Who slammed the door ? "

40

MR. POULTER

Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. " It
was Tulliver who came in ... to ask me to go out
with him."

" And what are you in trouble about ? " said Mrs.
Stelling.

Philip was not her favourite of the two pupils ; he
was less obliging than Tom, who was made useful in
many ways. Still, his father paid more than Mr.
Tulliver did, and she meant him to feel that she
behaved exceedingly well to him. Philip, however,
met her advances towards a good understanding very
much as a caressed mollusc meets an invitation to
show himself out of his shell. Mrs. Stelling was not
a loving, tender-hearted woman : she was a woman
whose skirt sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted
her curls with a preoccupied air when she inquired
after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent
a great social power, but it is not the power of love
and no other power could win Philip from his personal
reserve.

He said, in answer to her question, " My toothache
came on, and made me hysterical again."

This had been the fact once, and Philip was glad
of the recollection it was like an inspiration to enable
him to excuse his crying. He had to accept eau-de-
Cologne, and to refuse creosote in consequence ; but
that was easy.

Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a
poisoned arrow into Philip's heart, had returned to
the carriage-house, where he found Mr. Poulter, with
a fixed and earnest eye, wasting the perfections of his
sword-exercise on probably observant but inapprecia-
tive rats. But Mr. Poulter was a host in himself ;
that is to say, he admired himself more than a whole
army of spectators could have admired him. He took
no notice of Tom's return, being too entirely absorbed
in the cut and thrust the solemn one, two, three,

41

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

four ; and Tom, not without a slight feeling of alarm
at Mr. Poulter's fixed eye and hungry-looking sword,
which seemed impatient for something else to cut
besides the air, admired the performance from as
great a distance as possible. It was not until Mr.
Poulter paused and wiped the perspiration from his
forehead, that Tom felt the full charm of the sword-
exercise, and wished it to be repeated.

" Mr. Poulter," said Tom, when the sword was
being finally sheathed, " I wish you'd lend me your
sword a little while to keep."

" No, no, young gentleman," said Mr. Poulter,
shaking his head decidedly, " you might do yourself
some mischief with it."

" No, I'm sure I wouldn't I'm sure I'd take care and
not hurt myself. I shouldn't take it out of the sheath
much, but I could ground arms with it, and all that."

" No, no, it won't do, I tell you ; it won't do," said
Mr. Poulter, preparing to depart. " What 'ud Mr.
Stelling say to me ? "

" Oh, I say, do, Mr. Poulter ! I'd give you my
five-shilling piece if you'd let me keep the sword a
week. Look here ! " said Tom, reaching out the
attractively large round of silver. The young dog
calculated the effect as well as if he had been a
philosopher.

" Well," said Mr. Poulter, with still deeper gravity,
" you must keep it out of sight, you know."

" Oh, yes, I'll keep it under the bed," said Tom,
eagerly, " or else at the bottom of my large box."

" And let me see, now, whether you can draw it out
of the sheath without hurting yourself."

That process having been gone through more than
once, Mr. Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupu-
lous conscientiousness, and said, " Well, now, Master
Tulliver, if I take the crown-piece, it is to make sure
as you'll do no mischief with the sword."

42

MR. POULTER

" Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Poulter," said Tom, delightedly
handing him the crown-piece, and grasping the sword,
which, he thought, might have been lighter with
advantage.

" But if Mr. S telling catches you carrying it in ? "
said Mr. Poulter, pocketing the crown-piece provision-
ally while he raised this new doubt.

" Oh, he always keeps in his up-stairs study on
Saturday afternoons," said Tom, who disliked anything
sneaking, but was not disinclined to a little stratagem
in a worthy cause. So he carried off the sword in
triumph, mixed with dread dread that he might
encounter Mr. or Mrs. Stelling to his bedroom, where,
after some consideration, he hid it in the closet
behind some hanging clothes. That night he fell
asleep in the thought that he would astonish Maggie
with it when she came tic it round his waist with his
red comforter, and make her believe that the sword
was his own, and that he was going to be a soldier.
There was nobody but Maggie who would be silly
enough to believe him, or whom he dared allow to
know that he had a sword ; and Maggie was really
coming next week to see Tom, before she went to a
boarding-school with Lucy.

If you think a lad of thirteen would not have been
so childish, you must be an exceptionally wise man,
who, although you are devoted to a civil calling,
requiring you to look bland rather than formidable,
yet never, since you had a beard, threw yourself into
a martial attitude, and frowned before the looking-
glass. It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be
maintained if there were not pacific people at home
who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like
other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for
want of a " public."

GEORGE ELIOT

43

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

STUBB KILLS A WHALE

IF to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a
thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different
object.

" When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing
his harpoon in the bow of his hoisted boat, " then you
quick see him 'parm whale. 5 "

The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and
with nothing special to engage them, the Pequod's
crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by
such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean
through which we then were voyaging is not what
whalemen call a lively ground ; that is, it affords
fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and
other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than
those off the Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground
off Peru.

It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head ;
and with my shoulders leaning against the slackened
royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in what seemed
an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand
it ; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at
last my soul went out of my body ; though my body
still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long after
the power which first moved it is withdrawn.

Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had
noticed that the seamen at the main and mizzen
mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last
all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for
every swing that we made there was a nod from below
from the slumbering helmsman. The waves, too,
nodded their indolent crests ; and across the wide trance
of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all.

Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my
closed eyes ; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds ;

44

STUBB KILLS A WHALE

some invisible, gracious agency preserved me ; with
a shock I came back to life. And lo ! close under
our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale
lay rolling in the water like the capsized hull of a
frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue,
glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily
undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and
anon tranquilly spouting his vapoury jet, the whale
looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a
warm afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy
last. As if struck by some enchanter's wand, the
sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once started
into wakcfulness ; and more than a score of voices
from all parts of the vessel, simultaneously with the
three notes from aloft, shouted forth the accustomed
cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the
sparkling brine into the air.

" Clear away the boats ! Luff ! " cried Ahab.
And obeying his own order, he dashed the helm
down before the helmsman could handle the spokes.

The sudden exclamations of the crew must have
alarmed the whale ; and ere the boats were down,
majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward,
but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so
few ripples as he swam, that thinking after all he
might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that
not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but
in whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the
gunwales of the boats, we swiftly but silently paddled
along ; the calm not admitting of the noiseless sails
being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the
monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into
the air, and then sank out of sight like a tower
swallowed up.

" There go flukes ! " was the cry, an announcement
immediately followed by Stubb's producing his match
and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was granted.

45

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed,
the whale rose again, and being now in advance of
the smoker's boat, and much nearer to it than to any
of the others, Stubb counted upon the honour of the
capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had
at length become aware of his pursuers. All silence
of cautiousness was therefore no longer of use.
Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into
play. And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on
his crew to the assault.

Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish.
All alive to his jeopardy, he was going " head out " ;
that part obliquely projecting from the mad yeast
which he brewed.*

" Start her, start her, my men ! Don't hurry
yourselves ; take plenty of time but start her ; start
her like thunder-claps, that's all," cried Stubb,
spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. " Start her,
now ; give 'em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego.
Start her, Tash, my boy start her, all ; but keep
cool, keep cool cucumbers is the word easy, easy
only start her like grim death and grinning devils,
and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their
graves, boys that's all. Start her ! "

" Woo-hoo ! Wa-hee ! " screamed the Gay-Header
in reply, raising some old war-whoop to the skies ;
as every oarsman in the strained boat involuntarily
bounced forward with the one tremendous leading
stroke which the eager Indian gave.

* It will be seen in some other place of what a very light sub-
stance the entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head
consists. Though apparently the most massive, it is by far the
most buoyant part about him. So that with ease he elevates it in
the air, and invariably does so when going at his utmost speed.
Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of his
head, and such the tapering cut-water formation of the lower
part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said
to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into a
sharp-pointed New York pilot-boat.

4 6

STUBS KILLS A WHALE

But his wild screams were answered by others quite
as wild. " Kee-hee ! Kee-hee ! " yelled Daggoo,
straining forwards and backwards on his seat, like a
pacing tiger in his cage.

" Ka-la ! Koo-loo ! " howled Queequeg, as if
smacking his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier's
steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels cut the
sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the
van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while
puffing the smoke from his mouth. Like desperadoes
they tugged and they strained, till the welcome cry
was heard " Stand up, Tashtego ! give it to him ! "
The harpoon was hurled. " Stern all ! " The oars-
men backed water ; the same moment something
went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists.
It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb
had swiftly caught two additional turns with it round
the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased
rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up
and mingled with the steady fumes from his pipe.
As the line passed round and round the loggerhead,
so also, just before reaching that point, it blisteringly
passed through and through both of Stubb's hands,
from which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted
canvas sometimes worn at these times, had accident-
ally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's sharp
two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all
the time striving to wrest it out of your clutch.

" Wet the line ! wet the line ! " cried Stubb to the
tub oarsman (him seated by the tub) who, snatching
off his hat, dashed the sea- water into it. * More turns
were taken, so that the line began holding its place.
The boat now flew through the boiling water like

* Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may
here be stated that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to
dash the running line with water ; in many other ships, a
wooden piggin, or bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat,
however, is the most convenient.

47

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego here changed
places stem for stern a staggering business truly in
that rocking commotion.

From the vibrating line extending the entire length
of the upper part of the boat, and from its now being
more tight than a harpstring, you would have thought
the craft had two keels one cleaving the water, the
other the air as the boat churned on through both
opposing elements at once. A continual cascade
played at the bows ; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her
wake ; and, at the slightest motion from within,
even but of a little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft
canted over her spasmodic gunwale into the sea.
Thus they rushed ; each man with might and main
clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the
foam ; and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering
oar crouching almost double, in order to bring down
his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifies
seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length
the whale somewhat slackened his flight.

" Haul in haul in ! " cried Stubb to the bows-
man ! and, facing round towards the whale, all
hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet
the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by
his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy
cleat, darted dart after dart into the flying fish ; at
the word of command, the boat alternately sterning
out of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then
ranging up for another fling.

The red tide now poured from all sides of the
monster like brooks down a hill. His tormented
body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled
and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The
slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the
sea, sent back its reflection into every face, so that they
all glowed to each other like red men. And all the
while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonisingly shot

STUBB KILLS A WHALE

from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff
after puff from the mouth of the excited headsman ;
as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked lance
(by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again
and again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale,
then again and again sent it into the whale.

" Pull up ! pull up ! " he now cried to the bows-
man, as the waning whale relaxed in his wrath.
" Pull up ! close to ! " and the boat ranged along the
fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb
slowly churned his long sharp lance into the fish, and
kept it there, carefully churning and churning, as if
cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that
the whale might have swallowed, and which he was
fearful of breaking ere he could hook it out. But
that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of
the fish. And now it is struck ; for, starting from his
trance into that unspeakable thing called his " flurry,"
the monster horribly wallowed in his blood, over-
wrapped himself in impenetrable, mad, boiling spray,
so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern,
had much ado blindly to struggle out from that
phrensied twilight into the clear air of the day.

And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more
rolled out into view ; surging from side to side ;
spasmodically dilating and contracting his spout-hole,
with sharp, cracking, agonised respirations. At last,
gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been
the purple lees of red wine, shot into the frighted air ;
and falling back again, ran dripping down his motion-
less flanks into the sea. His heart had burst !

" He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo.

" Yes ; both pipes smoked out ! " and withdraw-
ing his own from his mouth, Stubb scattered the
dead ashes over the water ; and, for a moment, stood
thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.

HERMAN MELVILLE

49

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

EFFECT OF MOUNTAIN SCENERY ON
SHAKESPEARE

SHAKESPEARE seems to have been sent essentially to
take universal and equal grasp of the human nature ;
and to have been removed, therefore, from all in-
fluences which could in the least warp or bias his
thoughts. It was necessary that he should lean no
way ; that he should contemplate, with absolute
equality of judgment, the life of the court, cloister,
and tavern, and be able to sympathise so completely
with all creatures as to deprive himself, together with
his personal identity, even of his conscience, as he
casts himself into their hearts. He must be able to
enter into the soul of Falstaff or Shylock with no more
sense of contempt or horror than Falstaff or Shylock
themselves feel for or in themselves ; otherwise his
own conscience and indignation would make him
unjust to them ; he would turn aside from something,
miss some good, or overlook some essential palliation.
He must be utterly without anger, utterly without
purpose ; for if a man has any serious purpose in life,
that which runs counter to it, or is foreign to it, will
be looked at frowningly or carelessly by him. Shake-
speare was forbidden of Heaven to have any plans.
To do any good or get any good, in the common sense
of good, was not to be within his permitted range of
work. Not, for him, the founding of institutions, the
preaching of doctrines, or the repression of abuses.
Neither he, nor the sun, did on any morning that they
rose together, receive charge from their Maker con-
cerning such things. They were both of them to shine
on the evil and good ; both to behold unoffendedly
all that was upon the earth, to burn unappalled upon
the spears of kings, and undisdaining, upon the reeds
of the river.

50

MOUNTAIN SCENERY EFFECT ON SHAKESPEARE

Therefore, so far as nature had influence over the
early training of this man, it was essential to its perfect-
ness that the nature should be quiet. No mountain
passions were to be allowed in him. Inflict upon
him but one pang of the monastic conscience ; cast
upon him but one cloud of the mountain gloom ;
and his serenity had been gone for ever his equity
his infinity. You would have made another Dante
of him ; and all that he would have ever uttered
about poor, soiled, and frail humanity would have
been the quarrel between Sinon and Adam of
Brescia, speedily retired from, as not worthy a man's
hearing, nay, not to be heard without heavy fault.
All your Falstaffs, Slenders, Quicklys, Sir Tobys,
Lances, Touchstones, and Quinces, would have been
lost in that. Shakespeare could be allowed no moun-
tains ; nay, not even any supreme natural beauty.
He had to be left with his kingcups and clover ;
pansies the passing clouds the Avon's flow and
the undulating hills and woods of Warwick ; nay, he
was not to love even these in any exceeding measure,
lest it might make him in the least overrate their
power upon the strong, full-fledged minds of men.
He makes the quarrelling fairies concerned about
them ; poor lost Ophelia find some comfort in them ;
fearful, fair, wise-hearted Perdita trust the speaking
of her good will and good hostess-ship to them ; and
one of the brothers of Imogen confide his sorrow to
them, rebuked instantly by his brother for " wench-
like words " ; * but any thought oFthem in his mighty

* " With fairest flowers

While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I'll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face pale primrose, nor
The azured harebell like thy veins ; no, nor
The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Outsweetened not thy breath. The ruddock would
With charitable bill . . . bring thee all this ;

5 I E

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

men I do not find : it is not usually in the nature of
such men ; and if he had loved the flowers the least
better himself, he would assuredly have been offended
at this, and given a botanical turn of mind to Caesar,
or Othello.

And it is even among the most curious proofs of the
necessity to all high imagination that it should paint
straight from the life, that he has not given such a turn
of mind to some of his great men ; Henry the Fifth,
for instance. Doubtless some of my readers, having
been accustomed to hear it repeated thoughtlessly
from mouth to mouth that Shakespeare conceived the
spirit of all ages, were as much offended as surprised
at my saying that he only painted human nature as he
saw it in his own time. They will find, if they look
into his work closely, as much antiquarianism as they
do geography, and no more. The commonly received
notions about the things that had been, Shakespeare
took as he found them, animating them with pure
human nature, of any time and all time ; but
inquiries into the minor detail of temporary feeling,
he despised as utterly as he did maps ; and whereso-
ever the temporary feeling was in anywise contrary to
that of his own day, he errs frankly, and paints from
his own time. For instance in this matter of love of
flowers ; we have traced already, far enough for our
general purposes, the medieval interest in them,

Yea, and furrowed moss besides, when flowers are none,

To winter-ground thy corse.
Gui. Prithee, have done,

And do not play in wench-like words with that

Which is so serious."

Imogen herself, afterwards, in deeper passion, will give weeds
not flowers, and something more :

" And when

With wildwood leaves and weeds, I have strewed his grave,

And on it said a century of prayers,

Such as I can, twice o'er, I'll weep, and sigh,

And, leaving so his service, follow you."

52

MOUNTAIN SCENERY EFFECT ON SHAKESPEARE

whether to be enjoyed in the fields, or to be used for
types of ornamentation in dress. If Shakespeare had
cared to enter into the spirit even of the early fifteenth
century, he would assuredly have marked this affec-
tion in some of his knights, and indicated even then,
in heroic tempers, the peculiar respect for loveliness
of dress which we find constantly in Dante. But he
could not do this ; he had not seen it in real life.
In his time dress had become an affectation and
absurdity. Only fools, or wise men in their weak
moments, showed much concern about it; and the
facts of human nature which appeared to him general
in the matter were the soldier's disdain, and the cox-
comb's care of it. Hence Shakespeare's good soldier
is almost always in plain or battered armour ; even
the speech of Vernon in Henry the Fourth, which, as
far as I remember, is the only one that bears fully
upon the beauty of armour, leans more upon the spirit
and hearts of men " bated, like eagles having lately
bathed " ; and has an under-current of slight con-
tempt running through the following line, " Glittering
in golden coats, like images " ; while the beauty of the
young Harry is essentially the beauty of fiery and
perfect youth, answering as much to the Greek, or
Roman, or Elizabethan knight as to the medieval
one ; whereas the definite interest in armour and dress
is opposed by Shakespeare in the French (meaning to
depreciate them), to the English rude soldier liness :

"Con. Tut, I have the best armour of the world.

Would it were day!
Orl. You have an excellent armour, but let my horse

have his due."

And again :

" My lord constable, the armour that I saw in your
tent to-night, are those stars, or suns, upon it ? "

53

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

while Henry, half proud of his poorness of array,
speaks of armorial splendour scornfully ; the main
idea being still of its being a gilded show and vanity :

" Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched."

This is essentially Elizabethan. The quarterings on
a knight's shield, or the inlaying of his armour, would
never have been thought of by him as mere " gayness
or gilt " in earlier days.* In like manner, throughout
every scale of rank or feeling, from that of the French
knights down to Falstaff's " I looked he should have
sent me two-and-twenty yards of satin, as I am true
knight, and he sends me security ! " care for dress is
always considered by Shakespeare as contemptible ;
and Mrs. Quickly distinguishes herself from a true
fairy by a solicitude to scour the chairs of order and
" each fair instalment, coat, and several crest " ;
and the association in her mind of the flowers in the
fairy rings with the

" Sapphire, pearl, and rich embroidery,
Buckled below fair knighthood's bending knee ; "

while the true fairies, in field simplicity, are only
anxious to " sweep the dust behind the door " ; and

" With this field dew consecrate,
Every several chamber bless
Through this palace with sweet peace."

Note the expression " Field dew consecrate." Shake-
speare loved courts and camps ; but he felt that
sacredness and peace were in the dew of the Fields
only.

* If the reader thinks that in Henry the Fifth's time the
Elizabethan temper might already have been manifesting itself,
let him compare the English herald's speech, Act II. Scene n. of
King John ; and by way of specimen of Shakespeare's historical
care, or regard of medieval character, the large use of artillery
in the previous scene.

54

MOUNTAIN SCENERY EFFECT ON SHAKESPEARE

There is another respect in which he was wholly
incapable of entering into the spirit of the Middle
Ages. He had no great art of any kind around him
in his own country, and was, consequently, just as
powerless to conceive the general influence of former
art, as a man of the most inferior calibre. Therefore
it was, that I did not care to quote his authority respect-
ing the power of imitation. If it had been needful to
add his testimony to that of Dante, I might have quoted
multitudes of passages wholly concurring with that,
of which the " fair Portia's counterfeit," with the
following lines, and the implied ideal of sculpture in
The Winter's Tale, are wholly unanswerable instances.
But Shakespeare's evidence in matters of art is as
narrow as the range of Elizabethan art in England,
and resolves itself wholly into admiration of two
things, mockery of life (as in this instance of Her-
mione as a statue), or absolute splendour, as in the
close of Romeo and Juliet, where the notion of gold
as the chief source of dignity of aspect, coming down
to Shakespeare from the times of the Field of the Cloth
of Gold, and, as I said before, strictly Elizabethan,
would interfere seriously with the pathos of the whole
passage, but for the sense of sacrifice implied in it :

" As rich shall Romeo by his lady lie ;
Poor sacrifices of our enmity."

And observe, I am not giving these examples as
proof of any smallness in Shakespeare, but of his great-
ness ; that is to say, of his contentment, like every other
great man who ever breathed, to paint nothing but
what he saw ; and therefore giving perpetual evidence
that his sight was of the sixteenth, and not of the
thirteenth century, beneath all the broad and eternal
humanity of his imagination. How far in these
modern days, emptied of splendour, it may be neces-
sary for great men having certain sympathies for those

55

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

earlier ages, to act in this differently from all their
predecessors ; and how far they may succeed in the
resuscitation of the past by habitually dwelling in
all their thoughts among vanished generations, are
questions, of all practical and present ones concerning
art, the most difficult to decide ; for already in poetry
several of our truest men have set themselves to this
task, and have indeed put more vitality into the
shadows of the dead than most others can give the
presences of the living. Thus Longfellow, in The
Golden Legend, has entered more closely into the
temper of the Monk, for good and for evil, than ever
yet theological writer or historian, though they may
have given their life's labour to the analysis ; and,
again, Robert Browning is unerring in every sentence
he writes of the Middle Ages ; always vital, right, and
profound ; so that in the matter of art, with which
we have been specially concerned, there is hardly a
principle connected with the medieval temper, that
he has not struck upon in those seemingly careless and
too rugged rhymes of his. There is a curious instance,
by the way, in a short poem referring to this very
subject of tomb and image sculpture ; and illustrating
just one of those phases of local human character
which, though belonging to Shakespeare's own age,
he never noticed, because it was specially Italian and
un-English ; connected also closely with the influence
of mountains on the heart, and therefore with our
immediate inquiries. I mean the kind of admiration
with which a southern artist regarded the stone he
worked in ; and the pride which populace or priest
took in the possession of precious mountain substance,
worked into the pavements of their cathedrals, and
the shafts of their tombs.

Observe, Shakespeare, in the midst of architecture
and tombs of wood, or freestone, or brass, naturally
thinks of gold as the best enriching and ennobling

56

MOUNTAIN SCENERY EFFECT ON SHAKESPEARE

substance for them ; in the midst also of the fever
of the Renaissance he writes, as every one else did, in
praise of precisely the most vicious master of that
school Giulio Romano ; but the modern poet,* living
much in Italy, and quit of the Renaissance influence, is
able fully to enter into the Italian feeling, and to see
the evil of the Renaissance tendency, not because he is
greater than Shakespeare, but because he is in another
element, and has seen other things. I miss fragments
here and there not needed for my purpose in the
passage quoted, without putting asterisks, for I weaken
the poem enough by the omissions, without spoiling
it also by breaks.

" The Bishop orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church

" As here I lie

In this state chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours, and long hours, in the dead night, I ask
Do I live am I dead ? Peace, peace seems all :
St. Praxed's ever was the church for peace.
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know ;
Old Gandolf t cozened me, despite my care.
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
He graced his carrion with.
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o j the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats ;
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk.
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet, where Anselm J stands ;

* Browning. t The last bishop,

t His favourite son ; nominally his nephew.

57

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Peach-blossom marble all.

Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years :

Man goeth to the grave, and where is he ?

Did I say basalt for my slab, sons ? Black

'Twas ever antique-black * I meant ! How else

Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath ?

The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,

Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perhance

Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,

The Saviour at His sermon on the mount,

St. Praxed in a glory, and one Pan,

And Moses with the tables . . . but I know

Ye marked me not ! What do they whisper thee,

Child of my bowels, Anselm ? Ah, ye hope

To revel down my villas while I gasp,

Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine,

Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at !

Nay, boys, ye love me all of jasper, then !

There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world

And have I not St. Praxed's ear to pray

Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts ?

That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,

Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,

No gaudy ware like Gandolf 's second line

Tully, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need."

I know no other piece of modern English, prose or
poetry, in which there is so much told, as in these
lines, of the Renaissance spirit its worldliness, incon-
sistency, pride, hypocrisy, ignorance of itself, love of
art, of luxury, and of good Latin. It is nearly all that
I said of the central Renaissance in thirty pages of the

* " Nero Antico " is more familiar to our ears ; but Browning
does right in translating it ; as afterwards " cipollino " into
" onion-stone." Our stupid habit of using foreign words without
translation is continually losing us half the force of the foreign
language. How many travellers hearing the term " cipollino "
recognise the intended sense of a stone splitting into concentric
coats, like an onion ?

58

MOUNTAIN SCENERY EFFECT ON SHAKESPEARE

Stones of Venice put into as many lines, Browning's
being also the antecedent work. The worst of it
is that this kind of concentrated writing needs so
much solution before the reader can fairly get the good
of it, that people's patience fails them, and they give
the thing up as insoluble ; though, truly, it ought to
be the current of common thought like Saladin's
talisman, dipped in clear water, not soluble altogether,
but making the element medicinal.

It is interesting, by the way, with respect to this
love of stones in the Italian mind, to consider the
difference necessitated in the English temper merely
by the general domestic use of wood instead of
marble. In that old Shakespearian England, men
must have rendered a grateful homage to their oak
forests, in the sense of all that they owed to their
goodly timbers in the wainscot and furniture of the
rooms they loved best, when the blue of the frosty
midnight was contrasted, in the dark diamonds of the
lattice, with the glowing brown of the warm, fire-
lighted, crimson-tapestried walls. Not less would an
Italian look with a grateful regard on the hill
summits, to which he owed, in the scorching of his
summer noonday, escape into the marble corridor
or crypt palpitating only with cold and smooth
variegation of the unfevered mountain veins. In
some sort, as both in our stubbornness and our com-
fort, we not unfitly describe ourselves typically as
Hearts of Oak, the Italians might in their strange
and variegated mingling of passion, like purple colour,
with a cruel sternness, like white rock, truly describe
themselves as hearts of Stone.

Into this feeling about marble in domestic use,
Shakespeare, having seen it even in northern luxury,
could partly enter, and marks it in several passages of
his Italian plays. But if the reader still doubts his
limitation to his own experience in all subjects of

59

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

imagination, let him consider how the removal from
mountain influence in his youth, so necessary for the
perfection of his lower human sympathy, prevented
him from ever rendering with any force the feelings
of the mountain anchorite, or indicating in any of
his monks the deep spirit of monasticism. Worldly
cardinals or nuncios he can fathom to the uttermost ;
but where, in all his thoughts, do we find St. Francis,
of Abbot Samson ? The " Friar " of Shakespeare's
plays is almost the only stage conventionalism which
he admitted ; generally nothing more than a weak
old man, who lives in a cell, and has a rope about his
waist.

While finally, in such slight allusions as he makes
to mountain scenery itself, it is very curious to observe
the accurate limitation of his sympathies to such
things as he had known in his youth ; and his entire
preference of human interest, and of courtly and kingly
dignities, to the nobleness of the hills. This is most
marked in Cymbeline, where the term " moun-
taineer " is, as with Dante, always one of reproach,
and the noble birth of Arviragus and Guidcrius is
shown by their holding their mountain cave as

" A cell of ignorance ; travelling abed ;
A prison for a debtor " ;

and themselves, educated among hills, as in all things
contemptible :

" We are beastly ; subtle as the fox for prey ;
Like warlike as the wolf, for what we eat ;
Our valour is to chase what flies ; our cage
We make a choir, as doth the prisoned bird."

A few phrases occur here and there which might
justify the supposition that he had seen high moun-
tains, but never implying awe or admiration. Thus
Demetrius :

60

MOUNTAIN SCENERY EFFECT ON SHAKESPEARE

" These things seem small and indistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds."

" Taurus snow," and the " frosty Caucasus," are used
merely as types of purity or cold ; and though the
avalanche is once spoken of as an image of power, it
is with instantly following depreciation :

" Rush on his host, as doth the melted snow
Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat
The Alps doth spit, and void his rheum upon."

There was only one thing belonging to hills that
Shakespeare seemed to feel as noble the pine tree,
and that was because he had seen it in Warwickshire,
clumps of pine occasionally rising on little sandstone
mounds, as at the place of execution of Piers Gaveston,
above the lowland woods. He touches on this tree
fondly again and again :

" As rough,

Their royal blood cnchafed, as the rucTst wind,

That by his top doth take the mountain pine,

And make him stoop to the vale."

" The strong based promontory
Have I made shake, and by the spurs plucked up
The pine and cedar."

Where note his observance of the peculiar horizontal
roots of the pine, spurred as it is by them like the
claw of a bird, and partly propped, as the aiguilles by
those rock promontories at their bases which I have
always called their spurs, this observance of the pine's
strength and animal-like grasp being the chief reason
for his choosing it, above other trees, for Ariel's
prison. Again :

" You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops, and to make no noise
When they are fretted with the gusts of heaven."

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

And yet again :

" But when, from under this terrestrial ball,
He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines."

We may judge, by the impression which this single
feature of hill scenery seems to have made on Shake-
speare's mind, because he had seen it in his youth,
how his whole temper would have been changed if he
had lived in a more sublime country, and how essential
it was to his power of contemplation of mankind that
he should be removed from the sterner influences of
nature. For the rest, so far as Shakespeare's work has
imperfections of any kind the trivialness of many of
his adopted plots, for instance, and the comparative
rarity with which he admits the ideal of an enthusiastic
virtue arising out of principle ; virtue being with him,
for the most part, founded simply on the affections
joined with inherent purity in his women, or on mere
manly pride and honour in his men ; * in a word,

* I mean that Shakespeare almost always implies a total
difference in nature between one human being and another ; one
being from the birth pure and affectionate, another base and cruel ;
and he displays each, in its sphere, as having the nature of dove,
wolf, or lion, never much implying the government or change of
nature by any external principle. There can be no question that
in the main he is right in this view of human nature : still, the
other form of virtue does exist occasionally, and was never, as far
as I recollect, taken much note of by him. And with this stern
view of humanity, Shakespeare joined a sorrowful view of Fate,
closely resembling that of the ancients. He is distinguished from
Dante eminently by his always dwelling on last causes instead of
first causes. Dante invariably points to the moment of the soul's
choice which fixed its fate, to the instant of the day when it read
no farther, or determined to give bad advice about Penestrino.
But Shakespeare always leans on the force of Fate, as it urges the
final evil ; and dwells with infinite bitterness on the power of the
wicked, and the infinitude of result dependent seemingly on little
things. A fool brings the last piece of news from Verona, and the
dearest lives of its noble houses are lost ; they might have been
saved if the sacristan had not stumbled as he walked. Othello
mislays his handkerchief, and there remains nothing for him but
death. Hamlet gets hold of the wrong foil, and the rest is silence.

62

AN OLD WAR HORSE

whatever difference, involving inferiority, there exists
between him and Dante, in his conceptions of the
relation between this world and the next, we may partly
trace, as we did the difference between Bacon and
Pascal, to the less noble character of the scenes around
him in his youth ; and admit that, though it was
necessary for his special work that he should be put,
as it were, on a level with his race, on those plains
of Stratford, we should see in this a proof, instead of
a negation, of the mountain power over human in-
tellect. For breadth and perfectness of condescending
sight, the Shakespearian mind stands alone ; but in
ascending sight it is limited. The breadth of grasp was
innate ; the stoop and slightness of it were given
by the circumstances of scene : and the difference
between those careless masques of heathen gods, or
unbelieved, though mightily conceived visions of
fairy, witch, or risen spirit, and the earnest faith of
Dante's vision of Paradise, is the true measure of the
difference in influence between the willowy banks of
Avon, and the purple hills of Arno.

JOHN RUSKIN

AN OLD WAR HORSE

CAPTAIN had been broken in and trained for an
army horse ; his first owner was an officer of cavalry
going out to the Crimean War. He said he quite
enjoyed the training with all the other horses, trotting

Edmund's runner is a moment too late at the prison, and the
feather will not move at Cordelia's lips. Salisbury a moment too
late at the tower, and Arthur lies on the stones dead. Goneril
and lago have on the whole, in this world, Shakespeare sees,
much of their own way, though they come to a bad end. It is a
pin that Death pierces the king's fortress wall with ; and Careless-
ness and Folly sit sceptred and dreadful, side by side with the pin-
armed skeleton.

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

together, turning together, to the right hand or to the
left, halting at the word of command, or dashing for-
ward at full speed at the sound of the trumpet, or
signal of the officer. He was, when young, a dark,
dappled iron grey, and considered very handsome.
His master, a young, high-spirited gentleman, was
very fond of him, and treated him from the first with
the greatest care and kindness. He told me he
thought the life of an army horse was very pleasant ;
but when it came to being sent abroad, over the sea
in a great ship, he almost changed his mind.

" That part of it," said he, " was dreadful ! Of
course we could not walk off the land into the ship ;
so they were obliged to put strong straps under our
bodies, and then we were lifted off our legs in spite of
our struggles, and were swung through the air over
the water, to the deck of the great vessel. There we
were placed in small close stalls, and never for a long
time saw the sky, or were able to stretch our legs.
The ship sometimes rolled about in high winds, and
we were knocked about, and felt bad enough. How-
ever, at last it came to an end, and we were hauled
up, and swung over again to the land ; we were very
glad, and snorted, and neighed for joy, when we once
more felt firm ground under our feet.

" We soon found that the country we had come to
was very different to our own, and that we had many
hardships to endure besides the fighting ; but many
of the men were so fond of their horses, that they did
every thing they could to make them comfortable, in
spite of snow, wet, and all things out of order."

" But what about the fighting ? " said I * ; " was not
that worse than anything else ? "

" Well," said he, "I hardly know ; we always
liked to hear the trumpet sound, and to be called out,

* Black Beauty, the horse who is the connecting character of
the book.

6 4

AN OLD WAR HORSE

and were impatient to start off, though sometimes we
had to stand for hours, waiting for the word of com-
mand ; and when the word was given, we used to
spring forward as gaily and eagerly as if there were
no cannon balls, bayonets, or bullets. I believe so
long as we felt our rider firm in the saddle, and his
hand steady on the bridle, not one of us gave way to
fear, not even when the terrible bombshells whirled
through the air and burst into a thousand pieces.

" I, with my noble master, went into many actions
together without a wound ; and though I saw horses
shot down with bullets, pierced through with lances,
and gashed with fearful sabre-cuts ; though we left
them dead on the field, or dying in the agony of
their wounds, I don't think I feared for myself. My
master's cheery voice, as he encouraged his men,
made me feel as if he and I could not be killed. I
had such perfect trust in him, that whilst he was
guiding me, I was ready to charge up to the very
cannon's mouth. I saw many brave men cut down,
many fall mortally wounded from their saddles. I
had heard the cries and groans of the dying, I had
cantered over ground slippery with blood, and fre-
quently had to turn aside to avoid trampling on
wounded man or horse, but, until one dreadful day,
I had never felt terror ; that day I shall never forget."

Here old Captain paused for a while and drew a
long breath ; I waited, and he went on.

" It was one autumn morning, and, as usual, an
hour before daybreak our cavalry had turned out,
ready caparisoned for the day's work, whether it
might be fighting or waiting. The men stood by
their horses waiting, ready for orders. As the light
increased, there seemed to be some excitement among
the officers ; and before the day was well begun, we
heard the firing of the enemy's guns.

" Then one of the officers rode up and gave the

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

word for the men to mount, and in a second, every
man was in his saddle, and every horse stood ex-
pecting the touch of the rein, or the pressure of his
rider's heels, all animated, all eager ; but still we
had been trained so well, that, except by the champ-
ing of our bits, and the restive tossing of our heads
from time to time, it could not be said that we stirred.

" My dear master and I were at the head of the
line, and as all sat motionless and watchful, he took a
little stray lock of my mane which had turned over
on the wrong side, laid it over on the right, and
smoothed it down with his hand ; then patting my
neck, he said, ' We shall have a day of it to-day,
Bayard, my beauty ; but we'll do our duty as we have
done.' He stroked my neck that morning, more, I
think, than he had ever done before ; quietly on and
on, as if he were thinking of something else. I loved
to feel his hand on my neck, and arched my crest
proudly and happily ; but I stood very still, for I
knew all his moods, and when he liked me to be
quiet, and when gay.

" I cannot tell all that happened on that day, but I
will tell of the last charge that we made together : it
was across a valley right in front of the enemy's
cannon. By this time we were well used to the roar
of heavy guns, the rattle of musket fire, and the flying
of shot near us ; but never had I been under such a
fire as we rode through on that day. From the right,
from the left, and from the front, shot and shell
poured in upon us. Many a brave man went down,
many a horse fell, flinging his rider to the earth ;
many a horse without a rider ran wildly out of the
ranks : then terrified at being alone with no hand to
guide him, came pressing in amongst his old com-
panions, to gallop with them to the charge.

" Fearful as it was, no one stopped, no one turned
back. Every moment the ranks were thinned, but as

66

AN OLD WAR HORSE

our comrades fell, we closed in to keep them together ;
and instead of being shaken or staggered in our pace,
our gallop became faster and faster as we neared the
cannon, all clouded in white smoke, while the red
fire flashed through it.

" My master, my dear master, was cheering on his
comrades with his right arm raised on high, when one
of the balls, whizzing close to my head, struck him.
I felt him stagger with the shock, though he uttered
no cry ; I tried to check my speed, but the sword
dropped from his right hand, the rein fell loose from
the left, and sinking backward from the saddle he fell
to the earth ; the other riders swept past us, and by
the force of their charge I was driven from the spot
where he fell.

" I wanted to keep my place by his side, and not
leave him under that rush of horses' feet, but it was in
vain ; and now, without a master or a friend, I was
alone on that great slaughter ground ; then fear took
hold on me, and I trembled as I had never trembled
before ; and I too, as I had seen other horses do, tried
to join in the ranks and gallop with them ; but I was
beaten off by the swords of the soldiers. Just then,
a soldier whose horse had been killed under him,
caught at my bridle and mounted me ; and with this
new master I was again going forward : but our
gallant company was cruelly overpowered, and those
who remained alive after the fierce fight for the guns,
came galloping back over the same ground. Some
of the horses had been so badly wounded that they
could scarcely move from the loss of blood ; other
noble creatures were trying on three legs to drag
themselves along, and others were struggling to rise
on their fore-feet, when their hind legs had been
shattered by shot. Their groans were piteous to
hear, and the beseeching look in their eyes as those
who escaped passed by, and left them to their fate,

67 F

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

I shall never forget. After the battle the wounded
men were brought in, and the dead were buried."

" And what about the wounded horses ? " I said ;
" were they left to die ? "

" No, the army farriers went over the field with
their pistols, and shot all that were ruined ; some that
had only slight wounds were brought back and
attended to, but the greater part of the noble willing
creatures that went out that morning, never came
back ! In our stables there was only about one in
four that returned.

" I never saw my dear master again. I believe he fell
dead from the saddle. I never loved any other master
so well. I went into many other engagements, but
was only once wounded, and then not seriously ;
and when the war was over, I came back again to
England, as sound and strong as when I went out."

I said, " I have heard people talk about war as if it
was a very fine thing."

" Ah ! " said he, " I should think they never saw it.
No doubt it is very fine when there is no enemy,
when it is just exercise and parade, and sham-fight.
Yes, it is very fine then ; but when thousands of good
brave men and horses are killed, or crippled for life,
it has a very different look."

" Do you know what they fought about ? " said I.

" No," he said, " that is more than a horse can
understand, but the enemy must have been awfully
wicked people, if it was right to go all that way over
the sea on purpose to kill them."

ANNA SEWELL

THE FIGHT

IT was drawing towards the close of Arthur's first
half-year at Rugby, and the May evenings were

68

THE FIGHT

lengthening out. Locking-up was not till eight o'clock,
and everybody was beginning to talk about what he
would do in the holidays. The shell, in which form all
our dramatis personae now are, were reading amongst
other things the last book of Homer's Iliad, and had
worked through it as far as the speeches of the women
over Hector's body. It is a whole school-day, and four
or five of the School-house boys (amongst whom are
Arthur, Tom, and East) are preparing third lesson
together. They have finished the regulation forty
lines, and are for the most part getting very tired,
notwithstanding the exquisite pathos of Helen's
lamentation. And now several long four-syllabled
words come together, and the boy with the dictionary
strikes work.

" I am not going to look out any more words,"
says he ; " we've done the quantity. Ten to one we
shan't get so far. Let's go out into the close."

" Come along, boys," cries East, always ready to
leave the grind, as he called it ; " our old coach is
laid up, you know, and we shall have one of the new
masters, who's sure to go slow and let us down easy."

So an adjournment to the close was carried nem.
con., little Arthur not daring to uplift his voice ; but,
being deeply interested in what they were reading,
stayed quietly behind, and learnt on for his own
pleasure.

As East had said, the regular master of the form
was unwell, and they were to be heard by one of the
new masters, quite a young man, who had only just
left the University. Certainly it would be hard lines,
if, by dawdling as much as possible in coming in and
taking their places, entering into long-winded ex-
planations of what was the usual course of the regular
master of the form, and others of the stock contrivances
of boys for wasting time in school, they could not
spin out the lesson so that he should not work them

69

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

through more than the forty lines ; as to which
quantity there was a perpetual fight going on be-
tween the master and his form, the latter insisting,
and enforcing by passive resistance, that it was the
prescribed quantity of Homer for a shell lesson, the
former that there was no fixed quantity, but that
they must always be ready to go on to fifty or sixty
lines if there were time within the hour. However,
notwithstanding all their efforts, the new master got
on horribly quick ; he seemed to have the bad taste
to be really interested in the lesson, and to be trying
to work them up into something like appreciation of
it, giving them good spirited English words, instead
of the wretched bald stuff into which they rendered
poor old Homer ; and construing over each piece
himself to them, after each boy, to show them how it
should be done.

Now the clock strikes the three-quarters ; there is
only a quarter-of-an-hour more ; but the forty lines
are all but done. So the boys, one after another,
who are called up, stick more and more, and make
balder and ever more bald work of it. The poor
young master is pretty near beat by this time, and
feels ready to knock his head against the wall, or his
fingers against somebody else's head. So he gives up
altogether the lower and middle parts of the form,
and looks round in despair at the boys on the top
bench, to see if there is one out of whom he can strike
a spark or two, and who will be too chivalrous to
murder the most beautiful utterances of the most
beautiful woman of the old world. His eye rests on
Arthur, and he calls him up to finish construing
Helen's speech. Whereupon all the other boys draw
long breaths, and begin to stare about and take it
easy. They are all safe ; Arthur is the head of the
form and sure to be able to construe, and that will
tide on safely till the hour strikes.

70

THE FIGHT

Arthur proceeds to read out the passage in Greek
before construing it, as the custom is. Tom, who isn't
paying much attention, is suddenly caught by the
falter in his voice as he reads the two lines

d\\a (TV TOV y cTreccn

crrj T dyavo^ocrvi^ KGU (rots ayavots

He looks up at Arthur. " Why, bless us," thinks he,
" what can be the matter with the young 'un ? He's
never going to get floored. He's sure to have learnt
to the end." Next moment he is reassured by the
spirited tone in which Arthur begins construing, and
betakes himself to drawing dogs' heads in his note-
book, while the master, evidently enjoying the change,
turns his back on the middle bench and stands before
Arthur, beating a sort of time with his hand and
foot, and saying, " Yes, yes," " very well," as Arthur
goes on.

But as he nears the fatal two lines, Tom catches
that falter again and looks up. He sees that there is
something the matter, Arthur can hardly get on at
all. What can it be ?

Suddenly at this point Arthur breaks down alto-
gether, and fairly bursts out crying, and dashes the
cuff of his jacket across his eyes, blushing up to the
roots of his hair, and feeling as if he should like to go
down suddenly through the floor. The whole form
are taken aback, most of them stare stupidly at him,
while those who are gifted with presence of mind find
their places and look steadily at their books, in hopes
of not catching the master's eye and getting called up
in Arthur's place.

The master looks puzzled for a moment, and then
seeing, as the fact is, that the boy is really affected to
tears by the most touching thing in Homer, perhaps
in all profane poetry put together, steps up to him
and lays his hand kindly on his shoulder, saying,

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Never mind, my little man, you've construed very
well. Stop a minute, there's no hurry."

Now as luck would have it, there sat next above
Tom on that day, in the middle bench of the form, a
big boy, by name Williams, generally supposed to be
the cock of the shell, therefore of all the school below
the fifths. The small boys, who are great speculators
on the prowess of their elders, used to hold forth to
one another about William's great strength, and to
discuss whether East or Brown would take a licking
from him. He was called Slogger Williams, from the
force with which it was supposed he could hit. In
the main he was a rough good-natured fellow enough,
but very much alive to his own dignity. He reckoned
himself the king of the form, and kept up his position
with the strong hand, especially in the matter of
forcing boys not to construe more than the legitimate
forty lines. He had already grunted and grumbled
to himself, when Arthur went on reading beyond the
forty lines. But now that he had broken down just
in the middle of all the long words, the Slogger 's wrath
was fairly roused.

" Sneaking little brute," muttered he, regardless of
prudence, " clapping on the waterworks just in the
hardest place ; see if I don't punch his head after
fourth lesson."

" Whose ? " said Tom, to whom the remark seemed
to be addressed.

" Why, that little sneak Arthur's," replied Williams.

" No, you shan't," said Tom.

" Hullo ! " exclaimed Williams, looking at Tom
with great surprise for a moment, and then giving
him a sudden dig in the ribs with his elbow, which
sent Tom's books flying on to the floor, and called the
attention of the master, who turned suddenly round,
and seeing the state of things, said

" Williams, go down three places, and then go on."
72

THE FIGHT

The Slogger found his legs very slowly, and pro-
ceeded to go below Tom and two other boys with
great disgust, and then turning round and facing the
master, said. " I haven't learnt any more, sir ; our
lesson is only forty lines."

" Is that so ? " said the master, appealing generally
to the top bench. No answer.

" Who is the head boy of the form ? " said he,
waxing wroth.

" Arthur, sir," answered three or four boys indi-
cating our friend.

" Oh, your name's Arthur. Well now, what is the
length of your regular lesson ? "

Arthur hesitated a moment, and then said. " We
call it only forty lines, sir."

" How do you mean you call it ? "

" Well, sir, Mr. Graham says we ain't to stop there
when there's time to construe more."

" I understand," said the master. " Williams, go
down three more places, and write me out the lesson
in Greek and English. And now, Arthur, finish
construing."

" Oh ! would I be in Arthur's shoes after fourth
lesson," said the little boys to one another ; but
Arthur finished Helen's speech without any further
catastrophe, and the clock struck four, which ended
third lesson.

Another hour was occupied in preparing and saying
fourth lesson, during which Williams was bottling up
his wrath ; and when five struck and the lessons for
the day were over, he prepared to take summary
vengeance on the innocent cause of his misfortune.

Tom was detained in school a few minutes after the
rest, and on coming out into the quadrangle, the first
thing he saw was a small ring of boys, applauding
Williams, who was holding Arthur by the collar.

" There, you young sneak," said he, giving Arthur

73

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

a cuff on the head with his other hand, " what made
you say that "

" Hullo ! " said Tom, shouldering into the crowd,
* c you drop that, Williams ; you shan't touch him."

" Who'll stop me ? " said the Slogger, raising his
hand again.

"I," said Tom ; and suiting the action to the
word, struck the arm which held Arthur's collar so
sharply, that the Slogger dropped it with a start, and
turned the full current of his wrath on Tom.

" Will you fight ? "

" Yes, of course."

" Huzza, there's going to be a fight between Slogger
Williams and Tom Brown."

The news ran like wild-fire about, and many boys
who were on their way to tea at their several houses
turned back and sought the back of the chapel, where
the fights come off.

" Just run and tell East to come and back me," said
Tom to a small School-house boy, who was off like a
rocket to HarrowelPs, just stopping for a moment to
poke his head into the School-house hall, where the
lower boys were already at tea, and sing out, " Fight !
Tom Brown and Slogger Williams."

Up start half the boys at once, leaving bread, eggs,
butter, sprats, and all the rest, to take care of them-
selves. The greater part of the remainder follow in
a minute, after swallowing their tea, carrying their
food in their hands to consume as they go. Three or
four only remain, who steal the butter of the more
impetuous, and make to themselves an unctuous feast.

In another minute East and Martin tear through
the quadrangle, carrying a sponge, and arrive at the
scene of action just as the combatants are beginning
to strip.

Tom felt he had got his work cut out for him, as he
stripped off his jacket, waistcoat, and braces. East

74

THE FIGHT

tied his handkerchief round his waist, and rolled up
his shirt-sleeves for him : " Now, old boy, don't you
open your mouth to say a word, or try to help your-
self a bit, we'll do all that ; you keep all your breath
and strength for the Slogger." Martin meanwhile
folded the clothes, and put them under the chapel
rails ; and now Tom, with East to handle him and
Martin to give him a knee, steps out on the turf, and
is ready for all that may come : and here is the
Slogger too, all stripped, and thirsting for the fray.

It doesn't look a fair match at first glance : Williams
is nearly two inches taller, and probably a long year
older than his opponent, and he is very strongly made
about the arms and shoulders ; " peels well," as the
little knot of big fifth-form boys, the amateurs, say ;
who stand outside the ring of little boys, looking com-
placently, but taking no active part in the proceed-
ings. But down below he is not so good by any
means ; no spring from the loins, and feeblish, not
to say shipwrecky, about the knees. Tom on the
contrary, though not half so strong in the arms, is
good all over, straight, hard, and springy, from neck
to ankle, better perhaps in his legs than anywhere.
Besides, you can see by the clear white of his eye and
fresh bright look of his skin, that he is in tip- top
training, able to do all he knows ; while the Slogger
looks rather sodden, as if he didn't take much exercise
and ate too much tuck. The timekeeper is chosen,
a large ring made, and the two stand up opposite one
another for a moment, giving us time just to make
our little observations.

" If Tom'll only condescend to fight with his head
and heels," as East mutters to Martin, " we shall do."

But seemingly he won't, for there he goes in, making
play with both hands. Hard all, is the word ; the
two stand to one another like men ; rally follows
rally in quick succession, each fighting as if he thought

75

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

to finish the whole thing out of hand. " Can't last
at this rate," say the knowing ones, while the partisans
of each make the air ring with their shouts and
counter-shouts, of encouragement, approval, and
defiance.

" Take it easy, take it easy keep away, let him
come after you," implores East, as he wipes Tom's
face after the first round with wet sponge, while he
sits back on Martin's knee, supported by the Madman's
long arms, which tremble a little from excitement.

" Time's up," calls the timekeeper.

" There he goes again, hang it all ! " growls East,
as his man is at it again as hard as ever. A very severe
round follows, in which Tom gets out-and-out the
worst of it, and is at last hit clean off his legs, and
deposited on the grass by a right-hander from the
Slogger.

Loud shouts rise from the boys of Slogger's house,
and the School-house are silent and vicious, ready to
pick quarrels anywhere.

" Two to one in half-crowns on the big 'un," says
Rattle, one of the amateurs, a tall fellow, in thunder-
and-lightning waistcoat, and puffy good-natured face.

" Done ! " says Grove, another amateur of quieter
look, taking out his note-book to enter it, for our
friend Rattle sometimes forgets these little things.

Meantime East is freshening up Tom with the
sponges for next round, and has set two other boys
to rub his hands.

" Tom, old boy," whispers he, " this may be fun
for you, but it's death to me. He'll hit all the fight
out of you in another five minutes, and then I shall
go and drown myself in the island ditch. Feint him
use your legs ! draw him about ! he'll lose his wind
then in no time, and you can go into him. Hit at
his body too ; we'll take care of his frontispiece by-
and-by."

76

THE FIGHT

Tom felt the wisdom of the counsel, and saw already
that he couldn't go in and finish the Slogger off at
mere hammer and tongs, so changed his tactics com-
pletely in the third round. He now fights cautious,
getting away from and parrying the Slogger's lunging
hits, instead of trying to counter, and leading his
enemy a dance all round the ring after him. " He's
funking ; go in, Williams," " Catch him up," " Finish
him off," scream the small boys of the Slogger party.

"Just what we want," thinks East, chuckling to
himself, as he sees Williams, excited by these shouts
and thinking the game in his own hands, blowing
himself in his exertions to get to close quarters again,
while Tom is keeping away with perfect ease.

They quarter over the ground again and again,
Tom always on the defensive.

The Slogger pulls up at last for a moment, fairly
blown.

" Now then, Tom," sings out East, dancing with
delight. Tom goes in in a twinkling, and hits two
heavy body blows, and gets away again before the
Slogger can catch his wind ; which when he does he
rushes with blind fury at Tom, and being skilfully
parried and avoided, over-reaches himself and falls on
his face, amidst terrific cheers from the School-house
boys.

" Double your two to one ? " says Grove to Rattle,
note-book in hand.

" Stop a bit," says that hero, looking uncomfortably
at Williams, who is puffing away on his second's knee,
winded enough, but little the worse in any other way.

After another round the Slogger too seems to see
that he can't go in and win right off, and has met his
match or thereabouts. So he too begins to use his
head, and tries to make Tom lose patience, and come
in before his time. And so the fight sways on, now
one and now the other getting a trifling pull.

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Tom's face begins to look very one-sided there are
little queer bumps on his forehead, and his mouth is
bleeding ; but East keeps the wet sponges going so
scientifically, that he comes up looking as fresh and
bright as ever. Williams is only slightly marked in
the face, but by the nervous movement of his elbows
you can see that Tom's body blows are telling. In
fact half the vice of the slogger's hitting is neutralised,
for he daren't lunge out freely for fear of exposing
his sides. It is too interesting by this time for much
shouting, and the whole ring is very quiet.

" All right, Tommy," whispers East ; " hold on's
the horse that's to win. We've got the last. Keep
your head, old boy."

But where is Arthur all this time ? Words cannot
paint the poor little fellow's distress. He couldn't
muster courage to come up to the ring, but wandered
up and down from the great fives'-court to the corner
of the chapel rails. Now trying to make up his mind
to throw himself between them, and try to stop them ;
then thinking of running in and telling his friend
Mary, who he knew would instantly report to the
Doctor. The stories he had heard of men being killed
in prize-fights rose up horribly before him.

Once only, when the shouts of" Well done, Brown!"
" Huzza for the School-house ! " rose higher than
ever, he ventured up to the ring, thinking the victory
was won. Catching sight of Tom's face in the state I
have described, all fear of consequences vanishing out
of his mind, he rushed straight off to the matron's
room, beseeching her to get the fight stopped, or he
shall die.

But it's time for us to get back to the close. What
is this fierce tumult and confusion ? The ring is
broken, and high and angry words are being bandied
about ; " It's all fair," " It isn't," " No hugging ; "
the fight is stopped. The combatants, however, sit

78

THE FIGHT

there quietly tended by their seconds, while their
adherents wrangle in the middle. East can't help
shouting challenges to two or three of the other side,
though he never leaves Tom for a moment, and plies
the sponges as fast as ever.

The fact is, that at the end of the last round, Tom
seeing a good opening had closed with his opponent,
and after a moment's struggle had thrown him heavily,
by help of the fall he had learnt from his village rival
in the Vale of White Horse. Williams hadn't the
ghost of a chance with Tom at wrestling ; and the
conviction broke at once on the Slogger faction, that
if this were allowed their man must be licked. There
was a strong feeling in the school against catching
hold and throwing, though it was generally ruled all
fair within certain limits ; so the ring was broken and
the fight stopped.

The School-house are over-ruled the fight is on
again, but there is to be no throwing ; and East in
high wrath threatens to take his man away after next
round (which he don't mean to do by the way), when
suddenly young Brooke comes through the small gate
at the end of the chapel. The School-house faction
rush to him. " Oh, hurra ! now we shall get fair
play."

" Please, Brooke, come up, they won't let Tom
Brown throw him."

"Throw whom ? " says Brooke, coming up to the
ring. " Oh ! Williams, I see. Nonsense ! of course
he may throw him if he catches him fairly above the
waist."

Now, young Brooke, you're in the sixth, you know,
and you ought to stop all fights. He looks hard at
both boys. " Anything wrong ? " says he to East,
nodding at Tom.

" Not a bit."

" Not beat at all ? "

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Bless you, no ! heaps of fight in him. Ain't
there, Tom ? "

Tom looks at Brooke and grins.

" How's he ? " nodding at Williams.

" So, so ; rather done, I think, since his last fall,
He won't stand above two more."

" Time's up ! " the boys rise again and face one
another. Brooke can't find it in his heart to stop
them just yet, so the round goes on, the Slogger wait-
ing for Tom, and reserving all his strength to hit him
out should he come in for the wrestling dodge again,
for he feels that that must be stopped, or his sponge
will soon go up in the air.

And now another new-comer appears on the field,
to wit the under-porter, with his long brush and great
wooden receptacle for dust under his arm. He has
been sweeping out the schools.

" You'd better stop, gentlemen," he says ; " the
Doctor knows that Brown's fighting he'll be out in
a minute."

" You go to Bath, Bill " is all that that excellent
servitor gets by his advice. And being a man of his
hands, and a staunch upholder of the School-house,
can't help stopping to look on for a bit, and see Tom
Brown, their pet craftsman, fight a round.

It is grim earnest now, and no mistake. Both boys
feel this, and summon every power of head, hand, and
eye to their aid. A piece of luck on either side, a foot
slipping, a blow getting well home, or another fall,
may decide it. Tom works slowly round for an open-
ing, he has all the legs, and can choose his own time ;
the Slogger waits for the attack, and hopes to finish it
by some heavy right-handed blow. As they quarter
slowly over the ground, the evening sun comes out
from behind a cloud and falls full on Williams' face.
Tom darts in, the heavy right-hand is delivered, but
only grazes his head. A short rally at close quarters,

80

THE FIGHT

and they close ; in another moment the Slogger is
thrown again heavily for the third time.

" I'll give you three to two on the little one in half-
crowns," says Grove to Rattle.

" No thank'ee," answers the other, diving his hands
further into his coat-tails.

Just at this stage of the proceedings the door of the
turret which leads to the Doctor's library suddenly
opens, and he steps into the close, and makes straight
for the ring, in which Brown and the Slogger are both
seated on their seconds' knees for the last time.

" The Doctor ! the Doctor ! " shouts some small
boy who catches sight of him, and the ring melts away
in a few seconds, the small boys tearing off, Tom
collaring his jacket and waistcoat and slipping through
the little gate by the chapel, and round the corner to
Harrowell's with his backers, as lively as need be.
Williams and his backers making off not quite so fast
across the close. Grove, Rattle, and the other bigger
fellows trying to combine dignity and prudence in a
comical manner, and walking off fast enough, they
hope, not to be recognised, and not fast enough to
look like running away.

Young Brooke alone remains on the ground by the
time the Doctor gets there, and touches his hat, not
without a slight inward qualm.

" Hah ! Brooke. I am surprised to see you here.
Don't you know that I expect the sixth to stop
fighting ? "

Brooke felt much more uncomfortable than he had
expected, but he was rather a favourite with the
Doctor for his openness and plainness of speech ; so
blurted out, as he walked by the Doctor's side, who
had already turned back

" Yes, sir, generally. But I thought you wished us
to exercise a discretion in the matter too not to
interfere too soon."

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" But they have been fighting this half-hour and
more," said the Doctor.

" Yes, sir ; but neither was hurt. And they're the
sort of boys who'll be all the better friends now, which
they wouldn't have been if they had been stopped any
earlier before it was so equal."

" Who was fighting with Brown ? " said the Doctor.

" Williams, sir, of Thompson's. He is bigger than
Brown, and had the best of it at first, but not when
you came up, sir. There's a good deal of jealousy
between our house and Thompson's, and there would
have been more fights if this hadn't been let go on,
or if either of them had had much the worst of it."

" Well but, Brooke," said the Doctor, " doesn't this
look a little as if you exercised your discretion by only
stopping a fight when the School-house boy is getting
the worst of it ? "

Brooke, it must be confessed, felt rather gravelled.

" Now remember," added the Doctor, as he stopped
at the turret-door, " this fight is not to go on you'll
see to that. And I expect you to stop all fights in
future at once."

" Very well, sir," said young Brooke, touching his
hat, and not sorry to see the turret-door close behind
the Doctor's back.

THOMAS HUGHES

A FIRE AT SEA

ON the troubled breast of the Atlantic, a little to the
southward of that great collection of seaweed, known
by the name of the Sargasso Sea, lay a large ship.

She was in distress, for her flag was hoisted with the
Union Jack down. The nature of her distress was
apparent from a column of thick smoke that issued

82

A FIRE AT SEA

from the fore-hatch. The most terrible of all calam-
ities had befallen her she was on fire !

That she was an emigrant ship was apparent from
the great number of human beings men, women,
and children who crowded her decks. Before the
fire broke out she had weathered a severe gale> the
effects of which had not yet passed away, for, although
there was little wind, the waves were still high, and
the burning ship rolled and plunged heavily.

How the fire originated no one could tell, but the
instant it was discovered, the captain, who was a brave
and able man, took prompt measures for its extinction.
But his utmost efforts failed of success, because (the
old story) there was not suitable machinery on board for the
extinction of fire ! The owners of this ship, however,
were not, like too many, utterly regardless of human
life. On the contrary, they had done a great deal
much more than is done by many ship-owners for
the comfort and safety of those who had entrusted
their lives to them. There were boats on board
sufficient to carry the entire crew and passengers ;
and two of these were lifeboats. There was also a
large supply of life-buoys and life-jackets ; the latter
being made of cork, in such a form that the wearers
might be able to work in them without inconvenience.
But in preparing the ship for sea, fire had not been
sufficiently considered. There was no fire-engine
aboard. Buckets there were, and these were plied
with vigour, but, as we have said, without success.

Finding that the fire continued to gain strength,
the captain ordered the ship to be scuttled ; in other
words, to be flooded by opening the lower ports and
letting the sea rush in. The ship was one of those
old East Indiamen, which in former days carried guns
and marines like our men-of-war. The ports were
soon knocked out, and the sea burst in, foaming and
splashing like a mill-race when the sluice is drawn as

83 o

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

it swept towards the hold, carrying boxes, bulk-heads,
loose furniture, and all before it. When it poured in
a mighty cataract into the hold, the terrified multitude
that crowded the upper deck entertained the hope for
a few minutes that the fire would certainly be put out.
Their hope was quickly crushed, for the ship soon
gave signs of being waterlogged and threatened to
settle down, rendering it necessary to close the ports
before the fire was subdued.

A wail of despair rose from them when this was
done, for now they knew that the ship was doomed,
and that death in two of its most appalling forms
stared them in the face. The scene that followed was
heart-rending. The more timid among the passen-
gers lost self-command. Some fell on their knees,
and with bitter cries implored God to have mercy on
them. Others took passionate farewell of each other,
or sat clinging to each other in the silence of despair.
Many became frantic, rushed about the decks and tore
their hair, and a few of the braver spirits moved calmly
and silently about, doing anything that required to
be done, or coolly making preparation for the last
struggle.

Among these last were several women, who, sus-
tained by the Christian's hope, went about comfort-
ing their companions and calming the poor children.
In some cases they became the centres of little groups
of men and women, who listened intently while they
read the word of God, or joined with them in prayer.
Many cursing lips had become silent now, or trem-
blingly attempted to call on our Saviour, for the first
time, in earnest.

Meanwhile the officers and crew were not idle.
Preparation was made to lower the boats. The life-
buoys and belts were got ready, and everything was
done to facilitate the abandoning of the vessel before
she should be utterly consumed.

A FIRE AT SEA

The ordinary ship's boats were converted into life-
boats by the simple contrivance of fastening small
empty casks all round them under the seats, and a
large-sized cask in the stern and bow of each.

As the sea was still running high, the operation of
lowering was a matter of difficulty and danger. The
women and children were put into the first boat while
it hung suspended at the davits. Two men stood by
to detach the hooks that held the boat by the bow and
stern the instant she should touch the water. This
was the moment of danger ; for, if one man should
succeed in this and the other fail, the inevitable con-
sequence would be that the stern or the bow of the
boat would be jerked into the air, and the people in
her hurled into the sea.

Four boats were lowered and cast off in safety.
The fifth, which contained men chiefly, with only two
or three women and no children, was upset. The
man in the bow could not detach his hook ; it re-
mained fast while the stern hook was cast off ; and
when the ship rose it hung suspended by the bow.
Instantly the people in her were struggling in the
waves. The captain, knowing that this might occur,
had ordered a dozen of the strongest of his men to put
on cork life-belts, and stand in the main chains to be
in readiness. These at once leaped into the sea, and
supported the people, until another boat was lowered
for them. But a misfortune here befell them. While
one of the boats was swinging it was dashed against
the ship's side so violently as to be stove in and ren-
dered useless. This accident happened also to
another boat, so that, even by overloading those that
remained, it would now be impossible to accommo-
date everyone.

In this dilemma, the captain at once gave orders
to heave overboard all the spare spars and the hen-
coops, together with enough of cordage for the con-

85

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

struction of a raft. This was promptly done, and the
raft was sufficiently far advanced in the course of an
hour to admit of the emigrants being placed upon it.

It was during the formation of this raft that the
great value of the life-belts became manifest. While
the spars were in a loose and half-fastened state, the
men were obliged to work in the water. To have
done this without the support of the belts would have
been very exhausting, almost impossible ; but with
their floating power the men could work with both
hands, and move about almost as freely in the water
as on land.

The life-buoys were also of the greatest value at
this time ; for the burning ship became so hot, be-
fore the raft was ready, that the passengers were
obliged to jump overboard and get upon it as they
best could, or float about until there was room for
them all. In these circumstances the buoys were the
means of saving the lives of some who could not swim.

It was late in the evening when the raft was com-
menced, and night was far advanced before it was
completed. During all this time the boats remained
close to it, after having hauled it a short distance from
the burning ship, which latter was now a mass of
flame from the deck to the mast-heads, rendering the
whole scene as bright as day. After the rigging was
consumed, and the masts had fallen over the side,
the hull continued to burn, for a considerable time,
with less flame but with a dull red glow that afforded
sufficient light to the workers. It was fortunate the
light lasted so long, for the night was so dark that it
would otherwise have been almost impossible to have
worked at the raft tossed and rolled about as it was
by the heavy sea.

It was a strange weird sight, that busy glowing
scene of disaster out upon the black ocean at mid-
night ; and wonderful unaccountable did it ap-

86

A FIRE AT SEA

pear in the eyes of the night-watch on board the
Trident, as that ship came over the sea, ploughing
up the water before a steady breeze which had sprung
up soon after the sun went down.

" What can it be ? " said Mr. Denham to the cap-
tain when they first observed the light on the horizon.

" A steamer, perhaps," replied the captain.

" No steamer ever spouted fire like that," said Bax,
who was the only other passenger on deck, all the
others having gone to rest ; " the steamers on the
American lakes and rivers do indeed spout sparks
and flames of fire like giant squibs, but then they burn
wood. Ocean steamers never flare up like that. I
fear it is a ship on fire."

" Think you so ? steer straight for it, captain,"
said Mr. Denham, whose heart, under the influence
of bad health, and, latterly, of considerable experience
in the matter of human suffering, had become a little
softer than it used to be.

The ship's course was altered, and long before the
wreck was reached her decks swarmed with men and
women who had got up in haste at the first mention
of the word " fire," some of them with a confused
notion that their own vessel was in danger !

It was indeed a novel and terribly interesting sight
to most of those on board the Trident. At first they
saw the burning vessel like a red meteor rising on
the waves and disappearing in the hollows ; then
the flames grew fierce, and spread a halo round the
doomed ship that shone out vividly against the sur-
rounding darkness. This latter was rendered in-
tensely deep by contrast with the light. Then the
masts went over the side, and a bright volume of
sparks and scattered tongues of flame shot up into the
sky, after which the hull shone like a glow-worm until
they drew quite near. The busy workers at the raft
were too anxiously intent on their occupation to ob-

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

serve the approach of the Trident, whose black hull
was nearly invisible, and whose small lanterns might
well have been overlooked on such an occasion.

" They don't see us," observed Mr. Denham.

This was abundantly evident. Within the circle
of red light, they could see the raft and the boats
floating close to it ; the men in cork-jackets toiling
in the water and on floating spars, with ropes, hand-
spikes, and axes. It was not until the Trident herself
came within the circle of light, and hove-to, with
flapping sails, that the people in the boats became
aware of her presence.

Then, indeed, there arose a shout of joy such as
could be uttered only by men and women snatched
suddenly and unexpectedly from the very jaws of
death. Again and again it burst forth, and was
replied to by the people in the Trident, many of whom
were so excited by the scene, and so overjoyed at the
thought of having come up in time to save so many
human beings, that they burst into tears ; while
others went down on their knees and thanked God
fervently.

Seeing that the people were getting excited, and
knowing that order must be preserved, if the work that
lay before them was to be done speedily and without
accident, the captain sprang into the rigging, ordered
the women and children to go below, and assured
the male passengers that if any of them showed a
disposition to be obstinate or unruly they also should
be ordered below. This had the desired effect.
Order was at once restored, and the captain then
called for volunteers from among the stoutest of those
on board to go into the chains, and lift the women and
children out of the boats.

The appeal was responded to by all the strong
men in the ship foremost and strongest among whom
was our friend Bax. From among these the captain

88

A FIRE AT SEA

selected the men that seemed best able for the work
they undertook to do ; and this, be it understood,
was no child's play.

The state of the sea rendered it extremely difficult
and dangerous to bring the boats alongside, heavily
laden as they were with human beings. To get the
men on board would be difficult enough, even al-
though they would in most cases be able to spring, and
lay hold of ropes, and otherwise help themselves ; but
to get out the women and children by such means was
not to be thought of. The men of the Trident who had
the strongest arms and chests were therefore sent into
the chains, where they leaned forward in slings with
outstretched arms, and whenever the boats sheered up
close enough they caught women or children in their
vice-like grasp and dragged them on board.

Bax, owing to his unusual strength and breadth of
shoulders, was peculiarly fitted for this laborious duty.
His long reach of arm enabled him to stretch far be-
yond the others, and in several instances he caught
hold of and rescued women after his companions had
failed. Thus a much larger portion of the work fell
upon him than on any of the others.

In this sort of work Tommy Bogey was of no use
whatever ; and severely did his youth and want of
physical strength press upon his spirits that night,
poor boy ! But Tommy's nature would not allow
him to sit down and do nothing. Feeling that he
could not do manly work, he set himself with right
good-will to womanly employment. He assisted in
carrying the children below when they were handed
over the side, helped to strip them, and brought dry
clothing and blankets, besides doing an immense
amount of what may be termed stewardess' work for
the poor ladies. There were others on board who
worked willingly and well, but none who were so
ubiquitous as he ; none who knew so thoroughly

89

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

what to do and how to do it, and none, certainly, who
did everything with such a superabundance of energy.

Once or twice Tommy stopped in the middle of
these occupations to see how Bax was getting on ; for
to his rather partial eyes it seemed that his friend was
doing the whole work, and that everybody else was
merely looking on !

On one of these occasions he saw Bax sustaining the
weight of an old man and a young woman.

The girl was the old man's daughter ; she had
clung to him in the boat and refused to let him go,
having lost self-command through terror. Ignorant
of this, and observing that the old man could not help
himself, Bax grasped him under the arms the first time
he came within reach. The boat was immediately
swept away by the passing wave, leaving the old man
and the girl, who still clung with a death-like grasp to
him, suspended in the air. Bax's great strength en-
abled him to support this double weight, but he could
not draw them up. A comrade stooped to assist him,
but the strain on the sling was so great that it gave
way, and Bax, with his burden, fell into the sea like
lead.

Tommy saw this happen. There were plenty of
loose ropes about. He seized the end of one and
leaped overboard instantly. He sank for a second
or two, and on coming to the surface looked hastily
round. A hand was raised above the water near
him. He knew it to be that of his friend, and struck
out for it, but it disappeared. Again it rose, and there
was a convulsive grasping of the fingers. Tommy
made one stroke and placed the rope in it. The
fingers closed like a vice. Next moment the ship rose
and lifted Bax completely out of the water, with the
old man and the girl still clinging to him. Before the
ship sank again the boat sheered up, and they were all
pulled into it !

90

A FIRE AT SEA

To leap on board the Trident again, and resume his
position with a new and stronger sling, was com-
paratively easy work for Bax. Tommy clambered
up, too, close behind him. Passing a strong rope
round his friend's waist, he said quietly:

" It won't do to risk that again."

" True, Tommy," said Bax ; " run below, and
fetch me a glass o' brandy, lad. That last plunge
almost floored me."

The boy leaped over the side and dived below.
He reappeared in a few seconds with a tin can, with
which he clambered over the side into the chains,
and held it to his friend's lips. Bax drained it at a
draught, and Tommy left him without another word.

The whole of this scene was enacted with the utmost
speed and energy. The spectators seemed to be
paralysed with amazement at the quiet self-possession
of the man and the boy, both of whom appeared to
divine each other's thoughts, and to work into each
other's hands with the precision and certainty of a
machine ; they did it all, too, as if they were entirely
alone in the work. Until now they had been watched
with breathless anxiety ; but when Tommy gave Bax
the can of brandy, and then gravely went below with
a baby that had just been rescued in his arms, there
arose a wild cheer of admiration, not unmingled with
laughter, from those who had witnessed his conduct.

But their attention was soon turned again to the
boats, two of which still remained with their freight
on the heaving water. Many incidents of a thrilling
nature were enacted that night. One of the most
interesting, perhaps, occurred soon after that which
has just been related.

In one of the boats was the young wife of an
emigrant, who, having been compelled to separate
from his wife and child when they left the burning
ship in the first boat, had come alongside of the

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Trident in another boat. Being an active man, he had
caught a rope and hauled himself on board some time
before his wife was rescued. The poor young mother
had tied her infant tightly to her bosom by means of a
shawl, in order to make sure that she should share its
fate, whatever that might be.

When the boat sheered up alongside, her husband
was standing in the chains, anxious to render her
assistance. The woman chanced to come near to
Bax, but not sufficiently so to grasp him. She had
witnessed his great power and success in saving
others, and a feeling of strong confidence made her
resolve to be caught hold of by him, if possible. She
therefore drew back from the grasp of a stout fellow
who held out his brawny arms to her.

Bax noticed this occur twice, and understood the
poor woman's motive. Feeling proud of the con-
fidence thus placed in him, he watched his oppor-
tunity. The boat surged up, but did not come near
enough. It swept a\yay from the ship, and the poor
woman's hands played nervously about the folds of
the shawl, as she tried to adjust them more securely
round her infant. Again the boat rose on a wave ;
the woman stood ready, and Bax stooped. It did
not come quite near enough, but the disappointed
woman, becoming desperate, suddenly put her foot
on the gunwale, stood up at full length, and stretched
out her arms. Bax just caught her by the hands when
the boat was swept from under her.

Similar incidents had occurred so often that little
anxiety was felt ; but our hero's strength was now
thoroughly exhausted. He could not haul her up,
he could only hold on and shout for assistance. It
was promptly rendered, but before the poor woman
could be rescued the infant slipped from the shawl,
which the straightening of the mother's arms and
her suspended position had loosened. A cry burst

92

A FIRE AT SEA

from the agonised father, who stooped, and stood in
the attitude of one ready to plunge into the sea. The
mother felt the child slipping, and a piercing shriek
escaped from her as she raised her knees and caught
it between them. With muscular power, intensified
by a mother's love, she held the infant in this strange
position until both were drawn up and placed in safety
on the deck !

This was the last of Bax's achievements on that
eventful night. He was so thoroughly worn out by
the long-continued and tremendous exertions he had
been called on to make, that his strength, great
though it was, broke down. He staggered down into
the cabin, flung himself, wet as he was, on a couch,
and almost instantly fell into a sleep so deep that he
could not be roused for more than a moment or two
at a time. Seeing this, Tommy bade the bystanders
leave him alone for a few minutes until he should
come back, when, according to his own expression,
" he would screw him up all right and tight ! "
Everyone was by this time so thoroughly convinced
that the boy was quite able to manage his friend that
they stood still awaiting his return with much curiosity.

Tommy soon returned with a tumbler of hot
brandy and water, followed by the steward with a pile
of blankets.

" Hold that a minute," said the boy, handing the
tumbler to a little old gentleman who stood swaying
to and fro with the motion of the vessel, and staring
at Bax as if he had been a half-drowned sea-monster.

" Now, then," cried Tommy, punching his friend
severely in the ribs, seizing the hair of his head with
both hands, and shaking him until his neck seemed
dislocated to the surprise of all and the horror of not
a few !

The result was that Bax grumbled angrily, half
awoke, and raised himself on one elbow.

93

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Drink, you torn-tit ! " said the boy, catching the
tumbler from the old gentleman, and applying it to
his friend's lips.

Bax smiled, drank, and fell back on the pillow with
a deep sigh of satisfaction. Then Tommy spread
blanket after blanket over him, and " tucked him in "
so neatly and with such a business-like air, that two or
three mothers then present expressed their admiration
and wonder in audible whispers.

While Bax was being thus carefully tended by
Tommy and a knot of sympathisers, the passengers
and crew vied with each other in making the rescued
people as comfortable as circumstances would permit.

Meanwhile the Trident was again laid on her
course, and, thus crowded with human beings,
steered before favouring breezes for the shores of old
England.

R. M. BALLANTYNE

THE GREAT WINTER

IT must have snowed most wonderfully to have
made that depth of covering in about eight hours.
For one of Master Stickles' men, who had been out
all the night, said that no snow began to fall until
nearly midnight. And here it was, blocking up the
doors, stopping the ways, and the watercourses, and
making it very much worse to walk than in a saw-pit
newly used. However, we trudged along in a line ;
I first, and the other men after me ; trying to keep
my track, but finding legs and strength not up to it.
Most of all, John Fry was groaning ; certain that his
time was come, and sending messages to his wife,
and blessings to his children. For all this time it
was snowing harder than it ever had snowed before,
so far as a man might guess at it ; and the leaden

94

THE GREAT WINTER

depth of the sky came down, like a mine turned up-
side down on us. Not that the flakes were so very
large ; for I have seen much larger flakes in a shower
of March, while sowing peas ; but that there was no
room between them, neither any relaxing, nor any
change of direction.

Watch, like a good and faithful dog, followed us
very cheerfully, leaping out of the depth, which took
him over his back and ears already, even in the level
places ; while in the drifts he might have sunk to
any distance out of sight, and never found his way
up again. However, we helped him now and then,
especially through the gaps and gateways ; and so
after a deal of floundering, some laughter, and a little
swearing, we came all safe to the lower meadow,
where most of our flock was hurdled.

But behold, there was no flock at all ! None, I
mean, to be seen anywhere ; only at one corner of
the field, by the eastern end, where the snow drove
in, a great white billow, as high as a barn, and as
broad as a house. This great drift was rolling and
curling beneath the violent blast, tufting and comb-
ing with rustling swirls, and carved (as in patterns
of cornice) where the grooving chisel of the wind
swept round. Ever and again the tempest snatched
little whiffs from the channelled edges, twirled them
round and made them dance over the chime of the
monster pile, then let them lie like herring-bones,
or the seams of sand where the tide has been. And
all the while from the smothering sky, more and
more fiercely at every blast, came the pelting, pitiless
arrows, winged with murky white, and pointed with
the barbs of frost.

But although for people who had no sheep, the
sight was a very fine one (so far at least as the weather
permitted any sight at all) ; yet for us, with our
flock beneath it, this great mount had but little charm.

95

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along
the sides of it ; he knew that his charge was buried
there, and his business taken from him. But we four
men set to in earnest, digging with all our might and
main, shovelling away at the great white pile, and
fetching it into the meadow. Each man made for
himself a cave, scooping at the soft, cold flux, which
slid upon him at every stroke, and throwing it out
behind him, in piles of castled fancy. At last we
drove our tunnels in (for we worked indeed for the
lives of us), and all converging towards the middle,
held our tools and listened.

The other men heard nothing at all ; or declared
that they heard nothing, being anxious now to aban-
don the matter, because of the chill in their feet and
knees. But I said, " Go, if you choose all of you.
I will work it out by myself, you pie-crusts ; " and
upon that they gripped their shovels, being more or
less of Englishmen ; and the least drop of English
blood is worth the best of any other, when it comes to
lasting out.

But before we began again, I laid my head well
into the chamber ; and there I hears a faint " ma-a-
ah," coming through some ells of snow, like a plain-
tive, buried hope, or a last appeal. I shouted aloud
to cheer him up, for I knew what sheep it was, to
wit, the most valiant of all the wethers, who had met
me when I came home from London, and been so
glad to see me. And then we all fell to again ;
and very soon we hauled him out. Watch took
charge of him at once, with an air of the noblest
patronage, lying on his frozen fleece, and licking all
his face and feet, to restore his warmth to him.
Then fighting Tom jumped up at once, and made
a little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed
him, and then set off to a shallow place, and looked
for something to nibble at.

96

THE GREAT WINTER

Further in, and close under the bank, where they
had huddled themselves for warmth, we found all the
rest of the poor sheep packed, as closely as if they were
in a great pie. It was strange to observe how their
vapour and breath, and the moisture exuding from
their wool had scooped, as it were, a coved room for
them, lined with a ribbing of deep yellow snow. Also
the churned snow beneath their feet was as yellow
as gamboge. Two or three of the weaklier hoggets
were dead, from want of air, and from pressure ;
but more than three-score were as lively as ever ;
though cramped and stiff for a little while.

" However shall us get J em home ? " John Fry
asked in great dismay, when we had cleared about a
dozen of them ; which we were forced to do very
carefully, so as not to fetch the roof down. " No
manner of mailing to draive 'un, drough all they girt
driftnesses."

" You see to this place, John," I replied, as we
leaned on our shovels a moment, and the sheep came
rubbing round us ; " let no more of them out for
the present ; they are better where they be. Watch,
here boy, keep them. ! "

Watch came, with his little scut of a tail cocked as
sharp as duty, and I set him at the narrow mouth of
the great snow dntre. All the sheep sidled away,
and got closer, that the other sheep might be bitten
first, as the foolish things imagine ; whereas no good
sheep-dog even so much as lips a sheep to turn it.

Then of the outer sheep (all now snowed and frizzled
like a lawyer's wig) I took the two finest and heaviest,
and with one beneath my right arm, and the other
beneath my left, I went straight home to the upper
sheppey, and set them inside, and fastened them.
Sixty and six I took home in that way, two at a time
on each journey ; and the work grew harder and
harder each time, as the drifts of the snow were

97

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

deepening. No other man should meddle with them ;
I was resolved to try my strength against the strength
of the elements ; and try it I did, ay, and proved it.
A certain fierce delight burned in me, as the struggle
grew harder ; but rather would I die than yield ;
and at last I finished it. People talk of it to this day ;
but none can tell what the labour was, who have not
felt that snow and wind.

Of the sheep upon the mountain, and the sheep
upon the western farm, and the cattle on the upper
barrows, scarcely one in ten was saved ; do what we
would for them. And this was not through any
neglect (now that our wits were sharpened) , but from
the pure impossibility of finding them at all. That
great snow never ceased a moment for three days and
nights ; and then when all the earth was filled, and
the topmost hedges were unseen, and the trees broke
down with weight (wherever the wind had not light-
ened them), a brilliant sun broke forth and showed
the loss of all our customs.

All our house was quite snowed up, except where
we had purged a way, by dint of constant shovellings.
The kitchen was as dark and darker than the cider-
cellar, and long lines of furrowed scollops ran even
up to the chimney-stacks. Several windows fell
right inwards, through the weight of the snow against
them ; and the few that stood, bulged in, and bent
like an old bruised Ian thorn. We were obliged to
cook by candle-light ; we were forced to read by
candle-light ; as for baking, we could not do it,
because the oven was too chill ; and a load of faggots
only brought a little wet down the sides of it.

For when the sun burst forth at last upon that
world of white, what he brought was neither warmth,
nor cheer, nor hope of softening ; only a clearer
shaft of cold, from the violent depths of sky. Long-
drawn alleys of white haze seemed to lead towards

98

THE GREAT WINTER

him, yet such as he could not come down, with any
warmth remaining. Broad white curtains of the
frost-fog looped around the lower sky, on the verge
of hill and valley, and above the laden trees. Only
round the sun himself, and the spot of heaven he
claimed, clustered a bright purple-blue, clear, and
calm, and deep.

That night such a frost ensued as we had never
dreamed of, neither read in ancient books, or his-
tories of Frobisher. The kettle by the fire froze, and
the crock upon the hearth-cheeks ; many men were
killed, and cattle rigid in their head-ropes. Then I
heard that fearful sound, which never I had heard
before, neither since have heard (except during that
same winter), the sharp yet solemn sound of trees
burst open by the frost-blow. Our great walnut
lost three branches, and has been dying ever since ;
though growing meanwhile, as the soul does. And
the ancient oak at the cross was rent, and many score
of ash trees. But why should I tell all this ? the
people who have not seen it (as I have) will only
make faces, and disbelieve ; till such another frost
comes ; which perhaps may never be.

This terrible weather kept Tom Faggus from com-
ing near our house for weeks ; at which indeed I was
not vexed a quarter so much as Annie was ; for I had
never half approved of him, as a husband for my
sister ; in spite of his purchase from Squire Bassett,
and the grant of the Royal -pardon. It may be, how-
ever, that Annie took the same view of my love for
Lorna, and could not augur well of it ; but if so, she
held her peace, though I was not so sparing. For
many things contributed to make me less good-
humoured now that my real nature was ; and the
very least of all these things would have been enough
to make some people cross, and rude, and fractious.
I mean the red and painful chapping of my face and

99 H

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

hands, from working in the snow all day, and lying
in the frost all night. For being of a fair complexion,
and a ruddy nature, and pretty plump withal, and
fed on plenty of hot victuals, and always forced by my
mother to sit nearer the fire than I wished, it was
wonderful to see how the cold ran revel on my cheeks
and knuckles. And I feared that Lorna (if it should
ever please God to stop the snowing) might take this
for a proof of low and rustic blood and breeding.

And this I say was the smallest thing ; for it was
far more serious that we were losing half our stock,
do all we would to shelter them. Even the horses
in the stables (mustered all together, for the sake of
breath and steaming) had long icicles from their
muzzles, almost every morning. But of all things
the very gravest, to my apprehension, was the im-
possibility of hearing, or having any token of or from
my loved one. Not that those three days alone of
snow (tremendous as it was) could have blocked
the country so ; but that the sky had never ceased,
for more than two days at a time, for full three weeks
thereafter, to pour fresh piles of fleecy mantle ; neither
had the wind relaxed a single day from shaking them.
As a rule, it snowed all day, cleared up at night, and
froze intensely, with the stars as bright as jewels, earth
spread out in lustrous twilight, and the sounds in the
air as sharp and crackling as artillery ; then in the
morning, snow again, before the sun could come to
help.

It mattered not what way the wind was. Often
and often the vanes went round, and we hoped for
change of weather ; the only change was that it
seemed (if possible) to grow colder. Indeed, after
a week or so, the wind would regularly box the com-
pass (as the sailors call it) in the course of every day,
following where the sun should be, as if to make a
mock of him. And this of course immensely added

100

THE GREAT WINTER

to the peril of the drifts ; because they shifted every
day ; and no skill or care might learn them.

I believe it was on Epiphany morning, or some-
where about that period, when Lizzie ran into the
kitchen to me, where I was thawing my goose-
grease, with the dogs among the ashes the live dogs,
I mean, not the iron ones, for them we had given up
long ago and having caught me, by way of wonder
(for generally I was out shovelling, long before my
" young lady " had her nightcap off), she positively
kissed me, for the sake of warming her lips perhaps,
or because she had something proud to say.

" You great fool, John," said my lady, as Annie
and I used to call her, on account of her airs and graces ;
" what a pity you never read, John ! "

" Much use, I should think, in reading ! " I
answered, though pleased with her condescension ;
" read, I suppose, with roof coming in, and only this
chimney left sticking out of the snow ! "

" The very time to read, John," said Lizzie, looking
grander ; " our worst troubles are the need, whence
knowledge can deliver us."

" Amen," I cried out ; " are you parson or clerk ?
Whichever you are, good morning."

Thereupon I was bent on my usual round (a very
small one nowadays), but Eliza took me with both
hands, and I stopped of course ; for I could not bear
to shake the child, even in play, for a moment,
because her back was tender. Then she looked up at
me with her beautiful eyes, so large, unhealthy and
delicate, and strangely shadowing outward, as if to
spread their meaning ; and she said

" Now, John, this is no time to joke. I was al-
most frozen in bed last night ; and Annie like an
icicle. Feel how cold my hands are. Now, will you
listen to what I have read about climates ten times worse
than this ; and where none but clever men can live ? "

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Impossible for me to listen now. I have hundreds
of things to see to ; but I will listen after breakfast
to your foreign climates, child. Now attend to
mother's hot coffee."

She looked a little disappointed, but she knew what
I had to do ; and after all she was not so utterly
unreasonable ; although she did read books. And
when I had done my morning's work, I listened to
her patiently ; and it was out of my power to think
that all she said was foolish.

For I knew common sense pretty well, by this time,
whether it happened to be my own, or any other
person's, if clearly laid before me. And Lizzie had
a particular way of setting forth very clearly whatever
she wished to express and enforce. But the queerest
part of it all was this, that if she could but have
dreamed for a moment what would be the first ap-
plication made me by of her lesson, she would rather
have bitten her tongue off than help me to my purpose.

She told me that in the Arctic Regions, as they
call some places a long way north, where the Great
Bear lies all across the heavens, and no sun is up, for
whole months at a time, and yet where people will go
exploring, out of pure contradiction, and for the
sake of novelty, and love of being frozen that here
they always had such winters as we were having now.
It never ceased to freeze, she said ; and it never
ceased to snow ; except when it was too cold ; and
than all the air was choked with glittering spikes ;
and a man's skin might come off of him, before he
could ask the reason. Nevertheless the people there
(although the snow was fifty feet deep, and all their
breath fell behind them frozen, like a log of wood
dropped from their shoulders), yet they managed to
get along, and make the time of the year to each
other, by a little cleverness. For seeing how the
snow was spread, lightly over everything, covering

102

ROUNDING GAPE HORN

up the hills and valleys, and the foreskin of the sea,
they contrived a way to crown it, and to glide like
a flake along. Through the sparkle of the whiteness,
and the wreaths of windy tossings, and the ups and
downs of cold, any man might get along with a boat
on either foot, to prevent his sinking.

She told me how these boats were made ; very
strong and very light, of ribs with skin across them ;
five feet long, and one foot wide ; and turned up at
each end, even as a canoe is. But she did not tell
me, nor did I give it a moment's thought myself, how
hard it was to walk upon them without early practice.
Then she told me another thing equally useful to
me ; although I would not let her see how much I
thought about it. And this concerned the use of
sledges, and their power of gliding, and the lightness
of their following ; all of which I could see at once,
through knowledge of our own farm-sleds ; which
we employ in lieu of wheels, used in flatter districts.
When I had heard all this from her, a mere chit of
a girl as she was, unfit to make a snowball even, or
to fry pancakes, I looked down on her with amaze-
ment, and began to wish a little that I had given
more time to books.

R. D, BLAGKMORE

ROUNDING CAPE HORN

ALAS ! it was only now they were upon the dreaded
Cape, their terror throughout their voyage. In-
stead of proving, as they hoped, a gateway into the
soft Pacific, the wild channel was but the avenue to
destruction. " The day of our passage was the last
cheerful day that the greatest part of us would ever
live to enjoy," says the Chaplain, mournfully ; and it
is here that the tragic interest of his narrative begins.

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Before they were well out of the shadow of the rocks,
the terrible truth burst upon them. The blue sky
darkened over, the wind changed, the tide turned
" furiously," says the historian. A violent current
(he can use no milder words), aided by the " fierceness
and constancy of the westerly winds," drove them to
eastward. For forty days, almost without inter-
mission, they were driven and tossed, playthings of
the waters, up and down in miserable zigzags, about
the awful Gape ; now menaced by " mountainous
waves," any one of which, had it broken fairly over
them, would have sent them to the bottom ; now
dashed almost to pieces by the rolling of the ship
their sails torn off by the winds, split by the frost
their rigging covered with ice, their bodies benumbed
and disabled by the cold. Sometimes a fog came
on ; and the Commodore, himself struggling for bare
life, fired forlorn guns every half-hour flashes of
despair to keep the perishing ships together. Yet
all this time, in the height of their misery, there still
lingered a cheerful assurance of hope. According
to all they knew, they had been making their way
steadily towards the Pacific. It could not but be
near at hand, and their toils near a close. And with
every day of storm the longing for that sea of peace,
for those isles, and " opulent coasts," must have grown
on the weary crews, who, any hour, any moment so
they thought might suddenly glide into the rippling
waters and sunny calm. It may be supposed, ac-
cordingly, what was the consternation of the sailors,
thus strained to the supreme struggle, when they
found that they had been betrayed by an insidious
current completely out of their course, and saw once
more the awful rocks of Tierra del Fuego frowning
out of the mists upon their lee.

Before this time scurvy, most dreaded of all the
dangers of a long sea-voyage, had made its fatal

104

ROUNDING CAPE HORN

appearance among them. With their feeble old pen-
sioners and rapidly-made-up crews, sickness had been
rife in the ships from the very beginning of the voy-
age ; and it is evident that Anson's good sense and
good feeling had forestalled sanitary science so far
as to do all that was possible for the ventilation
and cleanliness of his crowded vessel. So early as
November the sickly condition of the crews and the
want of air between the decks had been reported to
him ; and by the time they arrived at St. Cathe-
rine's it was found necessary to give the Centurion a
" thorough cleansing, smoking it between the decks,
and after all, washing every part well with vinegar,"
a precaution made needful by the " noisome
stench " and vermin, which had become " intoler-
ably offensive." This being so when things went
comparatively well, it may be imagined what these
decks must have got to be when every comfort and
almost every hope had abandoned the unhappy mass
of suffering men, drenched with salt water, frozen
with cold, worn with continual labour, who flung
themselves upon them to die. During their terrible
beatings about Gape Horn, the scurvy took stronger
and stronger hold upon them. In April they lost
forty-three men from it on board the Centurion alone ;
in May double that number ; in June, before they
reached Juan Fernandez, " the disease extended itself
so prodigiously that, after the loss of about two
hundred men, we could not at last muster more
than six foremast men in a watch capable of duty."
The officers themselves (and, still more remarkably,
the officers' servants) seem to have escaped the
attacks of this disease, fortified either by the tremend-
ous burden of responsibility, or by that curious force
of high spirit and finer mettle which carries so many
absolutely weaker men through the perils which slay
the strongest. Our Chaplain records the character-
105

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

istics of the disease with that grave and calm simplicity
which distinguishes his style, revealing its full horrors,
yet never dwelling unduly on them. Some of its
victims, he describes, lay in their hammocks eating
and drinking, in cheerful spirits, and with vigorous
voices ; yet in a moment, if but moved from one place
to another, still in their hammocks, died out of hand,
all vital energy being gone from them. Some who
thought themselves still able for an attempt at duty
would fall down and die among their comrades on
attempting a stronger pull or more vigorous strain
than usual. Every day, while winds and waves,
roaring and threatening round, held over the whole
shipload another kind of death, must the dim-eyed
mariners with failing strength and sinking spirit have
gathered to the funeral of their dead. By this time
their companion ships had all disappeared, and the
Centurion alone, with its sick and dying, tossed about
almost at the will of the waves upon that desolate
sea. At last there came a moment when, destruction
being imminent, " the master and myself," our brave
Chaplain, undertook the management of the helm,
while every available soul on board set to work to
repair and set the sails and secure the masts, to take
advantage once more in desperation of a favourable
change of wind. This was their last storm ; but not
even then were the troubles of this terrible voyage at
an end. They missed Juan Fernandez by one of
those mistakes which come in with bewildering cer-
tainty at such moments of desperation to enhance all
sufferings. " The Commodore himself was strongly
persuaded that he saw it," but, overpowered by the
scepticism of his officers, changed his course in over-
precaution. Then at last the high hearts of the ex-
pedition gave way. The water was failing, to add to
all the rest ; men were dying five and six every day.
" A general dejection prevailed among us," says the

1 06

ROUNDING CAPE HORN

historian. It was at this moment, when hope and
heart were wellnigh gone, that the island of their
hopes, all smiling in the sullen seas, with soft woods
and grassy slopes and sweet streams of running water,
suddenly burst like a glimpse of paradise upon their
hungering eyes.

Nothing can be more touching than the sober,
simple story, as it describes this deliverance out of
despair. The feeble creatures, to whom water had
become the first of luxuries, hastened on deck as fast
as their tottering limbs would carry them, to gaze
with eyes athirst at a great cascade of living water
flinging itself, with the wantonness of nature, over a
rock a hundred feet high into the sea. The first boat
sent on shore brought back heaps of grass, having no
time to search for better vegetables. The spectre
crew were four hours at work, with the assistance of
all the ghosts from below who could keep their feeble
legs, to raise the cable, when it was necessary to
change their anchorage, and could not manage it
with all their united strength. But yet the haven
was reached, the tempest over for the moment. The
ship had but settled to her moorings when a tiny sail
bore bravely up upon the newly arrived, and proved
to be the Trial 9 valorous little sloop, which had held
its own against all the dangers encountered by the
Centurion, and now found its way to the trys ting-
place, with only its captain, lieutenant, and three
men able to stand by the sails. A fortnight later,
some of the sailors, gazing out from a height upon
the sea, saw, or fancied they saw, another sail faintly
beating about the horizon. In five days more it
appeared again, making feeble futile attempts to
enter the safe shelter in which Anson lay. The
watchful Commodore sent out instant help, risking
his boats and refreshed convalescent men to save his
consort, and by this timely help kept them alive,

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

until, after three weeks or more of fruitless attempts,
the Gloucester at last got into the bay, having lost
three-fourths of her crew. Three weather-beaten
hulks, with torn sails and broken masts ; three groups
of worn-out men escaped as from the dead, looked
each other in the face in this lull of fate. With the
whisper of the soft woods in their ears, and delicious
noise and tinkle of running water, instead of the roar-
ing of the winds and the sea, what salutations, from
the edge of the grave, must have been theirs ! The
brave Commodore set to work, without the loss of an
hour, to remove the sick to shore : not a man among
them laboured harder than he, the leader, and his
officers followed his example, willingly or unwillingly.
From one vessel after another the helpless and suffer-
ing were landed, to be healed and soothed out of
their miseries. Green things of better quality than
grass, and fresh fish, and flesh of goats, and new-
made bread, consoled the worn-out wretches, and
rest stole into the souls of the almost lost. Anson
for his own part, with a touch of sentiment which
speaks out of the utter silence in which he is content
to leave himself, with a power beyond that of words,
chose for himself an idyllic resting-place in this
moment of repose.

" I despair of conveying an adequate idea of its
beauty/' says our Chaplain who, let us hope,
shared it with his master. " The piece of ground
that he chose was a small lawn that lay on a
little ascent, at the distance of about half a mile
from the sea. In the front of his tent there was a
large avenue cut through the woods to the seaside,
which, sloping to the water with a gentle descent,
opened a prospect of the bay and the ships at anchor.
This lawn was screened behind by a tall wood of
myrtle, sweeping round it in the form of a theatre.

108

ROUNDING CAPE HORN

. . . There were, besides, two streams of crystal
water which ran on the right and left of the tent,
within one hundred yards' distance, and were shaded
by the trees which skirted the lawn on either side."

He thinks some faint idea of " the elegance of this
situation " may be gleaned from a print which, un-
fortunately, is not to be found in the edition before
us. A certain suppressed poetry of mind must have
been in the man who, after such desperate encounter
with primitive dangers, pitched his lonely tent be-
tween those running rills, with the bay and his ships
at anchor softly framed at his feet by the sweet
myrtle boughs. Does not the reader hear the sudden
hush in the stormy strain

" A sound as of a hidden brook,
In the leafy month of June."

With what a profound harmony does 'this momentary
vision of repose and tender quiet fall into the tale,
all ajar with the danger of warring winds and waves !
While Anson was drawing this breath of tran-
quillity and health, and taking up again, undismayed,
the thread of his plans against the enemy, the other
admiral, Vernon, with his splendid fleet and arma-
ment, had collapsed all into nothing. Long before,
indeed, in April, while dauntless Anson, without a
thought of turning back in his mind, was going
through his agony round Cape Horn, the struggle
was over for that rival who had outshone, outnum-
bered, and swallowed up his poor little expedition.
The big fleet which sailed amid the cheers of England
had beat back, all broken, disgraced, and discomfited,
to Jamaica driven miserably away from before the
face of that old Spanish foreshadowing of a grim
Sebastopol, known as Carthagena ere our little
squadron painfully got itself together in the bay,

log

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

at Juan Fernandez. Our Commodore, of course,
could know nothing of that disaster, and indeed was
still pondering in his mind how even yet, even now,
his ragged shipwrecked band might carry something
home to balance the conquests of those rustling
gallants. Never could a greater contrast have been ;
and it was well for England that the chief seaman of
so critical an age was not poor popular Vernon re-
criminating with his General at Jamaica, but Anson,
musing alone on the island lawn, just out of the jaws
of death, planning a thousand daring adventures,
with his eyes fixed on the deceitful quiet of that
Southern Sea.

MRS. OLIPHANT

THE PUNISHMENT OF SHAHPESH, THE
PERSIAN, ON KHIPIL, THE BUILDER

THEY relate that Shahpesh, the Persian, com-
manded the building of a palace, and Khipil was his
builder. The work lingered from the first year of
the reign of Shahpesh even to his fourth. One day
Shahpesh went to the riverside where it stood, to
inspect it. Khipil was sitting on a marble slab among
the stones and blocks ; round him stretched lazily the
masons and stonecutters and slaves of burden ; and
they with the curve of humorous enjoyment on their
lips, for he was reciting to them adventures, inter-
spersed with anecdotes and recitations and poetic in-
stances, as was his wont. They were like pleased
flocks whom the shepherd hath led to a pasture
freshened with brooks, there to feed indolently ; he,
the shepherd, in the midst.

Now, the King said to him, " O Khipil, show me
my palace where it standeth, for I desire to gratify
my sight with its fairness."

no

THE PUNISHMENT OF SHAHPESH

Khipil abased himself before Shahpesh, and an-
swered, " Tis even here, O King of the age, where
thou delightest the earth with thy foot and the ear
of thy slave with sweetness. Surely a site of vantage,
one that dominateth earth, air, and water, which is
the builder's first and chief requisition for a noble
palace, a palace to fill foreign kings and sultans with
the distraction of envy ; and it is, O Sovereign of the
time, a site, this site I have chosen, to occupy the
tongues of travellers and awaken the flights of poets ! "

Shahpesh smiled and said, " The site is good ! I
laud the site ! Likewise I laud the wisdom of Ebn
Busrac, where he exclaims :

" ' Be sure, where Virtue faileth to appear,
For her a gorgeous mansion men will rear ;
And day and night her praises will be heard,
Where never yet she spake a single word.' "

Then said he, " O Khipil, my builder, there was
once a farm-servant that, having neglected in the
seed-time to sow, took to singing the richness of his
soil when it was harvest, in proof of which he dis-
played the abundance of weeds that coloured the land
everywhere. Discover to me now the completeness of
my halls and apartments, I pray thee, O Khipil, and
be the excellence of thy construction made visible
to me ! "

Quoth Khipil, " To hear is to obey."

He conducted Shahpesh among the unfinished
saloons and imperfect courts and roofless rooms, and
by half-erected obelisks, and columns pierced and
chipped, of the palace of his building. And he was
bewildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh ; but
now the King exalted him, and admired the perfec-
tion of his craft, the greatness of his labour, the
speediness of his construction, his assiduity ; feigning
not to behold his negligence,
ill

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Presently they went up winding balusters to a
marble terrace, and the King said, " Such is thy de-
votion and constancy in toil, O Khipil, that thou shalt
walk before me here."

He then commanded Khipil to precede him, and
Khipil was heightened with the honour. When Khipil
had paraded a short space he stopped quickly, and
said to Shahpesh, " Here is, as it chanceth, a gap, O
King ! and we can go no further this way."

Shahpesh said, " All is perfect, and it is my will thou
delay not to advance."

Khipil cried, " The gap is wide, O mighty King,
and manifest, and it is an incomplete part of thy
palace."

Then said Shahpesh, " O Khipil, I see no dis-
tinction between one part and another ; excellent are
all parts in beauty and proportion, and there can be
no part incomplete in this palace that occupieth the
builder four years in its building : so advance, do my
bidding."

Khipil yet hesitated, for the gap was of many strides,
and at the bottom of the gap was a deep water, and
he one that knew not the motion of swimming. But
Shahpesh ordered his guard to point their arrows in
the direction of Khipil, and Khipil stepped forward
hurriedly, and fell in the gap, and was swallowed by
the water below. When he rose the second time,
succour reached him, and he was drawn to land
trembling, his teeth chattering. And Shahpesh
praised him, and said, " This is an apt contrivance
for a bath, Khipil, O my builder ! well conceived ;
one that taketh by surprise ; and it shall be thy
reward daily when much talking hath fatigued
thee."

Then he bade Khipil lead him to the hall of state.
And when they were there Shahpesh said, " For a
privilege, and as a mark of my approbation, I give

112

THE PUNISHMENT OF SHAHPESH

thee permission to sit in the marble chair of yonder
throne, even in my presence, O Khipil."

Khipil said, " Surely, O King, the chair is not yet
executed."

And Shahpesh exclaimed, " If this be so, thou art
but the length of thy measure on the ground, O talka-
tive one ! "

Khipil said, " Nay, 'tis not so, O King of splen-
dours ! blind that I am ! yonder's indeed the
chair."

And Khipil feared the King, and went to the place
where the chair should be, and bent his body in a
sitting posture, eyeing the King, and made pretence
to sit in the chair of Shahpesh, as in conspiracy to
amuse his master.

Then said Shahpesh, " For a token that I approve
thy execution of the chair, thou shalt be honoured by
remaining seated in it up to the hour of noon ; but
move thou to the right or to the left, showing thy soul
insensible of the honour done thce, transfixed thou
shalt be with twenty arrows and five."

The King then left him with a guard of twenty-five
of his body-guard ; and they stood around him with
bent bows, so that Khipil dared not move from his
sitting posture. And the masons and the people
crowded to see Khipil sitting on his master's chair,
for it became rumoured about. When they beheld
him sitting upon nothing, and he trembling to stir
for fear of the loosening of the arrows, they laughed so
that they rolled upon the floor of the hall, and the
echoes of laughter were a thousandfold. Surely the
arrows of the guards swayed with the laughter that
shook them.

Now, when the time had expired for his sitting in
the chair, Shahpesh returned to him, and he was
cramped, pitiable to see ; and Shahpesh said, " Thou
hast been exalted above men, O Khipil ! for that

"3

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

thou didst execute for thy master has been found
fitting for thee."

Then he bade Khipil lead the way to the noble
gardens of dalliance and pleasure that he had planted
and contrived. And Khipil went in that state de-
scribed by the poet, when we go draggingly, with
remonstrating members,

" Knowing a dreadful strength behind,
And a dark fate before."

They came to the gardens, and behold, these were
full of weeds and nettles, the fountains dry, no tree
to be seen a desert. And Shahpesh cried, " This is
indeed of admirable design, O Khipil ! Feelest thou
not the coolness of the fountains ? their refreshing-
ness ? Truly I am grateful to thee ! And these
flowers, pluck me now a handful, and tell me of their
perfume."

Khipil plucked a handful of the nettles that were
there in the place of flowers, and put his nose to them
before Shahpesh, till his nose was reddened ; and
desire to rub it waxed in him, and possessed him, and
became a passion, so that he could scarce refrain
from rubbing it even in the King's presence. And
the King encouraged him to sniff and enjoy their
fragrance, repeating the poet's words :

" Me thinks I am a lover and a child,
A little child and happy lover, both !
When by the breath of flowers I am beguiled
From sense of pain, and lulled in odorous sloth.
So I adore them, and that no mistress sweet
Seems worthier of the love which they awake :
In innocence and beauty more complete,
Was never maiden cheek in morning lake.
Oh, while I live, surround me with fresh flowers
Oh, when I die, then bury me in their bowers ! "
114

THE PUNISHMENT OF SHAHPESH

And the King said, " What sayest thou, O my
builder ? that is a fair quotation, applicable to thy
feelings, one that expresseth them ? "

Khipil answered, " 'Tis eloquent, O great King !
comprehensiveness would be its portion, but that it
alludeth not to the delight of chafing."

Then Shahpesh laughed, and cried, " Chafe not !
it is an ill thing and a hideous ! This nosegay, O
Khipil, it is for thee to present to thy mistress. Truly
she will receive thee well after its presentation ! I will
have it now sent in thy name, with word that thou
followest quickly. And for thy nettled nose, surely if
the whim seize thee that thou desirest its chafing,
to thy neighbour is permitted what to thy hand is
refused."

The King set a guard upon Khipil to see that his
orders were executed, and appointed a time for him
to return to the gardens.

At the hour indicated Khipil stood before Shahpesh
again. He was pale, saddened ; his tongue drooped
like the tongue of a heavy bell, that when it soundeth
giveth forth mournful sounds only : he had also the
look of one battered with many beatings. So the
King said, " How of the presentation of the flowers
of thy culture, O Khipil ? "

He answered, " Surely, O King, she received me
with wrath, and I am shamed by her."

And the King said, " How of my clemency in the
matter of the chafing ? "

Khipil answered, " O King of splendours I made
petition to my neighbours whom I met, accosting
them civilly and with imploring, for I ached to chafe
and it was the very raging thirst of desire to chafe
that was mine, devouring eagerness for solace of
chafing. And they chafed me, O King ; yet not in
those parts which throbbed for the chafing, but in
those which abhorred it."

115 I

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Then Shahpesh smiled and said, " 'Tis certain that
the magnanimity of monarchs is as the rain that falleth,
the sun that shineth : and in this spot it fertilizeth
richness ; in that encourage th rankness. So art thou
but a weed, O Khipil ! and my grace is thy chastise-
ment."

Now, the King ceased not persecuting Khipil, under
pretence of doing him honour and heaping favours
on him. Three days and three nights was Khipil
gasping without water, compelled to drink of the
drought of the fountain, as an honour at the hands of
the King. And he was seven days and seven nights
made to stand with stretched arms, as they were the
branches of a tre^, in each hand a pomegranate. And
Shahpesh brought the people of his court to regard
the wondrous pomegranate-shoot planted by Khipil,
very wondrous, and a new sort, worthy the gardens
of a King. So the wisdom of the King was applauded,
and men wotted he knew how to punish offences in
coin, by the punishment inflicted on Khipil, the
builder. Before that time his affairs had languished,
and the currents of business instead of flowing had be-
come stagnant pools. It was the fashion to do as did
Khipil, and fancy the tongue a constructor rather than
a commentator ; and there is a doom upon that
people and that man which runneth to seed in gabble,
as the poet says in his wisdom :

" If thou wouldst be famous, and rich in splendid

fruits,

Leave to bloom the flower of things, and dig
among the roots."

Truly after Khipil's punishment there were few in
the dominions of Shahpesh who sought to win the
honours bestowed by him on gabblers and idlers : as
again the poet :

116

THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY

" When to loquacious fools with patience rare
I listen, I have thoughts of KhipiPs chair:
His bath, his nosegay, and his fount I see
Himself stretch J d out as a pomegranate- tree.
And that I am not Shahpesh I regret,
So to inmesh the babbler in his net.
Well is that wisdom worthy to be sung,
Which raised the Palace of the Wagging Tongue ! "

And whoso is punished after the fashion of Shahpesh,
the Persian, on Khipil, the Builder, is said to be one
" in the Palace of the Wagging Tongue " to this time.

GEORGE MEREDITH

THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY

" ONCE," said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep
sigh, " I was a real Turtle."

These words were followed by a very long silence,
broken only by an occasional exclamation of
" Hjckrrh ! " from the Gryphon, and the constant
heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very
nearly getting up and saying " Thank you, sir, for
your interesting story," but she could not help think-
ing there must be more to come, so she sat still and
said nothing.

" When we were little," the Mock Turtle went on
at last, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now
and then, " we went to school in the sea. The master
was an old Turtle we used to call him Tortoise "

" Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one ? "
Alice asked.

" We called him Tortoise because he taught us,"
said the Mock Turtle angrily : " really you are very
dull ! "

" You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking
117

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

such a simple question," added the Gryphon ; and
then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice,
who felt ready to sink into the earth. At last the
Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, " Drive on, old
fellow ! Don't be all day about it ! " and he went on
in these words :

" Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you
mayn't believe it "

" I never said I didn't ! " interrupted Alice.

" You did," said the Mock Turtle.

" Hold your tongue ! " added the Gryphon, before
Alice could speak again. The Mock Turtle went
on :

" We had the best of educations in fact, we went
to school every day "

" Pve been to a day-school, too," said Alice ;
" you needn't be so proud as all that."

" With extras ? " asked the Mock Turtle a little
anxiously.

" Yes," said Alice, " we learned French and music."

" And washing ? " said the Mock Turtle.

" Certainly not ! " said Alice indignantly.

" Ah ! then yours wasn't a really good school,"
said the Mock Turtle in a tone of great relief. " Now
at ours they had at the end of the bill, ' French, music,
and washing extra.' "

" You couldn't have wanted it much," said Alice ;
" living at the bottom of the sea."

" I couldn't afford to learn it," said the Mock
Turtle with a sigh. " I only took the regular course."

" What was that ? " inquired Alice.

" Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,"
the Mock Turtle replied ; " and then the different
branches of Arithmetic Ambition, Distraction, Ugli-
fication, and Derision."

" I never heard of * Uglification,' " Alice ventured
to say. " What is it ? "

118

THE MOCK TURTLE'S STORY

The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise.
" Never heard of uglifying ! " it exclaimed. " You
know what to beautify is, I suppose ? "

" Yes," said Alice doubtfully : " it means to
make anything prettier. ' 3

" Well, then," the Gryphon went on, " if you don't
know what to uglify is, you are a simpleton."

Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more
questions about it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle,
and said, " What else had you to learn ? "

" Well, there was Mystery," the Mock Turtle
replied, counting off the subjects on his flappers,
" Mystery, ancient and modern, with Scaography :
then Drawling the Drawling-master was an old
conger-eel, that used to come once a week : he
taughtus Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils."

" What was that like ? " said Alice.

" Well, I can't show it you myself," the Mock
Turtle said : "I'm too stiff. And the Gryphon never
learnt it."

" Hadn't time," said the Gryphon : " I went to the
Classical master, though. He was an old crab, he
was."

" I never went to him," the Mock Turtle said with
a sigh : "he taught Laughing and Grief, they used
to say."

" So he did, so he did," said the Gryphon, sighing in
his turn : and both creatures hid their faces in their
paws.

" And how many hours a day did you do lessons ? "
said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

" Ten hours the first day," said the Mock Turtle :
" nine the next, and so on."

" What a curious plan ! " exclaimed Alice.

" That's the reason they're called lessons," the
Gryphon remarked : " because they lessen from day
to day."

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought
it over a little before she made her next remark.
" Then the eleventh day must have been a holiday."

" Of course it was," said the Mock Turtle.

" And how did you manage on the twelfth ? "
Alice went on eagerly.

" That's enough about lessons," the Gryphon in-
terrupted in a very decided tone.

LEWIS CARROLL

THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS

IT will be seen from the foregoing chapters that the
Erewhonians are a meek and long-suffering people,
easily led by the nose, and quick to offer up common
sense at the shrine of logic, when a philosopher arises
among them, who carries them away through his
reputation for especial learning, or by convincing them
that their existing institutions are not based on the
strictest principles of morality.

The series of revolutions on which I shall now
briefly touch shows this even more plainly than the
way (already dealt with) in which at a later date they
cut their throats in the matter of machinery ; for if
the second of the two reformers of whom I am about
to speak had had his way or rather the way that he
professed to have the whole race would have died
of starvation within a twelvemonth. Happily com-
mon sense, though she is by nature the gentlest crea-
ture living, when she feels the knife at her throat, is
apt to develop unexpected powers of resistance, and
to send doctrinaires flying, even when they have bound
her down and think they have her at their mercy.
What happened, so far as I could collect it from the
best authorities, was as follows :

Some two thousand five hundred years ago the
120

THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS

Erewhonians were still uncivilised, and lived by hunt-
ing, fishing, a rude system of agriculture, and plunder-
ing such few other nations as they had not yet com-
pletely conquered. They had no schools or systems
of philosophy, but by a kind of dog-knowledge did that
which was right in their own eyes and in those of
their neighbours ; the common sense, therefore, of the
public being as yet unvitiated, crime and disease were
looked upon much as they are in other countries.

But with the gradual advance of civilisation and
increase in material prosperity, people began to ask
questions about things that they had hitherto taken as
matters of course, and one old gentleman, who had
great influence over them by reason of the sanctity
of his life, and his supposed inspiration by an unseen
power, whose existence was now beginning to be felt,
took it into his head to disquiet himself about the
rights of animals a question that so far had disturbed
nobody.

All prophets are more or less fussy, and this old
gentleman seems to have been one of the more fussy
ones. Being maintained at the public expense, he had
ample leisure, and not content with limiting his atten-
tion to the rights of animals, he wanted to reduce right
and wrong to rules, to consider the foundations of duty
and of good and evil, and otherwise to put all sorts of
matters on a logical basis, which people whose time
is money are content to accept on no basis at all.

As a matter of course, the basis on which he decided
that duty could alone rest was one that afforded no
standing-room for many of the old-established habits
of the people. These, he assured them, were all
wrong, and whenever anyone ventured to differ from
him, he referred the matter to the unseen power with
which he alone was in direct communication, and the
unseen power invariably assured him that he was right.
As regards the rights of animals he taught as follows :

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" You know," he said, " how wicked it is of you to
kill one another. Once upon a time your forefathers
made no scruple about not only killing, but also eating
their relations. No one would now go back to such
detestable practices, for it is notorious that we have
lived much more happily since they were abandoned.
From this increased prosperity we may confidently
deduce the maxim that we should not kill and eat our
fellow-creatures. I have consulted the higher power
by whom you know that I am inspired, and he has
assured me that this conclusion is irrefragable.

" Now it cannot be denied that sheep, cattle, deer,
birds, and fishes are our fellow-creatures. They differ
from us in some respects, but those in which they differ
are few and secondary, while those that they have in
common with us are many and essential. My friends,
if it was wrong of you to kill and eat your fellow-men,
it is wrong also to kill and eat fish, flesh, and fowl.
Birds, beasts, and fishes have as full a right to live
as long as they can unmolested by man, as man has to
live unmolested by his neighbours. These words, let
me again assure you, are not mine, but those of the
higher power which inspires me.

" I grant," he continued, " that animals molest
one another, and that some of them go so far as to
molest man, but I have yet to learn that we should
model our conduct on that of the lower animals.
We should endeavour, rather, to instruct them, and
bring them to a better mind. To kill a tiger, for
example, who has lived on the flesh of men and
women whom he has killed, is to reduce ourselves to
the level of the tiger, and is unworthy of people who
seek to be guided by the highest principles in all, both
their thoughts and actions.

" The unseen power who has revealed himself to
me alone among you, has told me to tell you that you
ought by this time to have outgrown the barbarous

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THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS

habits of your ancestors. If, as you believe, you know
better than they, you should do better. He com-
mands you, therefore, to refrain from killing any living
being for the sake of eating it. The only animal food
that you may eat, is the flesh of any birds, beasts, or
fishes that you may come upon as having died a
natural death, or any that may have been born pre-
maturely, or so deformed that it is a mercy to put
them out of their pain ; you may also eat all such
animals as have committed suicide. As regards
vegetables you may eat all those that will let you eat
them with impunity."

So wisely and so well did the old prophet argue,
and so terrible were the threats he hurled at those who
should disobey him, that in the end he carried the
more highly educated part of the people with him,
and presently the poorer classes followed suit, or pro-
fessed to do so. Having seen the triumph of his prin-
ciples, he was gathered to his fathers, and no doubt
entered at once into full communion with that unseen
power whose favour he had already so pre-eminently
enjoyed.

He had not, however, been dead very long, before
some of his more ardent disciples took it upon them to
better the instruction of their master. The old prophet
had allowed the use of eggs and milk, but his disciples
decided that to eat a fresh egg was to destroy a
potential chicken, and that this came to much the
same as murdering a live one. Stale eggs, if it was
quite certain that they were too far gone to be able
to be hatched, were grudgingly permitted, but all
eggs offered for sale had to be submitted to an in-
spector, who, on being satisfied that they were addled,
would label them " Laid not less than three months "
from the date, whatever it might happen to be. These
eggs, I need hardly say, were only used in puddings,
and as a medicine in certain cases where an emetic

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was urgently required. Milk was forbidden inasmuch
as it could not be obtained without robbing some calf
of its natural sustenance, and thus endangering its life.

It will be easily believed that at first there were many
who gave the new rules outward observance, but
embraced every opportunity of indulging secretly in
those flesh-pots to which they had been accustomed.
It was found that animals were continually dying
natural deaths under more or less suspicious circum-
stances. Suicidal mania, again, which had hitherto
been confined exclusively to donkeys, became alarm-
ingly prevalent even among such for the most self-
respecting creatures as sheep and cattle. It was
astonishing how some of these unfortunate animals
would scent out a butcher's knife if there was one within
a mile of them, and run right up against it if the butcher
did not get it out of their way in time.

Dogs, again, that had been quite law-abiding as
regards domestic poultry, tame rabbits, sucking pigs,
or sheep and lambs, suddenly took to breaking beyond
the control of their masters, and killing anything that
they were told not to touch. It was held that any
animal killed by a dog had died a natural death, for
it was the dog's nature to kill things, and he had only
refrained from molesting farmyard creatures hitherto
because his nature had been tampered with. Unfor-
tunately the more these unruly tendencies became
developed, the more the common people seemed to
delight in breeding the very animals that would put
temptation in the dog's way. There is little doubt,
in fact, that they were deliberately evading the law ;
but whether this was so or no they sold or ate every-
thing their dogs had killed.

Evasion was more difficult in the case of the larger
animals, for the magistrates could not wink at all the
pretended suicides of pigs, sheep, and cattle that were
brought before them. Sometimes they had to convict,

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THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS

and a few convictions had a very terrorising effect
whereas in the case of animals killed by a dog, the
marks of the dog's teeth could be seen, and it was
practically impossible to prove malice on the part of
the owner of the dog.

Another fertile source of disobedience to the law
was furnished by a decision of one of the judges that
raised a great outcry among the more fervent disciples
of the old prophet. The judge held that it was lawful
to kill any animal in self-defence, and that such con-
duct was so natural on the part of a man who found
himself attacked, that the attacking creature should be
held to have died a natural death. The High Vege-
tarians had indeed good reason to be alarmed, for
hardly had this decision become generally known
before a number of animals, hitherto harmless, took
to attacking their owners with such ferocity that it
became necessary to put them to a natural death.
Again, it was quite common at that time to see the
carcase of a calf, lamb, or kid exposed for sale with a
label from the inspector certifying that it had been
killed in self-defence. Sometimes even the carcase
of a lamb or calf was exposed as " warranted still-
born," when it presented every appearance of having
enjoyed at least a month of life.

As for the flesh of animals that had bona fide died a
natural death, the permission to eat it was nugatory,
for it was generally eaten by some other animal
before man got hold of it ; or failing this it was often
poisonous, so that practically people were forced to
evade the law by some of the means above spoken of,
or to become vegetarians. This last alternative was
so little to the taste of the Erewhonians, that the laws
against killing animals were falling into desuetude,
and would very likely have been repealed, but for
the breaking out of a pestilence, which was ascribed
by the priests and prophets of the day to the lawless-

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

ness of the people in the matter of eating forbidden
flesh. On this, there was a reaction ; stringent laws
were passed, forbidding the use of meat in any form or
shape, and permitting no food but grain, fruits, and
vegetables to be sold in shops and markets. These
laws were enacted about two hundred years after the
death of the old prophet who had first unsettled
people's minds about the rights of animals ; but
they had hardly been passed before people again
began to break them.

I was told that the most painful consequence of all
this folly did not lie in the fact that law-abiding people
had to go without animal food many nations do this
and seem none the worse, and even in flesh-eating
countries such as Italy, Spain, and Greece, the poor
seldom see meat from year's end to year's end. The
mischief lay in the jar which undue prohibition gave
to the consciences of all but those who were strong
enough to know that though conscience as a rule boons,
it can also bane. The awakened conscience of an
individual will often lead him to do things in haste
that he had better have left undone, but the con-
science of a nation awakened by a respectable old
gentleman who has an unseen power up his sleeve
will pave hell with a vengeance.

Young people were told that it was a sin to do what
their fathers had done unhurt for centuries ; those,
moreover, who preached to them about the enormity
of eating meat, were an unattractive academic folk,
and though they over-awed all but the bolder youths,
there were few who did not in their hearts dislike
them. However much the young person might be
shielded, he soon got to know that men and women
of the world often far nicer people than the prophets
who preached abstention continually spoke sneer-
ingly of the new doctrinaire laws, and were believed
to set them aside in secret, though they dared not do

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THE RIGHTS OF ANIMALS

so openly. Small wonder, then, that the more human
among the student classes were provoked by the touch-
not, taste-not, handle-not precepts of their rulers, into
questioning much that they would otherwise have
unhesitatingly accepted.

One sad story is on record about a young man of
promising amiable disposition, but cursed with more
conscience than brains, who had been told by his
doctor (for as I have above said disease was not yet
held to be criminal) that he ought to eat meat, law or
no law. He was much shocked and for some time re-
fused to comply with what he deemed the unrighteous
advice given him by his doctor ; at last, however,
finding that he grew weaker and weaker, he stole
secretly on a dark night into one of those dens in
which meat was surreptitiously sold, and bought a
pound of prime steak. He took it home, cooked it in
his bedroom, when every one in the house had gone
to rest, ate it, and though he could hardly sleep for
remorse and shame, felt so much better next morning
that he hardly knew himself.

Three or four days later, he again found himself
irresistibly drawn to this same den. Again he bought
a pound of steak, again he cooked and ate it, and again,
in spite of much mental torture, on the following morn-
ing felt himself a different man. To cut the story
short, though he never went beyond the bounds of
moderation, it preyed upon his mind that he should
be drifting, as he certainly was, into the ranks of the
habitual law-breakers.

All the time his health kept on improving, and
though he felt sure that he owed this to the beef-
steaks, the better he became in body, the more his
conscience gave him no rest ; two voices were for
ever ringing in his ears the one saying, " I am. Com-
mon Sense and Nature ; heed me, and I will reward
you as I rewarded your fathers before you." But

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

the other voice said : " Let not that plausible spirit
lure you to your ruin. I am Duty ; heed me, and
I will reward you as I rewarded your fathers before
you."

Sometimes he even seemed to see the faces of the
speakers. Common Sense looked so easy, genial, and
serene, so frank and fearless, that do what he might
he could not mistrust her ; but as he was on the point
of following her, he would be checked by the austere
face of Duty, so grave, but yet so kindly ; and it cut
him to the heart that from time to time he should see
her turn pitying away from him as he followed after
her rival.

The poor boy continually thought of the better
class of his fellow-students, and tried to model his
conduct on what he thought was theirs. " They,"
he said to himself, " eat a beefsteak ? Never." But
they most of them ate one now and again, unless it
was a mutton chop that tempted them. And they
used him for a model much as he did them. " He,"
they would say to themselves, " eat a mutton chop?
Never." One night, however, he was followed by
one of the authorities, who was always prowling about
in search of law-breakers, and was caught coming out
of the den with half a shoulder of mutton concealed
about his person. On this, even though he had not
been put in prison, he would have been sent away
with his prospects in life irretrievably ruined ; he
therefore hanged himself as soon as he got home.

SAMUEL BUTLER

THE HAPPY THINKER IS CALLED

SECOND day at Boodels. 6.30 A.M. exact time. It's
wonderful to me how Boodels (of Boodels) manages
to get up at half-past six in the morning, after going

128

THE HAPPY THINKER IS CALLED

to bed at 3.20. He does do it, with a horn, too, which
he comes to my bedside and blows (his idea of hearty
fun !) and with dogs, which he brings into one's room.
I didn't see the animals last night ; now I do. I
don't like them at least, in my bedroom. There's
one Skye, a black-and-tan, a pug, and an undecided
terrier. He explains that two of 'em always sleep in
his room, and he then makes them jump on my bed.

Happy Thought. Always lock your bedroom door,
on account of sleep-walkers. I recollect a story of a
monk stabbing a mattress, and somebody going mad
afterwards, which shows how necessary it is to lock
the door of your cell. At all events, it keeps out any
one with a horn, and dogs.

6.35. Boodels says (while dogs are scampering
about), " Lovely morning, old boy," and pulls up
my blinds. I like to find out it's a lovely morning
for myself, and pull up my own blinds, or else I get
a headache. The undecided terrier and the pug are
growling at what they can see of me above the counter-
pane. I try (playfully, of course, because Boodels is
my host) to kick them off, but they only snap at my
toes. Boodels says, " They think they're rats. Ah,
they're as sensible as Christians, when they know you."
They don't know me, however, and go on taking my
toes for rats.

6.35 to 6.45. Boodels says, " We'll have a little air,
eh ? " and opens both windows. He says, " There,
that's better." I reply, " Yes, that's better," and
turn on my side, trying to imagine, by shutting my
eyes, that Boodels, with dogs, is not in the room.

Happy Thought (made in my note-book suddenly under
the clothes. Always have note-book under my pillow 9 while
collecting materials.) " Poodles " rhymes to " Boodles."

He then says, examining his horn, " This is how
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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

they get you up in Switzerland ; " and then he blows
it by way of illustration. He says, " That wouldn't
come in badly in an entertainment, would it ? " He
suggests that it would come in capitally when I give
a public reading. At this point, the voice of James,
the footman, summons the dogs below. Rush
scamper rush avalanche of dogs heard tumbling
downstairs.

Boodels says, "James always feeds 'em." I reply,
sleepily, " Very kind." Boodel says, " What ? " I
answer, rather louder, that " it's very kind," and keep
my eyes shut. Boodels won't take a hint. He goes
on " Look at this horn ! ain't it a rum J un ? " and
I am obliged to open my eyes again. I ask him,
feebly, " where he got it ? " Boodels says " What ? "
(I begin to think he's deaf.) And I have to repeat,
" Where did you get it ? " He then begins a story
about a fellow in Switzerland, who, etc., which I lose
about the middle, and am recalled to consciousness
by his shaking the pillow, and saying " Hi ! Hi !
You're asleep ! " I explain, as if hurt by the insinua-
tion, " No, only thinking." Whereupon Boodels says,
" Ought to think about getting up." [This is what
he calls being happy at a repartee. I find he rather
prides himself on this.] " Breakfast in half an hour ? "
I say, " Yes, in half an hour," lazily. He is silent for
a minute. I doze. He then says, " What ? " And I
repeat, more lazily, to show him I've no idea of get-
ting up yet awhile, " Yes, in half an hour." Boodels
goes away. I doze. He reappears, to ask me some

question which begins, " Oh, do you think that "

But he changes his mind, and says, " Ah, well, it
doesn't matter ! " adding, in a tone of remonstrance
" You're not getting up ! " and disappears again,
leaving, as I afterwards found, the door open.

I doze * * * * Something in my room. I look, in-
quiringly, over the side of the bed. A bulldog, alone !

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THE HAPPY THINKER IS CALLED

White, with bandy legs, a black muzzle, and showing
his teeth : what a fancier, I believe, would call a
beauty. Don't know how to treat bulldogs. Wish
Boodels would shut the door when he goes out. I
look at the dog. The dog doesn't stir but twitches
his nostrils up and down. I never saw a dog do that
before. I say to myself, in order to inspirit myself,
" He can't make me out." I really don't like to get
up while he's there.

Happy Thought. To keep my eye on him, sternly.
He keeps his eye more sternly on me. Failure.

Happy Thought. To pat the bed-clothes and say
" Poor old boy, then ! Did um, a poor old fellow,
then ! a leetle mannikin, then ; a poo' little chappy
man, then " and other endearing expressions : his
eye still on me unflinchingly. Then in a laudatory
tone, " He was a fine dog then, he was ! " and en-
couragingly, " Old boy, then ! old fellow ! " His
eye is mistrustful ; bulldogs never growl when they're
going to fly at you ; he doesn't growl.

Happy Thought. If you hit a bulldog over the front
legs, he's done. If not, I suppose you're done. [This
for my chapter, in Typical Developments, on " Nature's
Defences." If you wound a lion in his forepaw, he'll
come up to you. On second thought, p'raps, he'd
come up to you if you didn't. Bulldogs always spring
at your throat. If in bed, you can avoid that by
getting under the clothes.

Happy Thought. One ought always to have a bell
by the bed in case of robbers, and a pistol.

7.45. The dog has been here for a quarter of an
hour and I can't get up. Willks, the butler, appears
with my clothes and hot water. The dog welcomes
him so do I, gratefully. He says, " Got Grip up here

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

with you, Sir ? He don't hoffen make friends with
strangers." I say, without explanation, " Fine dog,
that," as if I'd had him brought to my room to be
admired. Willks, the butler, informs me that " Master
wouldn't take forty pounds for that dog, Sir " ; and
I say, with surprise, " Wouldn't he ? " Butler repeats,
" No, Sir, not forty pounds he's been offered thirty."
Whereupon, finding I've been on a wrong tack (N.B.
Never be on a wrong tack with the butler), I observe,
knowingly, as if I was making a bargain, " Ah, I
should have thought about thirty not more, though."
Butler says, " Yes, Sir, Master could get that," and I
answer positively, " Oh, yes, of course," which im-
presses the butler with the notion that I'd give it
myself any day of the week. Think the butler likes
me better after this : because if I'd give thirty pounds
for a dog, what would I give to a Butler ?

I calculate upon getting ten minutes more in bed.
" What's the exact time ? " The butler has a watch,
and is ready. "8.10." "Exact?" "Exact."
" Then " (by way of a further delay) " bring my
clothes, please." They are here. " Oh, well " (last
attempt), " my boots." Been here some time. Then
I must get up, that's all. That is all, and I get up.

SIR FRANCIS BURNAND

LA GIOCONDA

La Gioconda is, in the truest sense, Leonardo's
masterpiece, the revealing instance of his mode of
thought and work. In suggestiveness, only the
Melancholia of Diirer is comparable to it ; and no
crude symbolism disturbs the effect of its subdued
and graceful mystery. We all know the face and
hands of the figure, set in its marble chair, in that
circle of fantastic rocks, as in some faint light under

132

LA GIOGONDA

sea. Perhaps of all ancient pictures time has chilled
it least. As often happens with works in which in-
vention seems to reach its limit, there is an element
in it given to, not invented by, the master. In that
inestimable folio of drawings, once in the possession
of Vasari, were certain designs by Verrocchio, faces
of such impressive beauty that Leonardo in his boy-
hood copied them many times. It is hard not to
connect with these designs of the elder, by-past master,
as with its germinal principle, the unfathomable smile,
always with a touch of something sinister in it, which
plays over all Leonardo's work. Besides, the picture
is a portrait. From childhood we see this image de-
fining itself on the fabric of his dreams ; and but for
express historical testimony, we might fancy that this
was but his ideal lady, embodied and beheld at last.
What was the relationship of a living Florentine to
this creature of his thought ? By what strange affini-
ties had the dream and the person grown up thus
apart, and yet so closely together ? Present from the
first incorporeally in Leonardo's brain, dimly traced
in the designs of Verrocchio, she is found present at
last in // Giocondo's house. That there is much of
mere portraiture in the picture is attested by the
legend that by artificial means, the presence of mimes
and flute-players, that subtle expression was pro-
tracted on the face. Again, was it in four years and
by renewed labour never really completed, or in four
months and as by stroke of magic, that the image was
projected ?

The presence that rose thus so strangely beside the
waters is expressive of what in the ways of a thousand
years men had come to desire. Hers is the head upon
which all " the ends of the world are come," and the
eyelids are a little weary. It is a beauty wrought out
from within upon the flesh, the deposit, little cell by
cell, of strange thoughts and fantastic reveries and

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

exquisite passions. Set it for a moment beside one of
those white Greek goddesses or beautiful women of
antiquity, and how would they be troubled by this
beauty, into which the soul with all its maladies has
passed ! All the thoughts and experience of the
world have etched and moulded there, in that which
they have of power to refine and make expressive the
outward form, the animalism of Greece, the lust of
Rome, the mysticism of the middle age with its
spiritual ambition and imaginative loves, the return
of the Pagan world, the sins of the Borgias. She is
older than the rocks among which she sits ; like the
vampire, she has been dead many times, and learned
the secrets of the grave ; and has been a diver in deep
seas, and keeps their fallen day about her ; and
trafficked for strange webs with Eastern merchants :
and, as Leda, was the mother of Helen of Troy, and,
as Saint Anne, the mother of Mary ; and all this has
been to her but as the sound of lyres and flutes, and
lives only in the delicacy with which it has moulded
the changing lineaments, and tinged the eyelids and
the hands. The fancy of a perpetual life, sweeping
together ten thousand experiences, is an old one ;
and modern philosophy has conceived the idea of
humanity as wrought upon by, and summing up in
itself, all modes of thought and life. Certainly Lady
Lisa might stand as the embodiment of the old fancy,
the symbol of the modern idea.

WALTER PATER

THE BATTLE OF CANNAE

THE delay of the last few days seemed irksome
enough to the rival armies ; but what must it have
seemed to the citizens at home ? News had reached
the city that the armies were facing each other, and

134

THE BATTLE OF CANNAE

that everything was prepared for a decisive conflict.
They had ventured their all, or nearly their all, on
this one throw. The stake was laid down, and the
throw must be made, but it was hard to have so much
time to ask themselves what if they should lose ?
Omens and portents seemed to fill the air, as before
the Trasimene Lake, and busy-tongued rumour passed
from mouth to mouth, sending the citizens in crowds
to the temples to seek from the gods by supplications
what they could no longer gain or lose by any exer-
tions of their own. It was the resource of the destitute,
and they knew it, but it helped them to kill the period
of suspense.

Once more it was Varro's turn for the command,
and as the sun rose he began to transfer his army to
the northern side of the river, and after joining the
contingent in the smaller camp there, drew the whole
out in battle array, facing the south. Nearly opposite
Cannae the Aufidus, whose general course is north-
east, takes a sharp bend to the south. Afterwards,
for some distance, it runs east, and then, once more,
turning northward, reaches the line of its former
course. The loop or link thus formed Hannibal
marked out as the grave of the Roman army, the
grave of fifty thousand men ; and into it, as a pre-
paratory step, he now threw his own small force,
while Varro was crossing the stream higher up. His
infantry did not number half that of the Romans ;
but they were many of them veterans, and all of
them men on whom he knew by experience that he
could rely. His cavalry were only slightly superior
in numbers to the enemy, but how vastly superior in
every military quality the result was to prove. In
the centre of his line of battle were the Spaniards,
clothed in white tunics edged with purple, and armed
with swords equally suited for thrusting or for striking,
Next them were the Gauls, who, naked to the waist,

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and armed with long swords, fitted to their gigantic
stature, but pointless, and therefore suited for striking
only, seemed as though they were the warriors of
Brennus come to life again with one more terrible than
many Brennuses to lead them. This part of his force
Hannibal threw forward in the form of a semicircle
or a wedge, while, on their flanks and some way to
the rear, he placed the best part of his infantry, the
heavy-armed Africans, eager, many of them, doubt-
less, to flesh, for the first time, in Roman hearts the
Roman weapons which they bore. Beyond these
again, and forming the left wing of the whole army,
were the heavy Gallic and African cavalry, eight
thousand strong. On the right wing he posted his
light-armed Numidians, reduced by the waste of life
attending such campaigns as Hannibal's to two
thousand men all told, but with spirit and fidelity
enough to their great leader to fight on to their very
last man and last horse. Hasdrubal led the heavy
cavalry on the left, and Maharbal the Numidians on
the right, while Hannibal, with his brother Mago
near him, stationed himself in the centre to direct the
general operations of the battle. He had been obliged
to leave ten thousand men on the other side of the
river to guard his camp against surprise, and was able
therefore to put only thirty thousand men into line
of battle : thirty thousand against the Roman eighty
thousand ! The odds were heavy indeed against him
in point of numbers ; but it must be remembered
that his wings rested on the sides of the loop which
he had himself selected, and could not be outflanked
by the enemy. Varro, whether because he distrusted
his raw levies, or because he saw, when it was too late
to remedy it, that unless he massed his troops together,
half of his whole army would be outside the fray,
increased the depth of his maniples from ten to sixteen,
hoping by sheer weight to bear down all resistance

THE BATTLE OF CANNAE

and drive the Carthaginians into the river. He was,
in fact, only penning his sheep more closely for the
slaughter.

After the usual preliminary skirmish of the light-
armed troops, the eight thousand heavy cavalry on
Hannibal's left charged the two thousand four hundred
Roman cavalry opposed to them. These last were
picked men, belonging, most of them, to the best
Roman families, men of equestrian and senatorial
rank. They withstood the charge bravely for a time,
and grappled horse to horse and man to man with the
barbarians. But they were overpowered by numbers,
and only a small remnant escaped from the field. Un-
like Rupert at Naseby, Hasdrubal held his eager
cavalry well in hand. He forbade them to pursue
those who were already routed, and passing behind
the whole Roman line fell on the rear of the Italian
cavalry, who were stationed on the other wing, and
who had hitherto been held in check by the skilful
evolutions of the mere handful of Numidians. These
admirable horsemen had avoided coming to close
quarters, in which they must have been crushed by
numbers, but had managed to keep their vastly more
numerous enemy employed till Hasdrubal came
thundering on their rear. Attacked now by the un-
injured Numidians in front and by HasdrubaPs
cavalry, flushed with success, behind, the Italian
cavalry broke and fled. Hasdrubal, not yet sated
with victory, left the Numidians to render an account
of their flying foes, and turned his attention to the
Roman centre. Here, so far, matters had gone well
for the Romans ; but it was so far only. The semi-
circle of Gauls and Spaniards whom Hannibal had
pushed forward in his centre, had been gradually
forced back, or rather had fallen back in accordance
with his plan, first to a level with, and then right past,
the heavy Africans on their flanks. The convex line

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of battle had thus become concave, and it seemed
that the whole would be driven headlong into the
river by the overwhelming masses of the Romans, who,
as they yielded, kept pressing on, or were themselves
pressed on by those behind and at their flanks, into
every inch of ground left vacant for them. But just
at the critical moment Hasdrubal fell upon their rear,
and the heavy Libyan infantry, who had hardly yet
taken part in the battle, wheeling inward at the same
time from right and left, attacked them on both flanks.
Denser and denser grew the mass of terrified Romans,
pressed on all four sides at once. Huddled together
without room to draw, much less to wield, their swords,
they stood or struggled in helpless imbecility, seeing
their comrades on the circumference of the fatal circle
cut down, one after the other, and doomed to wait
in patience till their own turn should come. The
question was no longer whether, but simply when,
the stroke would fall on each. Few Romans indeed
within that fatal ring were destined to escape. As
at the Trasimene, it was a simple butchery ; but it
was a butchery which required treble the number of
victims. The Romans were never cowards, but those
who stood near the centre of that seething mass must
needs have died, like cowards, many times before
their death. " The thicker the hay," said Alaric long
afterwards, in an outburst of brutality, " the easier
it is mown." But not even Alaric's imagination could
have pictured such a harvest of death as this of
Cannae, and even the muscles of his brawny Visigoths
would have been wearied out before they had slain,
as the Carthaginians did on this fatal day, a number
of the enemy which, man for man, vastly exceeded
their own.

For eight hours the work of destruction went on,
and at the end not less than fifty thousand men lay
dead upon the ground. ^Emilius Paullus, the Illyrian

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THE BATTLE OF CANNAE

hero, who, though wounded by a sling early in the
day, had clung to his horse, heartening on his men,
till he dropped exhausted from his saddle ; the pro-
consul Servilius ; the late high-spirited Master of the
Horse Minucius ; both quaestors, twenty-one military
tribunes, sixty senators, and an unknown number of
knights, were among the slain. Nearly twenty thou-
sand Roman prisoners were taken, whether on the
field itself, in the pursuit, or in the two camps which
were among the prizes of Hannibal's gigantic victory.
Of the rest, Varro, with a few horsemen only, had
the good or the ill fortune to escape to Venusia ; and
it was with difficulty that, after some days, he man-
aged to rally a few thousand stragglers or malingerers
at Ganusium all that now remained of the Roman
army. Amidst all this slaughter, the conqueror had
lost only five thousand five hundred of his infantry,
and but two hundred of those matchless cavalry to
whom the victory was mainly due. " Send me on
with the cavalry," said Maharbal to Hannibal, in the
exultation of the moment, " do thou follow behind,
and, in five days, thou shalt sup in the Capitol." He
might well think so at the time, for the worst fears of
the Romans, the highest hopes of Hannibal, had been
more than realised ; the double stake had been played
and had been lost lost, it would seem then irre-
trievably. So many knights lay dead that, as the
story goes, Mago, when sent, some time afterwards,
by Hannibal to Carthage with tidings of his victory,
emptied on the floor of the Senate-house three bushels
of golden rings taken from equestrian fingers. It was
a trophy of victory which the Carthaginian aristo-
cracy, who, as has been already pointed out, com-
memorated the number of their campaigns by that
of their rings, and who had, many of them, joined the
opposition to the noble Barcine gens, could not fail
to appreciate.

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The news, which was necessarily slow in reaching
Carthage, reached Rome apace. It was, as the say-
ing is, " in the air " even before the first courier with
his disastrous tidings appeared at the Appian gate,
and rumour, as was natural, went even beyond the
truth. It was believed that both consuls were dead
and that no portion of the army had survived. Livy,
the most graphic of historians or of romancers, fairly
shrinks from the attempt to picture the scene of horror
which followed. Each flying messenger, as he reached
the walls, fancied himself, or was fancied by the
Romans, to be but the forerunner of the dread Hanni-
bal himself. He knew not, indeed, as he drew near
the city, whether the Numidian cavalry were not,
even then, before him, as their own messengers. A
panic-stricken multitude, thinking that all save their
lives was lost, made for the gates, and, for a moment
it seemed likely that Hannibal when he came would
find Rome indeed, but no Roman citizens within
her.

Any other state must have succumbed to such a
blow ; but now, as after the Trasimene, it was the
Senate, or what remained of it, who saved the city
from being abandoned by her own children. They
alone preserved their presence of mind ; and it was
the old ex-dictator, Fabius, who was, once more, the
soul of their deliberations. By his advice the gates
were closed to prevent the exodus of the inhabitants.
The citizens should not be saved, so he willed it,
unless the city was saved with them. Messengers
were sent along the southern military roads to see,
as Livy pathetically expresses it, " if the gods, touched
by one pang of pity, had left aught remaining to the
Roman name," and to bring the first tidings of the
expected advance of Hannibal. It was difficult for
the Senate to deliberate at all ; for the cries of
thousands of women outside the Senate-house, who

140

THE BATTLE OF CANNAE

were bewailing their absent husbands, or fathers, or
sons, as though they were all dead, drowned the voices
of those who spoke. Orders were issued that the
women, if wail they must, should wail within their
own houses, and henceforward silence, mournful in-
deed, but dignified, was observed in the public streets.
All assemblies of the people were prohibited. M.
Junius Pera was named Dictator, the city legions were
called out ; the whole male population some four-
teen thousand slaves and criminals, and boys still
clothed in the garb of childhood among them were
armed, and the angry gods were propitiated, as best
they might, by the punishment of guilty Vestals, and
by the burying alive of Greek and Gallic men and
women in the Roman Forum.

After a few days more hopeful news came. A des-
patch arrived from Varro himself, saying that he had
escaped from the carnage, and was doing his best
to reorganise and to rally the ten thousand demora-
lised fugitives who had, at last, found their way to
Canusium. More important still, Hannibal was not
on his way to Rome, but was still encamped on the
field of Cannae. The Romaners breathed more freely ;
but from other parts of the Roman world tidings
of fresh danger, fresh disaster, or fresh shame came
pouring in. One Carthaginian fleet was threatening
Lilybaeum, another Syracuse. The force sent north-
wards to watch the Gauls had fallen into an ambuscade
and had been cut off to a man. Worse still, a body
of Roman nobles who had escaped from Cannae,
thinking that all was lost save their honour, had de-
termined, regardless even of their honour, to fly
beyond the seas, and would have carried their purpose
out had not the young Scipio rushed in amongst them,
sword in hand, and sworn that he would slay anyone
who would not bind himself never to desert his
country.

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And why did not Hannibal march at once on the
panic-stricken city ? Roman historians and Roman
generals could not refrain from expressing their thank-
fulness and their surprise at his dilatoriness or his
blindness. In Juvenal's time Roman schoolboys de-
claimed upon it in their weekly themes. Maharbal,
the master of the Numidian cavalry if, indeed, the
story be true, and not what the Romans imagined
ought to have been true exclaimed, in an outburst
of vexation at the chance which was thrown away,
that the gods had taught Hannibal how to win, but
not how to use, a victory ; and the greatest master
of modern warfare, Napoleon himself, has joined in
the general chorus of condemnation. But perhaps the
best and the all-but-sufficing answer to those who say
that Hannibal ought to have advanced on Rome, is
the simple fact that Hannibal himself, the foremost
general of all time, and statesman as well as general,
did not attempt it. Moreover, all the arguments
which, we have seen, held good after Trasimene
against such an advance, held equally good now.
There were still the stone walls of the city. There was
still the population of Latium and of the surrounding
country, as yet untouched by the war, hostile to him
to a man ; still after the first few days of panic, of
which Hannibal, laden with booty and with half Italy
between him and Rome, could hardly have taken
advantage the unbroken resolution of the citizens
themselves. Hannibal never liked sieges, and was
seldom successful in those he undertook ; he forbore
at this moment to besiege even Canusium with its
feeble and panic-stricken defenders. Finally, his long-
cherished hope of the defection of the Italian allies
seemed now at length to be not only within his sight,
but, if only he was patient or prudent, already almost
within his grasp. The battle of Cannae had been
too much for the resolution of Apulia ; Samnium had

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THE BATTLE OF CANNAE

already in part joined him ; Lucania and Bruttium
rose in revolt. The Greek cities in the south were
prepared to hail him as their deliverer ; Campania,
it was whispered, was wavering in the balance, and
ready at the sight of the conqueror to go over to
Carthage. Thus deprived of her allies, Rome, he
hoped, would fall almost by her own weight.

Never did the self-control and the true nobility of
soul of Hannibal, never did the unbending resolu-
tion of the Roman Senate, display itself more con-
spicuously than at this moment. Never in the very
moment of victory did Hannibal lose his head. The
good of his country was even now nearer to his heart
and doubtless it was the only thing that was nearer
to his heart than his hatred to Rome. Thinking
that it might be advantageous to Carthage to conclude
peace, and that she might now do so almost on her
own terms, he called the Roman prisoners together
almost the only occasion in his life on which he brought
himself to speak a friendly word to any Roman and
told them that he did not wish that the strife which
he was waging should be internecine ; he was willing
to take a ransom for them, and some of their number
might go on their parole to Rome to negotiate the
matter. Even in the first flush of his victory, he bade
Carthalo offer terms of peace, if he saw that the
Roman wishes turned in that direction. But the
Romans also rose to the emergency. Fifty years be-
fore, as has been already related, they had told the
victorious Epirot that Rome never negotiated with an
enemy so long as he was on Italian soil ; and the
answer which they had given to Pyrrhus then in
words, they gave now to a general greater than
Pyrrhus, and crowned with a far more overwhelming
victory, by their deeds. They spoke no word and
thought no thought of peace. Their want of troops
was urgent, but they refused, as the story goes, to buy

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

with money men who had disgraced themselves by
surrender ; and when Varro neared the city, ob-
noxious though he was to the aristocracy on account
of his low birth and his career, and branded with the
defeat of Cannae, not one word of reproach was
uttered against him. His efforts only, not his failures
or mistakes, were remembered, and the citizens went
forth in a body to meet him, and thanked him, in
words that are ever memorable, for not having de-
spaired of the republic. The Roman historians have
a right, here at least, to congratulate themselves that
they were not as were the Carthaginians. The de-
feated Roman general received a vote of thanks for
his unsuccessful efforts ; a defeated Carthaginian
would have been nailed to a cross.

R. BOSWORTH SMITH

EGDON HEATH

A SATURDAY afternoon in November was approach-
ing the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unen-
closed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself
moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of
whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which
had the whole heath for its floor.

The heaven being spread with this pallid screen
and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meet-
ing-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such
contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instal-
ment of night which had taken up its place before its
astronomical hour was come : darkness had to a
great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct
in the sky. Looking upwards, a furze-cutter would
have been inclined to continue work ; looking down,
he would have decided to finish his faggot and go
home. The distant rims of the world and of the firma-

144

EGDON HEATH

ment seemed to be a division in time no less than a
division in matter. The face of the heath by its
mere complexion added half an hour to evening ;
it could in like manner retard the dawn, sadden
noon, anticipate the frowning of storms scarcely
generated, and intensify the opacity of a moonless
midnight to a cause of shaking and dread.

In fact, precisely at this transitional point of its
nightly roll into darkness the great and particular
glory of the Egdon waste began, and nobody could be
said to understand the heath who had not been there
at such a time. It could best be felt when it could not
clearly be seen, its complete effect and explanation
lying in this and the succeeding hours before the next
dawn : then, and only then, did it tell its true tale.
The spot was, indeed, a near relation of night, and
when night showed itself an apparent tendency to
gravitate together could be perceived in its shades and
the scene. The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows
seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure
sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as
the heavens precipitated it. And so the obscurity in
the air and the obscurity in the land closed together
in a black fraternization towards which each advanced
half-way.

The place became full of a watchful intentness
now ; for when other things sank brooding to sleep
the heath appeared slowly to awake and listen. Every
night its Titanic form seemed to await something ;
but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many
centuries, through the crises of so many things, that
it could only be imagined to await one last crisis
the final overthrow.

It was a spot which returned upon the memory of
those who loved it with an aspect of peculiar and
kindly congruity. Smiling champaigns of flowers and
fruit hardly do this, for they are permanently har-

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

monious only with an existence of better reputation as
to its issues than the present. Twilight combined with
the scenery of Egdon Heath to evolve a thing majestic
without severity, impressive without showiness, em-
phatic in its admonitions, grand in its simplicity.
The qualifications which frequently invest the facade
of a prison with far more dignity than is found in the
facade of a palace double its size lent to this heath a
sublimity in which spots renowned for beauty of the
accepted kind are utterly wanting. Fair prospects
wed happily with fair times ; but alas, if times be not
fair ! Men have oftener suffered from the mockery
of a place too smiling for their reason than from the
oppression of surroundings oversadly tinged. Hag-
gard Egdon appealed to a subtler and scarcer instinct,
to a more recently learnt emotion, than that which
responds to the sort of beauty called charming and
fair.

Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this
orthodox beauty is not approaching its last quarter.
The new Vale of Tempe may be a gaunt waste in
Thule : human souls may find themselves in closer
and closer harmony with external things wearing a
sombreness distasteful to our race when it was young.
The time seems near, if it has not actually arrived,
when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a
mountain will be all of nature that is absolutely in
keeping with the moods of the more thinking among '
mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest tourist,
spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards
and myrtle-gardens of South Europe are to him now ;
and Heidelberg and Baden be passed unheeded as he
hastens from the Alps to the sand-dunes of Scheven-
ingen.

The most thorough-going ascetic could feel that he
had a natural right to wander on Egdon : he was
keeping within the line of legitimate indulgence when

146

THE GREAT FOREST AFTER LONDON

he laid himself open to influences such as these.
Colours and beauties so far subdued were, at least,
the birthright of all. Only in summer days of highest
feather did its mood touch the level of gaiety. Inten-
sity was more usually reached by way of the solemn
than by way of the brilliant, and such a sort of in-
tensity was often arrived at during winter darkness,
tempests, and mists. Then Egdon was aroused to
reciprocity ; for the storm was its lover, and the wind
its friend. Then it became the home of strange
phantoms ; and it was found to be the hitherto un-
recognised original of those wild regions of obscurity
which are vaguely felt to be compassing us about in
midnight dreams of flight and disaster, and are never
thought of after the dream till revived by scenes like
this.

It was at present a place perfectly accordant with
man's nature neither ghastly, hateful, nor ugly :
neither commonplace, unmeaning, nor tame ; but,
like man, slighted and enduring ; and withal singu-
larly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony.
As with some persons who have long lived apart,
solitude seemed to look out of its countenance. It had
a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities.

THOMAS HARDY

THE GREAT FOREST AFTER LONDON

THE old men say their fathers told them that soon
after the fields were left to themselves a change began
to be visible. It became green everywhere in the first
spring, after London ended, so that all the country
looked alike.

The meadows were green, and so was the rising
wheat which had been sown, but which neither had
nor would receive any further care. Such arable

147 L

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

fields as had not been sown, but where the last stubble
had been ploughed up, were overrun with couch-
grass, and where the short stubble had not been
ploughed, the weeds hid it. So that there was no
place which was not more or less green ; the foot-
paths were the greenest of all, for such is the nature
of grass where it has once been trodden on, and
by-and-by, as the summer came on, the former roads
were thinly covered with the grass that had spread
out from the margin.

In the autumn, as the meadows were not mown,
the grass withered as it stood, falling this way and that,
as the wind had blown it ; the seeds dropped, and the
bennets became a greyish-white, or, where the docks
and sorrel were thick, a brownish- red. The wheat,
after it had ripened, there being no one to reap it,
also remained standing, and was eaten by clouds of
sparrows, rooks, and pigeons, which flocked to it and
were undisturbed, feasting at their pleasure. As the
winter came on, the crops were beaten down by the
storms, soaked with the rain, and trodden upon by
herds of animals.

Next summer the prostrate straw of the preceding
year was concealed by the young green wheat and
barley that sprang up from the grain sown by drop-
ping from the ears, and by quantities of docks, thistles,
oxeye daisies, and similar plants. This matted mass
grew up through the bleached straw. Charlock, too,
hid the rotting roots in the fields under a blaze of
yellow flower. The young spring meadow-grass could
scarcely push its way up through the long dead grass
and bennets of the year previous, but docks and thistles,
sorrel, wild carrots, and nettles, found no such diffi-
culty.

Footpaths were concealed by the second year, but
roads could be traced, though as green as the sward,
and were still the best for walking, because the tangled

148

THE GREAT FOREST AFTER LONDON

wheat and weeds, and, in the meadows, the long grass,
caught the feet of those who tried to pass through.
Year by year the original crops of wheat, barley, oats,
and beans asserted their presence by shooting up,
but in gradually diminished force, as nettles and coarser
plants, such as the wild parsnips, spread out into the
fields from the ditches and choked them.

Aquatic grasses from the furrows and water-carriers
extended in the meadows, and, with the rushes, helped
to destroy or take the place of the former sweet herb-
age. Meanwhile the brambles, which grew very fast,
had pushed forward their prickly runners farther and
farther from the hedges till they had now reached
ten or fifteen yards. The briars had followed, and
the hedges had widened to three or four times their
first breadth, the fields being equally contracted.
Starting from all sides at once, these brambles and
briars in the course of about twenty years met in the
centre of the largest fields.

Hawthorn bushes sprang up among them, and,
protected by the briars and thorns from grazing
animals, the suckers of elm-trees rose and flourished.
Sapling ashes, oaks, sycamores, and horse-chestnuts
lifted their heads. Of old time the cattle would have
eaten off the seed leaves with the grass so soon as they
were out of the ground, but now most of the acorns
that were dropped by birds, and the keys that were
wafted by the wind, twirling as they floated, took root
and grew into trees. By this time the brambles and
briars had choked up and blocked the former roads,
which were as impassable as the fields.

No fields, indeed, remained, for where the ground
was dry, the thorns, briars, brambles, and saplings
already mentioned filled the space, and these thickets
and the young trees had converted most part of the
country into an immense forest. Where the ground
was naturally moist, and the drains had become choked

149

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

with willow roots, which, when confined in tubes,
grow into a mass like the brush of a fox, sedges and
flags and rushes covered it. Thorn bushes were
there too, but not so tall ; they were hung with lichen.
Besides the flags and reeds, vast quantities of the
tallest cow-parsnips or " gicks " rose five or six feet
high, and the willow herb with its stout stem, almost
as woody as a shrub, filled every approach.

By the thirtieth year there was not one single open
place, the hills only excepted, where a man could
walk, unless he followed the tracks of wild creatures or
cut himself a path. The ditches, of course, had long
since become full of leaves and dead branches, so that
the water which should have run off down them
stagnated, and presently spread out into the hollow
places and by the corner of what had once been fields,
forming marshes where the horsetails, flags, and sedges
hid the water.

As no care was taken with the brooks, the hatches
upon them gradually rotted, and the force of the winter
rains carried away the weak timbers, flooding the
lower grounds, which became swamps of larger size.
The dams, too, were drilled by water-rats, and the
streams percolating through, slowly increased the size
of these tunnels till the structure burst, and the current
swept on and added to the floods below. Mill-dams
stood longer, but, as the ponds silted up, the current
flowed round and even through the mill-houses,
which, going by degrees to ruin, were in some cases
undermined till they fell.

Everywhere the lower lands adjacent to the streams
had become marshes, some of them extending for miles
in a winding line, and occasionally spreading out to a
mile in breadth. This was particularly the case where
brooks and streams of some volume joined the rivers,
which were also blocked and obstructed in their turn,
and the two, overflowing, covered the country around ;

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THE GREAT FOREST AFTER LONDON

for the rivers brought down trees and branches,
timbers floated from the shore, and all kinds of similar
materials, which grounded in the shallows or caught
against snags, and formed huge piles where there had
been weirs.

Sometimes, after great rains, these piles swept away
the timbers of the weir, driven by the irresistible
power of the water, and then in its course the flood,
carrying the balks before it like battering rams,
cracked and split the bridges of solid stone which
the ancients had built. These and the iron bridges
likewise were overthrown, and presently quite dis-
appeared, for the very foundations were covered with
the sand and gravel silted up.

Thus, too, the sites of many villages and towns that
anciently existed along the rivers, or on the lower
lands adjoining, were concealed by the water and the
mud it brought with it. The sedges and reeds that
arose completed the work and left nothing visible, so
that the mighty buildings of olden days were by these
means utterly buried. And, as has been proved by
those who have dug for treasures, in our time the very
foundations are deep beneath the earth, and not to be
got at for the water that oozes into the shafts that they
have tried to sink through the sand and mud banks.

From an elevation, therefore, there was nothing
visible but endless forest and marsh. On the level
ground and plains the view was limited to a short
distance, because of the thickets and the saplings
which had now become young trees. The downs only
were still partially open, yet it was not convenient to
walk upon them except in the tracks of animals,
because of the long grass which, being no more
regularly grazed upon by sheep, as was once the case,
grew thick and tangled. Furze, too, and heath
covered the slopes, and in places vast quantities of
fern. There had always been copses of fir and beech

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

and nut-tree covers, and these increased and spread,
while bramble, briar, and hawthorn extended around
them.

By degrees the trees of the vale seemed as it were to
invade and march up the hills, and, as we see in our
time, in many places the downs are hidden altogether
with a stunted kind of forest. But all the above
happened in the time of the first generation. Besides
these things a great physical change took place ;
but, before I speak of that, it will be best to relate
what effects were produced upon animals and men.

In the first years after the fields were left to them-
selves, the fallen and over-ripe corn crops became the
resort of innumerable mice. They swarmed to an
incredible degree, not only devouring the grain upon
the straw that had never been cut, but clearing out
every single ear in the wheat-ricks that were standing
about the country. Nothing remained in these ricks
but straw, pierced with tunnels and runs, the home and
breeding-place of mice, which thence poured forth
into the fields. Such grain as had been left in barns
and granaries, in mills, and in warehouses of the
deserted towns, disappeared in the same manner.

When men tried to raise crops in small gardens
and enclosures for their sustenance, these legions of
mice rushed in and destroyed the produce of their
labour. Nothing could keep them out, and if a
score were killed, a hundred more supplied their
place. These mice were preyed upon by kestrel
hawks, owls, and weasels ; but at first they made
little or no appreciable difference. In a few years,
however, the weasels, having such a superabundance
of food, trebled in numbers, and in the same way
the hawks, owls, and foxes increased. There was then
some relief, but even now at intervals districts are
invaded, and the granaries and the standing corn
suffer from these depredations.

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THE GREAT FOREST AFTER LONDON

This docs not happen every year, but only at in-
tervals, for it is noticed that mice abound very
much more in some seasons than others. The extra-
ordinary multiplication of these creatures was the
means of providing food for the cats that had been
abandoned in the towns, and came forth into the
country in droves. Feeding on the mice, they became,
in a very short time, quite wild, and their descendants
now roam the forests.

In our houses we still have several varieties of the
domestic cat, such as the tortoise-shell, which is the
most prized, but when the above-mentioned cats
became wild, after a while the several varieties dis-
appeared, and left but one wild kind. Those which
are now so often seen in the forest, and which do
so much mischief about houses and enclosures, are
almost all greyish, some being striped, and they are
also much longer in the body than the tame. A few
are jet black ; their skins are then preferred by
hunters.

Though the forest cat retires from the sight of man
as much as possible, yet it is extremely fierce in
defence of its young, and instances have been known
where travellers in the woods have been attacked
upon unwittingly approaching their dens. Dropping
from the boughs of a tree upon the shoulders, the
creature flies at the face, inflicting deep scratches and
bites, exceedingly painful, and sometimes dangerous,
from the tendency to fester. But such cases are rare,
and the reason the forest cat is so detested is because
it preys upon fowls and poultry, mounting with ease
the trees or places where they roost.

Almost worse than the mice were the rats, which
came out of the old cities in such vast numbers that
the people who survived and saw them are related
to have fled in fear. This terror, however, did not
last so long as the evil of the mice, for the rats,

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

probably not finding sufficient food when together,
scattered abroad, and were destroyed singly by the
cats and dogs, who slew them by thousands, far more
than they could afterwards eat, so that the carcases
were left to decay. It is said that, overcome with
hunger, these armies of rats in some cases fell upon
each other, and fed on their own kindred. They are
still numerous, but do not appear to do the same
amount of damage as is occasionally caused by the
mice, when the latter invade the cultivated lands.

The dogs, of course, like the cats, were forced by
starvation into the fields, where they perished in
incredible numbers. Of many species of dogs which
are stated to have been plentiful among the ancients,
we have now nothing but the name. The poodle is
extinct, the Maltese terrier, the Pomeranian, the
Italian greyhound, and, it is believed, great numbers
of crosses and mongrels have utterly disappeared.
There was none to feed them, and they could not find
food for themselves, nor could they stand the rigour
of the winter when exposed to the frost in the open air.

Some kinds, more hardy and fitted by nature for
the chase, became wild, and their descendants are
now found in the woods. Of these, there are three
sorts which keep apart from each other, and are thought
not to interbreed. The most numerous are the black.
The black wood-dog is short and stoutly made, with
shaggy hair, sometimes marked with white patches.

There can be no doubt that it is the descendant of
the ancient sheep-dog, for it is known that the sheep-
dog was of that character, and it is said that those
who used to keep sheep soon found their dogs abandon
the fold, and join the wild troops that fell upon the
sheep. The black wood-dogs hunt in packs of ten or
more (as many as forty have been counted), and are
the pest of the farmer, for, unless his flocks are pro-
tected at night within stockades or enclosures, they

154

THE GREAT FOREST AFTER LONDON

are certain to be attacked. Not satisfied with killing
enough to satisfy hunger, these dogs tear and mangle
for sheer delight of blood, and will destroy twenty
times as many as they can eat, leaving the miserably
torn carcases on the field. Nor are the sheep always
safe by day if the wood-dogs happen to be hungry.
The shepherd is, therefore, usually accompanied by
two or three mastiffs, of whose great size and strength
the others stand in awe. At night, and when in large
packs, starving in the snow, not even the mastiffs
can check them.

No wood-dog, of any kind, has ever been known to
attack man, and the hunter in the forest hears their
bark in every direction without fear. It is, neverthe-
less, best to retire out of their way when charging
sheep in packs, for they then seem seized with a blind
fury, and some who have endeavoured to fight them
have been thrown down and seriously mauled. But
this has been in the blindness of their rush ; no
instance has ever been known of their purposely
attacking man.

These black wood-dogs will also chase and finally
pull down cattle, if they can get within the enclosures,
and even horses have fallen victims to their untiring
thirst for blood. Not even the wild cattle can always
escape, despite their strength, and they have been
known to run down stags, though not their usual
quarry.

The next kind of wild wood-dog is the yellow, a
smaller animal, with smooth hair inclining to a
yellow colour, which lives principally upon game,
chasing all from the hare to the stag. It is as swift,
or nearly as swift, as the greyhound, and possesses
greater endurance. In coursing the hare, it not
uncommonly happens that these dogs start from the
brake and take the hare, when nearly exhausted,
from the hunter's hounds. They will in the same way

155

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

follow a stag, which has been almost run down by the
hunters, and bring him to bay, though in this case they
lose their booty, dispersing through fear of man, when
the hunters come up in a body.

But such is their love of the chase, that they are
known to assemble from their lairs at the distant sound
of the horn, and, as the hunters ride through the woods,
they often see the yellow dogs flitting along side by
side with them through bush and fern. These animals
sometimes hunt singly, sometimes in couples, and as
the season advances, and winter approaches, in packs
of eight or twelve. They never attack sheep or cattle,
and avoid man, except when they perceive he is
engaged in the chase. There is little doubt that they
are the descendants of the dogs which the ancients
called lurchers, crossed, perhaps, with the greyhound,
and possibly other breeds. When the various species
of dogs were thrown on their own resources, those only
withstood the exposure and hardships which were
naturally hardy, and possessed natural aptitude for
the chase.

The third species of wood-dog is the white. They
are low on the legs, of a dingy white colour, and much
smaller than the other two. They neither attack
cattle nor game, though fond of hunting rabbits.
This dog is, in fact, a scavenger, living upon the car-
cases of dead sheep and animals, which are found
picked clean in the night. For this purpose it haunts
the neighbourhood of habitations, and prowls in the
evening over heaps of refuse, scampering away at the
least alarm, for it is extremely timid.

It is perfectly harmless, for even the poultry do not
dread it, and it will not face a tame cat, if by chance
the two meet. It is rarely met with far from habita-
tions, though it will accompany an army on the march.
It may be said to remain in one district. The black
and yellow dogs, on the contrary, roam about the

156

THE YELLOW PAINT

forest without apparent home. One day the hunter
sees signs of their presence, and perhaps may, for a
month afterwards, not so much as hear a bark.

This uncertainty in the case of the black dog is the
bane of the shepherds ; for, not seeing or hearing
anything of the enemy for months together, in spite of
former experience their vigilance relaxes, and suddenly,
while they sleep, their flocks are scattered. We still
have, among tame dogs, the mastiff, terrier, spaniel,
deer-hound, and greyhound, all of which are as
faithful to man as ever.

RICHARD JEFFERIES

THE YELLOW PAINT

IN a certain city there lived a physician who sold
yellow paint. This was of so singular a virtue that
whoso was bedaubed with it from head to heel was
set free from the dangers of life, and the bondage of
sin, and the fear of death for ever. So the physician
said in his prospectus ; and so said all the citizens in
the city ; and there was nothing more urgent in men's
hearts than to be properly painted themselves, and
nothing they took more delight in than to see others
painted. There was in the same city a young man of
a very good family but of a somewhat reckless life,
who had reached the age of manhood, and would have
nothing to say to the paint : " To-morrow was soon
enough," said he ; and when the morrow came he
would still put it off. So he might have continued to
do until his death ; only, he had a friend of about his
own age and much of his own manners ; and this
youth, taking a walk in the public street, with not one
fleck of paint upon his body, was suddenly run down
by a water-cart and cut off in the heyday of his naked-
ness. This shook the other to the soul ; so that I

157

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

never beheld a man more earnest to be painted ; and
on the very same evening, in the presence of all his
family, to appropriate music, and himself weeping
aloud, he received three complete coats and a touch
of varnish on the top. The physician (who was him-
self affected even to tears) protested he had never
done a job so thorough.

Some two months afterwards, the young man was
carried on a stretcher to the physician's house.

" What is the meaning of this ? " he cried, as soon
as the door was opened. " I was to be set free from
all the dangers of life ; and here have I been run down
by that self-same water-cart, and my leg is broken."

" Dear me ! " said the physician. " This is very
sad. But I perceive I must explain to you the action
of my paint. A broken bone is a mighty small affair
at the worst of it ; and it belongs to a class of accident
to which my paint is quite inapplicable. Sin, my
dear young friend, sin is the sole calamity that a wise
man should apprehend ; it is against sin that I have
fitted you out ; and when you come to be tempted,
you will give me news of my paint."

" Oh ! " said the young man, " I did not under-
stand that, and it seems rather disappointing. But I
have no doubt all is for the best ; and in the mean-
while, I shall be obliged to you if you will set my leg. 5 *

" That is none of my business," said the physician ;
" but if your bearers will carry you round the corner
to the surgeon's, I feel sure he will afford relief."

Some three years later, the young man came run-
ning to the physician's house in a great perturbation.
" What is the meaning of this ? " he cried. " Here
was I to be set free from the bondage of sin ; and I
have just committed forgery, arson, and murder."

" Dear me," said the physician. " This is very
serious. Off with your clothes at once." And as
soon as the young man had stripped, he examined

158

THE YELLOW PAINT

him from head to foot. " No," he cried with great
relief, " there is not a flake broken. Cheer up, my
young friend, your paint is as good as new."

" Good God ! " cried the young man, " and what
then can be the use of it ? "

" Why," said the physician, " I perceive I must
explain to you the nature of the action of my paint.
It does not exactly prevent sin ; it extenuates instead
the painful consequences. It is not so much for this
world, as for the next ; it is not against life ; in short,
it is against death that I have fitted you out. And
when you come to die, you will give me news of my
paint."

" Oh ! " cried the young man, " I had not under-
stood that, and it seems a little disappointing. But
there is no doubt all is for the best : and in the mean-
while, I shall be obliged if you will help me to undo
the evil I have brought on innocent persons."

" That is none of my business," said the physician ;
" but if you will go round the corner to the police
office, I feel sure it will afford you relief to give your-
self up."

Six weeks later, the physician was called to the town
gaol.

" What is the meaning of this ? " cried the young
man. " Here am I literally crusted with your paint ;
and I have broken my leg, and committed all the
crimes in the calendar, and must be hanged to-
morrow ; and am in the meanwhile in a fear so
extreme that I lack words to picture it."

" Dear me," said the physician. " This is really
amazing. Well, well ; perhaps, if you had not been
painted, you would have been more frightened still."
ROBERT Louis STEVENSON

159

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

IN the days when Henry the Fourth of France was
as yet King of Navarre only, and in that little king-
dom of hills and woods which occupies the south-
western corner of the larger country, was with diffi-
culty supporting the Huguenot cause against the
French court and the Catholic League in the days
when every little moated town, from the Dordogne to
the Pyrenees, was a bone of contention between the
young king and the crafty queen-mother, Catherine
de Medicis, a conference between these warring
personages took place in the picturesque town of
La Reole. And great was the fame of it.

La Reole still rises grey, time-worn, and half-
ruined on a lofty cliff above the broad green waters
of the Garonne, forty odd miles from Bordeaux. It
is a small place now, but in the days of which we are
speaking it was important, strongly fortified, and
guarded by a castle which looked down on some hun-
dreds of red-tiled roofs, rising in terraces from the
river. As the meeting-place of the two sovereigns
it was for the time as gay as Paris itself. Catherine
had brought with her a bevy of fair maids of honour,
and trusted more perhaps in the effect of their charms
than in her own diplomacy. But the peaceful ap-
pearance of the town was as delusive as the smooth
bosom of the Gironde ; for even while every other
house in its streets rang with music and silvery
laughter, each party was ready to fly to arms at a
word if it saw that any advantage could be gained
thereby.

On an evening shortly before the end of the con-
ference two men were seated at play in a room, the
deep-embrasured window of which looked down from
a considerable height upon the river. The hour was

1 60

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

late ; below them the town lay silent. Outside, the
moonlight fell bright and pure on sleeping fields, on
vineyards, and dark far-spreading woods. Within
the room a silver lamp suspended from the ceiling
threw light upon the table, but left the farther parts
of the chamber in shadow. The walls were hung
with faded tapestry, and on a low bedstead in one
corner lay a handsome cloak, a sword, and one of the
clumsy pistols of the period. Across a high-backed
chair lay another cloak and sword, and on the window
seat, beside a pair of saddle-bags, were strewn half a
dozen trifles such as soldiers carried from camp to
camp a silver comfit-box, a jewelled dagger, a mask,
a velvet cap.

The faces of the players, as they bent over the cards,
were in shadow. One a slight, dark man of middle
height, with a weak chin and a mouth that would
have equally betrayed its weakness had it not been
shaded by a dark moustache seemed, from the oc-
casional oaths which he let drop, to be losing heavily.
Yet his opponent, a stouter and darker man, with a
sword-cut across his left temple, and the swaggering
air that has at all times marked the professional
soldier, showed no signs of triumph or elation. On
the contrary, though he kept silence, or spoke only
a formal word or two, there was a gleam of anxiety
and suppressed excitement in his eyes ; and more
than once he looked keenly at his companion, as if
to judge of his feelings or to learn whether the time
had come for some experiment which he meditated.
But for this, an observer looking in through the win-
dow would have taken the two for that common
conjunction the hawk and the pigeon.

At last the younger player threw down his cards,
with an exclamation.

" You have the luck of the evil one," he said
bitterly. " How much is that ? "

161

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Two thousand crowns/' the other replied without
emotion. " You will play no more ? "

" No ! I wish to Heaven I had never played at
all ! " was the answer. As he spoke the loser rose,
and moving to the window stood looking out. For
a few moments the elder man remained in his seat,
gazing furtively at him ; at length he too rose, and,
stepping softly to his companion, he touched him on
the shoulder. " Your pardon a moment, M. le
Vicomte," he said. " Am I right in concluding that
the loss of this sum will inconvenience you ? "

" A thousand fiends ! " the young gamester ex-
claimed, turning on him wrathfully. " Is there any
man whom the loss of two thousand crowns would
not inconvenience ? As for me "

" For you," the other continued smoothly, filling
up the pause, " shall I be wrong in supposing that it
means something like ruin ? "

" Well, sir, and if it does ? " the young man re-
torted, and he drew himself up, his cheek a shade
paler with passion. " Depend upon it you shall be
paid. Do not be afraid of that ! "

" Gently, gently, my friend," the winner answered,
his patience in strong contrast to the other's violence.
" I had no intention of insulting you, believe me.
Those who play with the Vicomte de Noirtcrre are
not wont to doubt his honour. I spoke only in your
own interest. It has occurred to me, Vicomte, that
the matter may be arranged at less cost to yourself."

" How ? " was the curt question.

" May I speak freely ? " The Vicomte shrugged
his shoulders, and the other, taking silence for con-
sent, proceeded : " You Vicomte, are governor of
Lusigny for the King of Navarre ; I, of Creance, for
the King of France. Our towns lie but three leagues
apart. Could I by any chance, say on one of these
fine nights, make myself master of Lusigny, it would

162

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

be worth more than two thousand crowns to me. Do
you understand ? "

" No," the young man answered slowly, " I do not."

" Think over what I have said, then," was the
brief answer.

For a full minute there was silence in the room.
The Vicomte gazed from the window with knitted
brows and compressed lips, while his companion,
seated near at hand, leant back in his chair, with an
air of affected carefulness. Outside, the rattle of
arms and hum of voices told that the watch were
passing through the street. The church bell rang
one o'clock. Suddenly the Vicomte burst into a
forced laugh, and, turning, took up his cloak and
sword. " The trap was well laid, M. le Gapitaine,"
he said almost jovially ; " but I am still sober enough
to take care of myself and of Lusigny. I wish you
good night. You shall have your money, do not
fear."

" Still, I am afraid it will cost you dearly," the
Captain answered, as he rose and moved towards the
door to open it for his guest. And then, when his
hand was already on the latch, he paused. " My
lord," he said, " what do you say to this, then ? I
will stake the two thousand crowns you have lost to
me, and another thousand to boot against your
town. Oh, no one can hear us. If you win you go
off a free man with my thousand. If you lose, you
put me in possession one of these fine nights. Now,
that is an offer. What do you say to it ? A single
hand to decide."

The younger man's face reddened. He turned ;
his eyes sought the table and the cards ; he stood
irresolute. The temptation came at an unfortunate
moment ; a moment when the excitement of play
had given way to depression, and he saw nothing
outside the door, on the latch of which his hand was

163 M

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

laid, but the bleak reality of ruin. The temptation
to return, the thought that by a single hand he might
set himself right with the world was too much for
him. Slowly he came back to the table. " Con-
found you ! " he said passionately. " I think you are
the devil himself ! "

" Don't talk child's talk ! " the other answered
coldly, drawing back as his victim advanced. " If
you do not like the offer you need not take it."

But the young man was a born gambler, and his
fingers had already closed on the cards. Picking them
up idly he dropped them once, twice, thrice on the
table, his eyes gleaming with the play- fever. " If I
win ? " he said doubtfully. " What then ? Let us
have it quite clearly."

" You carry away a thousand crowns," the Captain
answered quietly. " If you lose you contrive to leave
one of the gates of Lusigny open for me before next
full moon. That is all."

" And what if I lose, and do not pay the forfeit ? "
the Vicomte asked, laughing weakly.

" I trust to your honour," the Captain answered.
And, strange as it may seem, he knew his man. The
young noble of the day might betray his cause and
his trust, but the debt of honour incurred at play was
binding -on him.

" Well," said the Vicomte, with a deep breath,
" I agree. Who is to deal ? "

" As you will," the Captain replied, masking under
an appearance of indifference an excitement which
darkened his cheek, and caused the pulse in the old
wound on his face to beat furiously.

" Then do you deal," said the Vicomte.

" With your permission," the Captain assented.
And gathering the cards he dealt them with a prac-
tised hand, and pushed his opponent's six across to him.

The young man took up the hand and, as he sorted
164

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

it, and looked from it to his companion's face, he
repressed a groan with difficulty. The moonlight
shining through the casement fell in silvery sheen on a
few feet of the floor. With the light something of
the silence and coolness of the night entered also, and
appealed to him. For a few seconds he hesitated.
He made even as if he would have replaced the hand
on the table. But he had gone too far to retrace his
steps with honour. It was too late, and with a
muttered word, which his dry lips refused to articu-
late, he played the first card.

He took that trick and the next ; they were secure.

" And now ? " said the Captain who knew well
where the pinch came. " What next ? "

The Vicomte compressed his lips. Two courses
were open to him. By adopting one he could almost
for certain win one more trick. By the other he
might just possibly win two tricks. He was a game-
ster, he adopted the latter course. In half a minute
it was over. He had lost.

The winner nodded gravely. " The luck is with
me still," he said, keeping his eyes on the table that
the light of triumph which had leapt into them might
not be seen. " When do you go back to your com-
mand, Vicomte ? "

The unhappy man sat, as one stunned, his eyes
on the painted cards which had cost him so dearly.
" The day after to-morrow," he muttered at last,
striving to collect himself.

" Then shall we say the following evening ? "
the Captain asked courteously.

The young man shivered. " As you will," he
muttered.

" We quite understand one another," continued the
winner, eyeing his man watchfully, and speaking
with more urgency. " I may depend on you, M.
le Vicomie, I presume to keep your word ? "

165

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" The Noirterres have never been wanting to their
word," the young nobleman answered stung into
passing passion. " If I live I will put Lusigny into
your hands, M. le Capitaine. Afterwards I will do
my best to recover it in another way."

" I shall be most happy to meet you in that way,"
replied the Captain, bowing lightly. And in one
more minute the door of his lodging had closed on
the other ; and he was alone alone with his triumph,
his ambition, his hopes for the future alone with
the greatness to which his capture of Lusigny was
to be the first step. He would enjoy that greatness
not a whit the less because fortune had hitherto dealt
out to him more blows than caresses, and he was still
at forty, after a score of years of roughest service,
the governor of a paltry country town.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the narrow streets,
the Vicomte was making his way to his lodgings
in a state of despair difficult to describe, impossible
to exaggerate. Chilled, sobered, and affrighted he
looked back and saw how he had thrown for all and
lost all, how he had saved the dregs of his fortune at
the expense of his loyalty, how he had seen a way of
escape and lost it for ever ! No wonder that as he
trudged through the mud and darkness of the sleeping
town his breath came quickly and his chest heaved,
and he looked from side to side as a hunted animal
might look, uttering great sighs. Ah, if he could
have retraced the last three hours ! If he could have
undone that he had done !

In a fever, he entered his lodging, and securing the
door behind him stumbled up the stone stairs and
entered his room. The impulse to confide his mis-
fortunes to some one was so strong upon him that he
was glad to see a dark form half sitting, half lying in
a chair before the dying embers of a wood fire. In
those days a man's natural confidant was his valet,

1 66

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

the follower, half friend, half servant, who had been
born on his estate, who lay on a pallet at the foot of
his bed, who carried his billets-doux and held his cloak
at the duello, who rode near his stirrup in fight and
nursed him in illness, who not seldom advised him in
the choice of a wife, and lied in support of his suit.

The young Vicomte flung his cloak over a chair.
" Get up, you rascal ! " he cried impatiently. " You
pig, you dog ! " he continued, with increasing anger.
" Sleeping there as though your master were not
ruined by that scoundrel of a Breton ! Bah 1 " he
added, gazing bitterly at his follower, " you are of the
canaille, and have neither honour to lose nor a town to
betray ! "

The sleeping man moved in his chair but did
not awake. The Vicomte, his patience exhausted,
snatched the bonnet from his head, and threw it on
the ground. " Will you listen ? " he said. " Or go,
if you choose look for another master. I am ruined !
Do you hear ? Ruined, Gil ! I have lost all
money, land, Lusigny itself at the cards ! "

The man, roused at last, stooped with a sleepy
movement, and picking up his hat dusted it with his
hand, then rose with a yawn to his feet.

" I am afraid, Vicomte," he said, in tones that,
quiet as they were, sounded like thunder in the
young man's astonished and bewildered ears, " I am
afraid that if you have lost Lusigny you have lost
something which was not yours to lose ! "

As he spoke he struck the embers with his boot, and
the fire, blazing up, shone on his face. The Vicomte
saw, with stupor, that the man before him was not Gil
at all was indeed the last person in the world to
whom he should have betrayed himself. The astute
smiling eyes, the aquiline nose, the high forehead, and
projecting chin, which the short beard and mous-
tache scarcely concealed, were only too well known to

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

him. He stepped back with a cry of despair. " Sir ! "
he said, and then his tongue failed him. His arms
dropped by his sides. He stood silent, pale, con-
victed, his chin on his breast. The man to whom he
had confessed his treachery was the master whom he
had agreed to betray.

" I had suspected something of this," Henry of
Navarre continued, after a lengthy pause, and with a
tinge of irony in his tone. " Rosny told me that that
old fox, the Captain of Greance, was affecting your
company somewhat too much, M. le Vicomte, and I
find that, as usual, his suspicions were well-founded.
What with a gentleman who shall be nameless, who
has bartered a ford and a castle for the favour of
Mademoiselle de Luynes, and yourself, and another I
know of I am blest with some faithful followers, it
seems ! For shame ! for shame, sir ! " he continued,
seating himself with dignity in the chair from which
he had risen, but turning it so that he confronted his
host, " have you nothing to say for yourself? "

The young noble stood with bowed head, his face
white. This was ruin, indeed, absolute irremediable
ruin. " Sir," he said at last, " your Majesty has a
right to my life, not to my honour."

" Your honour ! " Henry exclaimed, biting con-
tempt in his tone.

The young man started, and for a second his cheek
flamed under the well-deserved reproach ; but he
recovered himself. " My debt to your Majesty," he
said, " I am willing to pay."

" Since pay you must," Henry muttered softly.

" But I claim to pay also my debt to the Captain of
Creance."

The King of Navarre stared. " Oh," he said. " So
you would have me take your worthless life, and give
up Lusigny ? "

" I am in your hands, sire."
1 68

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

" Pish, sir ! " Henry replied in angry astonishment.
" You talk like a child. Such an offer, M. de Noir-
terre, is folly, and you know it. Now listen to me.
It was lucky for you that I came in to-night, intend-
ing to question you. Your madness is known to me
only, and I am willing to overlook it. Do you hear ?
I am willing to pardon. Cheer up, therefore, and
be a man. You are young ; I forgive you. This
shall be between you and me only," the young prince
continued, his eyes softening as the other's head sank
lower, " and you need think no more of it until the
day when I shall say to you, ' Now, M. de Noirterre,
for Navarre and for Henry, strike ! ' "

He rose as the last words passed his lips, and held
out his hand. The Vicomte fell on one knee, and
kissed it reverently, then sprang to his feet again.
" Sire," he said, his eyes shining, " you have punished
me heavily, more heavily than was needful. There is
only one way in which I can show my gratitude, and
that is by ridding you of a servant who can never
again look your enemies in the face."

" What new folly is this ? " Henry asked sternly.
" Do you not understand that I have forgiven you ? "

" Therefore I cannot give up Lusigny to the enemy,
and I must acquit myself of my debt to the Captain
of Creance in the only way which remains," the young
man replied firmly. " Death is not so hard that I
would not meet it twice over rather than again betray
my trust."

" This is midsummer madness ! " said the King
hotly.

" Possibly," replied the Vicomte, without emotion ;
" yet of a kind to which your Grace is not altogether
a stranger."

The words appealed to that love of the fanciful
and the chivalrous which formed part of the young
King's nature, and was one cause alike of his weakness

169

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

and his strength. In its more extravagant flights it
gave opportunity after opportunity to his enemies, in
its nobler and saner expressions it won victories which
all his astuteness and diplomacy could not have com-
passed. He stood now, looking with half-hidden
admiration at the man whom two minutes before he
had despised.

" I think you are in jest," he said presently and with
some scorn.

" No, sir," the young man answered gravely.
" In my country they have a proverb about us.
* The Noirterres,' say they, * have ever been bad
players but good payers.' I will not be the first to be
worse than my name ! "

He spoke with so quiet a determination that the
King was staggered, and for a minute or two paced
the room in silence, inwardly reviling the obstinacy of
this weak-kneed supporter, yet unable to withhold his
admiration from it. At length he stopped, with a low
exclamation.

" Wait ! " he cried. " I have it ! Venire Saint Gris,
man, I have it ! " His eyes sparkled, and, with a
gentle laugh, he hit the table a sounding blow. " Ha !
ha ! I have it ! " he repeated gaily.

The young noble gazed at him in surprise, half
suspicious, half incredulous. But when Henry in low,
rapid tones had expounded his plan, the young man's
face underwent a change. Hope and life sprang
into it. The blood flew to his cheeks. His whole
aspect softened. In a moment he was on his knee,
mumbling over the prince's hand, his eyes moist with
gratitude. Nor was that all ; the two talked long,
the murmur of their voices broken more than once
by the ripple of laughter. When they at length
separated, and Henry, his face hidden by the folds
of his cloak, had stolen to his lodgings, where, no
doubt, more than one watcher was awaiting him with

170

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

a mind full of anxious fears, the Vicomte threw open
his window and looked out on the night. The moon
had set, but the stars still shone peacefully in the dark
canopy above. He remembered, his throat choking
with silent emotion, that he was looking towards his
home the round towers among the walnut woods of
Navarre which had been in his family since the days
of St. Louis, and which he had so lightly risked. And
he registered a vow in his heart that of all Henry's
servants he would henceforth be the most faithful.

Meanwhile the Captain of Creance was enjoying
the sweets of his coming triumph. He did not look
out into the night, it is true he was over old for
sentiment but pacing up and down the room he
planned and calculated, considering how he might
make the most of his success. He was still compara-
tively young. He had years of strength before him.
He would rise high and higher. He would not
easily be satisfied. The times were troubled, op-
portunities were many, fools not few ; bold men with
brains and hands were rare.

At the same time he knew that he could be sure of
nothing until Lusigny was actually in his possession ;
and he spent the next few days in painful suspense.
But no hitch occurred nor seemed likely. The
Vicomte made him the necessary communications ;
and men in his own pay informed him of disposi-
tions ordered by the governor of Lusigny which left
him in no doubt that the loser intended to pay his
debt.

It was, therefore, with a heart already gay with
anticipation that the Captain rode out of Creance two
hours before midnight on an evening eight days later.
The night was dark, but he knew his road well. He
had with him a powerful force, composed in part of
thirty of his own garrison, bold hardy fellows, and in
part of six score horsemen, lent him by the governor

171

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

of Montauban. As the Vicomte had undertaken to
withdraw, under some pretence or other, one-half of
his command, and to have one of the gates opened
by a trusty hand, the Captain foresaw no difficulty.
He trotted along in excellent spirits, now stopping to
scan with approval the dark line of his troopers, now
to bid them muffle the jingle of their swords and
corselets that nevertheless rang sweet music in his
ears. He looked for an easy victory ; but it was not
any slight misadventure that would rob him of his
prey. If necessary he would fight and fight hard.
Still, as his company wound along the river-side or
passed into the black shadow of the oak grove, which
stands a mile to the east of Lusigny, he did not expect
that there would be much fighting.

Treachery alone, he thought, could thwart him ;
and of treachery there was no sign. The troopers had
scarcely halted under the last clump of trees before
a figure detached itself from one of the largest trunks,
and advanced to the Captain's rein. The Captain
saw with surprise that it was the Vicomte himself.
For a second he thought that something had gone
wrong, but the young noble's first words reassured
him. " It is arranged," M. de Noirterre whispered,
as the Captain bent down to him. " I have kept
my word, and I think that there will be no resistance.
The planks for crossing the moat lie opposite the gate.
Knock thrice at the latter, and it will be opened.
There are not fifty armed men in the place."

" Good ! " the Captain answered, in the same
cautious tone. " But you "

" I am believed to be elsewhere, and must be gone.
I have far to ride to-night. Farewell."

" Till we meet again," the Captain answered ; and
without more ado he saw his ally glide away and dis-
appear in the darkness. A cautious word set the
troop in motion, and a very few minutes saw them
172

THE KING'S STRATAGEM

standing on the edge of the moat, the outline of the
gateway tower looming above them, a shade darker
than the wrack of clouds which overhead raced
silently across the sky. A moment of suspense while
one and another shivered for there is that in a
night attack which touches the nerves of the stoutest
and the planks were found, and as quietly as possible
laid across the moat. This was so skilfully done
that it evoked no challenge, and the Captain crossing
quickly with a few picked men, stood in the twinkling
of an eye under the shadow of the gateway. Still
no sound was heard save the hurried breathing of
those at his elbow, the stealthy tread of others cross-
ing, the persistent voices of the frogs in the water
beneath. Cautiously he knocked three times and
waited. The third rap had scarcely sounded before
the gate rolled silently open, and he sprang in,
followed by his men.

So far so good. A glance at the empty street and
the porter's pale face told him at once that the
Vicomte had kept his word. But he was too old a
soldier to take anything for granted, and forming up
his men as quickly as they entered, he allowed no
one to advance until all were inside, and then, his
trumpet sounding a wild note of defiance, two-
thirds of his force sprang forward in a compact body
while the other third remained to hold the gate. In
a moment the town awoke to find itself in the hands
of the enemy.

As the Vicomte had promised, there was no
resistance. In the small keep a score of men did
indeed run to arms, but only to lay their weapons
down without striking a blow when they became
aware of the force opposed to them. Their leader,
sullenly acquiescing, gave up his sword and the keys
of the town to the victorious Captain ; who, as he sat
his horse in the middle of the market-place, giving

173

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

his orders and sending off riders with the news,
already saw himself in fancy Governor of Angouleme
and Knight of the Holy Ghost.

As the red light of the torches fell on steel caps
and polished hauberks, on the serried ranks of pike-
men, and the circle of whitefaced townsfolks, the
picturesque old square looked doubly picturesque
and he who sat in the midst, its master, doubly a
hero. Every five minutes, with a clatter of iron on
the rough pavement and a shower of sparks, a horse-
man sprang away to tell the news at Montauban or
Cahors ; and every time that this occurred, the Gap-
tain, astride on his charger, felt a new sense of power
and triumph.

Suddenly the low murmur of voices about him
was broken by a new sound, the distant beat of
hoofs, not departing but arriving, and coming each
moment nearer. It was but the tramp of a single
horse, but there was something in the sound which
made the Captain prick his ears, and secured for the
arriving messenger a speedy passage through the
crowd. Even at the last the man did not spare his
horse, but spurred through the ranks to the Captain's
very side, and then and then only sprang to the
ground. His face was pale, his eyes were bloodshot.
His right arm was bound up in blood-stained cloths.
With an oath of amazement, the Captain recognised
the officer whom he had left in charge of Crdance,
and he thundered, " What is this ? What is it ? "

" They have got Creance ! " the man gasped, reel-
ing as he spoke. " They have got Creance ! "

" Who ? " the Captain shrieked, his face purple
with rage.

" The little man of Beam ! The King of Navarre !
He assaulted it five hundred strong an hour after you
left, and had the gate down before we could fire a
dozen shots. We did what we could, but we were

174

JIM

but one to seven. I swear, Captain, that we did all
we could. Look at this ! "

Almost black in the face, the Captain swore another
oath. It was not only that he saw governorship and
honours vanish like Will-o'-the-wisps, but that he
saw even more quickly that he had made himself the
laughing-stock of a kingdom ! And that was the
truth. To this day, among the stories which the
southern French love to tell of the prowess and
astuteness of their great Henry, there is none more
frequently told, none more frequently made the sub-
ject of mirth, than that of the famous exchange of
Creance for Lusigny ; the tradition of the move by
which, between dawn and sunrise, without warning,
without a word, he gave his opponents mate.

STANLEY WEYMAN

JIM

To the white men in the waterside business and to
the captains of ships he was just Jim nothing more.
He had, of course, another name, but he was anxious
that it should not be pronounced. His incognito,
which had as many holes as a sieve, was not meant
to hide a personality but a fact. When the fact broke
through the incognito he would leave suddenly the
seaport where he happened to be at the time and go
to another generally farther east. He kept to sea-
ports because he was a seaman in exile from the sea,
and had Ability in the abstract, which is good for no
other work but that of a water-clerk. He retreated
in good order towards the rising sun, and the fact
followed him casually but inevitably. Thus in the
course of years he was known successively in Bombay,
in Calcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia and
in each of these halting-places was just Jim the water-

175

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

clerk. Afterwards, when his keen perception of the
Intolerable drove him away for good from seaports
and white men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays
of the jungle village, where he had elected to conceal
his deplorable faculty, added a word to the mono-
syllable of his incognito. They called him Tuan
Jim : as one might say Lord Jim.

Originally he came from a parsonage. Many com-
manders of fine merchant-ships come from these
abodes of piety and peace. Jim's father possessed
such certain knowledge of the Unknowable as made
for the righteousness of people in cottages without
disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an un-
erring Providence enables to live in mansions. The
little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock
seen through a ragged screen of leaves. It had stood
there for centuries, but the trees around probably re-
membered the laying of the first stone. Below, the
red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in
the midst of grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with
an orchard at the back, a paved stable-yard to the left,
and the sloping glass of green-houses tacked along a
wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family
for generations ; but Jim was one of five sons, and
when after a course of light holiday literature his voca-
tion for the sea had declared itself, he was sent at once
to a " training-ship for officers of the mercantile
marine."

He learned there a little trigonometry and how to
cross top-gallant yards. He was generally liked. He
had the third place in navigation and pulled stroke
in the first cutter. Having a steady head with an
excellent physique, he was very smart aloft. His
station was in the fore-top, and often from there he
looked down, with the contempt of a man destined
to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multi-
tude of roofs cut in two by the brown tide of the

176

JIM

stream, while scattered on the outskirts of the sur-
rounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicu-
lar against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil,
and belching out smoke like a volcano. He could see
the big ships departing, the broad-beamed ferries con-
stantly on the move, the little boats floating far below
his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the
distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world
of adventure.

On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred
voices he would forget himself, and beforehand live
in his mind the sea-life of light literature. He saw
himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away
masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a
line ; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half
naked, walking on uncovered reefs in search of shell-
fish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages
on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas,
and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts
of despairing men always an example of devotion to
duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a book.

" Something's up. Gome along."

He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up
the ladders. Above could be heard a great scurrying
about and shouting, and when he got through the
hatchway he stood still as if confounded.

It was the dusk of a winter's day. The gale had
freshened since noon, stopping the traffic on the river,
and now blew with the strength of a hurricane in
fitful bursts that boomed like salvoes of great guns
firing over the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that
flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim had
threatening glimpses of the tumbling tide, the small
craft jumbled and tossing along the shore, the motion-
less buildings in the driving mist, the broad ferry-
boats pitching ponderously at anchor, the vast landing-
stages heaving up and down and smothered in sprays.

177

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

The next gust seemed to blow all this away. The
air was full of flying water. There was a fierce pur-
pose in the gale, a furious earnestness in the screech
of the wind, in the brutal tumult of earth and sky,
that seemed directed at him, and made him hold his
breath in awe. He stood still. It seemed to him he
was whirled around.

He was jostled. " Man the cutter ! " Boys rushed
past him. A coaster running in for shelter had crashed
through a schooner at anchor, and one of the ship's
instructors had seen the accident. A mob of boys
clambered on the rails, clustered round the davits.
" Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symons saw it."
A push made him stagger against the mizzen-mast,
and he caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship
chained to her moorings quivered all over, bowing
gently head to wind, and with her scanty rigging hum-
ming in a deep bass the breathless song of her youth
at sea. " Lower away ! " He saw the boat, manned,
drop swiftly below the rail, and rushed after her. He
heard a splash. " Let go ; clear the falls ! " He
leaned over. The river alongside seethed in frothy
streaks. The cutter could be seen in the falling dark-
ness under the spell of tide and wind, that for a mo-
ment held her bound, and tossing abreast of the ship.
A yelling voice in her reached him faintly : " Keep
stroke, you young whelps, if you want to save any-
body ! Keep stroke ! " And suddenly she lifted high
her bow, and, leaping with raised oars over a wave,
broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide.

Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. " Too late,
youngster." The captain of the ship laid a restraining
hand on that boy, who seemed on the point of leaping
overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of con-
scious defeat in his eyes. The captain smiled sym-
pathetically. " Better luck next time. This will
teach you to be smart."

JIM

A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing
back half full of water, and with two exhausted men
washing about on her bottom boards. The tumult
and the menace of wind and sea now appeared very
contemptible to Jim, increasing the regret of his awe
at their ineflicient menace. Now he knew what to
think of it. It seemed to him he cared nothing for the
gale. He could affront greater perils. He would do
so better than anybody. Not a particle of fear was
left. Nevertheless he brooded apart that evening
while the bowman of the cutter a boy with a face
like a girl's and big grey eyeswas the hero of the
lower deck. Eager questioners crowded round him.
He narrated : "I just saw his head bobbing, and I
dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his
breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I
would, only old Symons let go the tiller and grabbed
my legs the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is
a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy
with us. He swore at me all the time he held my leg,
but that was only his way of telling me to stick to the
boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully excitable isn't
he ? No not the little fair chap the other, the big
one with a beard. When we pulled him in he
groaned, * Oh, my leg ! oh, my leg ! J and turned up
his eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl.
Would any of you fellows faint for a jab with a boat-
hook ? I wouldn't. It went into his leg so far." He
showed the boat-hook, which he had carried below
for the purpose, and produced a sensation. " No,
silly ! It was not his flesh that held him his breeches
did. Lots of blood, of course."

Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale
had ministered to a heroism as spurious as its own
pretence of terror. He felt angry with the brutal
tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and
checking unfairly a generous readiness for narrow

179 N

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

escapes. Otherwise he was rather glad he had not
gone into the cutter, since a lower achievement had
served the turn. He had enlarged his knowledge
more than those who had done the work. When all
men flinched, then he felt sure he alone would
know how to deal with the spurious menace of wind
and seas. He knew what to think of it. Seen dis-
passionately, it seemed contemptible. He could de-
tect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effect
of a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart
from the noisy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh
certitude in his avidity for adventure, and in a sense
of many-sided courage.

JOSEPH CONRAD

PACKING

WE made a list of the things to be taken, and a
pretty lengthy one it was, before we parted that
evening. The next day, which was Friday, we got
them all together, and met in the evening to pack.
We got a big Gladstone for the clothes, and a couple
of hampers for the victuals and the cooking utensils.
We moved the table up against the window, piled
everything in a heap in the middle of the floor, and
sat round and looked at it.

I said I'd pack.

I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is
one of those many things that I feel I know more
about than any other person living. (It surprises me
myself, sometimes, how many of these subjects there
are.) I impressed the fact upon George and Harris,
and told them that they had better leave the whole
matter entirely to me. They fell into the suggestion
with a readiness that had something uncanny about it.
George put on a pipe and spread himself over the

1 80

PACKING

easy-chair, and Harris cocked his legs on the table
and lit a cigar.

This was hardly what I intended. What I had
meant, of course, was, that I should boss the job,
and that Harris and George should potter about under
my directions, I pushing them aside every now and

then with, " Oh, you ! " " Here, let me do it."

" There you are, simple enough ! " really teaching
them, as you might say. Their taking it in the way
they did irritated me. There is nothing does irritate
me more than seeing other people sitting about doing
nothing when I'm working.

I lived with a man once who used to make me mad
that way. He would loll on the sofa and watch me
doing things by the hour together, following me round
the room with his eyes, wherever I went. He said it
did him real good to look on at me, messing about.
He said it made him feel that life was not an idle
dream to be gaped and yawned through, but a noble
task, full of duty and stern work. He said he often
wondered now how he could have gone on before
he met me, never having anybody to look at while
they worked.

Now, I'm not like that. I can't sit still and see
another man slaving and working. I want to get up
and superintend, and walk round with my hands in
my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my
energetic nature. I can't help it.

However, I did not say anything, but started the
packing. It seemed a longer job than I had thought
it was going to be ; but I got the bag finished at last,
and I sat on it and strapped it.

" Ain't you going to put the boots in ? " said Harris.

And I looked round, and found I had forgotten
them. That's just like Harris. He couldn't have said
a word until I'd got the bag shut and strapped, of
course. And George laughed one of those irritating

181

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

senseless, chuckle-headed, crack-jawed laughs of his.
They do make me so wild.

I opened the bag and packed the boots in ; and
then, just as I was going to close it, a horrible idea
occurred to me. Had I packed my tooth-brush ? I
don't know how it is, but I never do know whether
I've packed my tooth-brush.

My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I'm
travelling, and makes my life a misery. I dream that
I haven't packed it, and wake up in a cold perspiration,
and get out of bed and hunt for it. And, in the morn-
ing, I pack it before I have used it, and have to un-
pack again to get it, and it is always the last thing
I turn out of the bag ; and then I repack and forget
it, and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment
and carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in
my pocket-handkerchief.

Of course I had to turn every mortal thing out
now, and, of course, I could not find it. I rum-
maged the things up into much the same state that
they must have been before the world was created,
and when chaos reigned. Of course, I found George's
and Harris's eighteen times over, but I couldn't find
my own. I put the things back one by one, and held
everything up and shook it. Then I found it inside
a boot. I repacked once more.

When I had finished, George asked if the soap was
in. I said I didn't care a hang whether the soap was
in or whether it wasn't ; and I slammed the bag to
and strapped it, and found that I had packed my
tobacco-pouch in it, and had to re-open it. It got
shut up finally at 10.5 P.M., and then there remained
the hampers to do. Harris said that we should be
wanting to start in less than twelve hours' time, and
thought that he and George had better do the rest;
and I agreed and sat down, and they had a go.

They began in a light-hearted spirit, evidently in-
182

PACKING

tending to show me how to do it. I made no com-
ment ; I only waited. When George is hanged Harris
will be the worst packer in this world ; and I looked
at the piles of plates and cups, and kettles, and bottles,
and jars, and pies, and stoves, and cakes, and tomatoes,
etc., and felt that the thing would soon become
exciting.

It did. They started with breaking a cup. That
was the first thing they did. They did that just to
show you what they could do, and to get you interested.

Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top
of a tomato and squashed it, and they had to pick out
the tomato with a teaspoon.

And then it was George's turn, and he trod on
the butter. I didn't say anything, but I came over
and sat on the edge of the table and watched them.
It irritated them more than anything I could have
said. I felt that. It made them nervous and ex-
cited, and they stepped on things, and put things
behind them, and then couldn't find them when they
wanted them ; and they packed the pies at the
bottom, and put heavy things on top, and smashed
the pies in.

They upset salt over everything, and as for the
butter ! I never saw two men do more with one-and-
twopence worth of butter in my whole life than they
did. After George had got it off his slipper, they
tried to put it in the kettle. It wouldn't go in, and
what was in wouldn't come out. They did scrape it
out at last, and put it down on a chair, and Harris
sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went looking
for it all over the room.

"I'll take my oath I put it down on that chair,"
said George, staring at the empty seat.

" I saw you do it myself, not a minute ago," said
Harris.

Then they started round the room again looking

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

for it ; and then they met again in the centre, and
stared at one another.

" Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of," said
George.

" So mysterious ! " said Harris.

Then George got round at the back of Harris and
saw it.

" Why, here it is all the time," he exclaimed,
indignantly.

" Where ? " cried Harris, spinning round.

" Stand still, can't you ! " roared George, flying
after him.

And they got it off, and packed it in the teapot.

Montmorency was in it all, of course. Mont-
morency's ambition in life is to get in the way and
be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where
he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuis-
ance, and make people mad, and have things thrown
at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.

To get somebody to stumble over him, and curse
him steadily for an hour, is his highest aim and
object ; and, when he has succeeded in accomplishing
this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable.

He came and sat down on things, just when they
were wanted to be packed ; and he laboured under
the fixed belief that, whenever Harris or George
reached out their hand for anything, it was his cold,
damp nose that they wanted. He put his leg into
the jam, and he worried the teaspoons, and he pre-
tended that the lemons were rats, and got into the
hamper and killed three of them before Harris could
land him with the frying-pan.

Harris said I encouraged him. I didn't encourage
him. A dog like that don't want any encouragement.
It's the natural, original sin that is born in him that
makes him do things like that.

The packing was done at 12.50 ; and Harris sat
184

PTERODACTYLS

on the big hamper, and said he hoped nothing would
be found broken. George said that if anything was
broken it was broken, which reflection seemed to
comfort him. He also said he was ready for bed.
We were all ready for bed.

JEROME K. JEROME

PTERODACTYLS

IT was destined that on this very morning our
first in the new country we were to find out what
strange hazards lay around us. It was a loathsome
adventure, and one of which I hate to think. If, as
Lord John said, the glade of the iguanodons will
remain with us as a dream, then surely the swamp of
the pterodactyls will for ever be our nightmare. Let
me set down exactly what occurred.

We passed very slowly through the woods, partly
because Lord John acted as scout before he would let
us advance, and partly because at every second step
one or other of our professors would fall, with a cry of
wonder, before some flower or insect which presented
him with a new type. We may have travelled two or
three miles in all, keeping to the right of the line of the
stream, when we came upon a considerable opening
in the trees. A belt of brushwood led up to a tangle of
rocks the whole plateau was strewn with boulders.
We were walking slowly towards these rocks, among
bushes which reached over our waists, when we became
aware of a strange low gabbling and whistling sound,
which filled the air with a constant clamour and
appeared to come from some spot immediately before
us. Lord John held up his hand as a signal for us to
stop, and he made his way swiftly, stooping and run-
ning, to the line of rocks. We saw him peep over
them and give a gesture of amazement. Then he

185

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

stood staring as if forgetting us, so utterly entranced
was he by what he saw. Finally he waved us to come
on, holding up his hand as a signal for caution. His
whole bearing made me feel that something wonderful
but dangerous lay before us.

Creeping to his side, we looked over the rocks.
The place into which we gazed was a pit, and may,
in the early days, have been one of the smaller volcanic
blow-holes of the plateau. It was bowl-shaped, and
at the bottom, some hundreds of yards from where we
lay were pools of green-scummed, stagnant water,
fringed with bulrushes. It was a weird place in itself,
but its occupants made it seem like a scene from the
Seven Circles of Dante. The place was a rookery of
pterodactyls. There were hundreds of them con-
gregated within view. All the bottom area round the
water-edge was alive with their young ones, and with
hideous mothers brooding upon their leathery, yellow-
ish eggs. From this crawling flapping mass of reptilian
life came the shocking clamour which filled the air.
But above, perched each upon its own stone, tall,
grey, and withered, more like dead and dried speci-
mens than actual living creatures, sat the horrible
males, absolutely motionless save for the rolling of
their red eyes or an occasional snap of their rat-trap
beaks as a dragon-fly went past them. Their huge,
membranous wings were closed by folding their fore-
arms, so that they sat like gigantic old women,
wrapped in hideous web-coloured shawls, and with
their ferocious heads protruding above them. Large
and small, not less than a thousand of these creatures
lay in the hollow before us.

Our professors would gladly have stayed there all
day, so entranced were they by this opportunity of
studying the life of a prehistoric age. They pointed
out the fish and dead birds lying about among the
rocks as proving the nature of the food of these crea-

186

PTERODACTYLS

tures, and I heard them congratulating each other on
having cleared up the point why the bones of this
flying dragon are found in such great numbers in
certain well-defined areas, as in the Cambridge Green-
sand, since it was now seen that, like penguins, they
lived in gregarious fashion.

Finally, however, Challenger, bent upon proving
some point which Summerlee had contested, thrust
his head over the rock and nearly brought destruction
upon us all. In an instant the nearest male gave a
shrill, whistling cry, and flapped its twenty-foot span
of leathery wings as it soared up into the air. The
females and young ones huddled together beside the
water, while the whole circle of sentinels rose one after
the other and sailed off into the sky. It was a wonder-
ful sight to see at least a hundred creatures of such
enormous size and hideous appearance all swooping
like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes above
us ; but soon we realised that it was not one on which
we could afford to linger. At first the great brutes
flew round in a huge ring, as if to make sure what
the exact extent of the danger might be. Then the
flight grew lower and the circle narrower, until they
were whizzing round and round us, the dry, rustling
flap of their huge slate-coloured wings filling the air
with a volume of sound that made me think of Hendon
aerodrome upon a race day.

" Make for the wood and keep together," cried Lord
John, clubbing his rifle. " The brutes mean mischief."

The moment we attempted to retreat the circle
closed in upon us, until the tips of the wings of those
nearest to us nearly touched our faces. We beat at
them with the stocks of our guns, but there was nothing
solid or vulnerable to strike. Then suddenly out of
the whizzing, slate-coloured circle a long neck shot
out, and a fierce beak made a thrust at us. Another
and another followed. Summerlee gave a cry and put

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

his hand to his face, from which the blood was
streaming. I felt a prod at the back of my neck, and
turned dizzy with the shock. Challenger fell, and as
I stooped to pick him up I was again struck from
behind and dropped on the top of him. At the same
instant I heard the crash of Lord John's elephant-gun,
and, looking up, saw one of the creatures with a
broken wing struggling upon the ground, spitting and
gurgling at us with a wide-opened beak and blood-
shot, goggled eyes, like some devil in a mediaeval
picture. Its comrades had flown higher at the sudden
sound, and were circling above our heads.

" Now," cried Lord John, " now for our lives ! "
We staggered through the brushwood, and even as
we reached the trees the harpies were on us again.
Summerlee was knocked down, but we tore him up
and rushed among the trunks. Once there we were
safe, for those huge wings had no space for their
sweep beneath the branches. As we limped home-
wards, sadly mauled and discomfited, we saw them
for a long time flying at a great height against the deep
blue sky above our heads, soaring round and round,
no bigger than wood-pigeons, with their eyes no
doubt still following our progress. At last, however, as
we reached the thicker woods they gave up the chase,
and we saw them no more.

" A most interesting and convincing experience,"
said Challenger, as we halted beside the brook and he
bathed a swollen knee. " We are exceptionally well
informed, Summerlee, as to the habits of the enraged
pterodactyl." SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

THE POTTER'S CRAFT

PROBABLY no one in the Five Towns takes a con-
scious pride in the antiquity of the potter's craft, nor

1 88

THE POTTER'S CRAFT

in its unique and intimate relation to human life,
alike civilised and uncivilised. Man hardened clay
into a bowl before he spun flax and made a garment,
and the last lone man will want an earthen vessel
after he has abandoned his ruined house for a cave,
and his woven rags for an animal's skin. This
supremacy of the most ancient of crafts is in the secret
nature of things, and cannot be explained. History
begins long after the period when Bursley was first
the central seat of that honoured manufacture ; it
is the central seat still " the mother of the Five
Towns," in our local phrase and though the towns-
men, absorbed in a strenuous daily struggle, may for-
get their heirship to an unbroken tradition of countless
centuries, the seal of their venerable calling is upon
their foreheads. If no other relic of an immemorial
past is to be seen in these modernised sordid streets,
there is at least the living legacy of that extraordinary
kinship between workman and work, that instinctive
mastery of clay which the past has bestowed upon the
present. The horse is less to the Arab than clay is to
the Bursley man. He exists in it and by it ; it fills
his lungs and blanches his cheek ; it keeps him alive
and it kills him. His fingers close round it as round
the hand of a friend. He knows all its tricks and
aptitudes ; when to coax and when to force it, when
to rely on it and when to distrust it. The weavers of
Lancashire have dubbed him with an epithet on
account of it, an epithet whose hasty use has led
to many a fight, but nothing could be more illumina-
tively descriptive than that epithet, which names his
vocation in terms of another vocation. A dozen
decades of applied science have of course resulted in
the interposition of elaborate machinery between the
clay and the man ; but no great vulgar handicraft has
lost less of the human than potting. Clay is always
clay, and the steam-driven contrivance that will

189

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

mould a basin while a man sits and watches has yet
to be invented. Moreover, if in some coarser process
the hands are superseded, the number of processes
has been multiplied tenfold ; the ware in which six
men formerly collaborated is now produced by sixty ;
and thus, in one sense, the touch of finger on clay is
more pervasive than ever before.

Mynors' works was acknowledged to be one of the
best, of its size, in the district a model three-oven
bank, and it must be remembered that of the hundreds
of banks in the Five Towns the vast majority are small,
like this : the large manufactory with its corps of
jacket-men, 1 one of whom is detached to show visitors
round so much of the works as is deemed advisable
for them to see, is the exception. Mynors paid three
hundred pounds a year in rent, and produced nearly
three hundred pounds' worth of work a week. He
was his own manager, and there was only one jacket-
man on the place, a clerk at eighteen shillings. He
employed about a hundred hands, and devoted all his
ingenuity to prevent that wastage which is at once
the easiest to overlook and the most difficult to check
the wastage of labour. No pains were spared to keep
all departments in full and regular activity, and owing
to his judicious firmness the feast of St. Monday, that
canker eternally eating at the root of the prosperity
of the Five Towns, was less religiously observed on
his bank than perhaps anywhere else in Bursley. He
had realised that when a workshop stands empty the
employer has not only ceased to make money, but
has begun to lose it. The architect of " Providence
Works " (Providence stands god -father to many com-
mercial enterprises in the Five Towns) knew his busi-
ness and the business of the potter, and he had designed

1 Jacket-man : the artisan's satiric term for anyone who does
not work in shirt-sleeves, who is not actually a producer, such as
a clerk or a pretentious foreman.

THE POTTER'S CRAFT

the works with a view to the strictest economy of
labour. The various shops were so arranged that in
the course of its metamorphosis the clay travelled
naturally in a circle from the slip-house by the canal
to the packing-house by the canal : there was no
carrying to and fro. The steam installation was
complete : steam once generated had no respite ;
after it had exhausted itself in vitalising fifty machines,
it was killed by inches in order to dry the unfired
ware and warm the dinners of the work-people.

Henry took Anna to the canal-entrance, because
the buildings looked best from that side.

" Now how much is a crate worth ? " she asked,
pointing to a crate which was being swung on a crane
direct from the packing-house into a boat.

" That ? " Mynors answered. " A crateful of ware
may be worth anything. At Minton's I have seen
a crate worth three hundred pounds. But that one
there is only worth eight or nine pounds. You see,
you and I make cheap stuff."

" But don't you make any really good pots are
they all cheap ? "

" All cheap," he said.

" I suppose that's business ? " He detected a note
of regret in her voice.

" I don't know," he said, with the slightest im-
patient warmth. " We make the stuff as good as we
can for the money. We supply what every one wants.
Don't you think it's better to please a thousand folks
than to please ten ? I like to feel that my ware is
used all over the country and the colonies. I would
sooner do as I do than make swagger ware for a hand-
ful of rich people."

" Oh, yes," she exclaimed, eagerly accepting the
point of view. " I quite agree with you." She had
never heard him in that vein before, and was struck
by his enthusiasm. And Mynors was in fact always

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

very enthusiastic concerning the virtues of the general
markets. He had no sympathy with specialities,
artistic or otherwise. He found his satisfaction in
honestly meeting the public taste. He was born to be
a manufacturer of cheap goods on a colossal scale.
He could dream of fifty ovens, and his ambition
blinded him to the present absurdity of talking about
a three-oven bank spreading its productions all over
the country and the colonies ; it did not occur to him
that there were yet scarcely enough plates to go
round.

" I suppose we had better start at the start," he
said, leading the way to the slip-house. He did not
need to be told that Anna was perfectly ignorant of
the craft of pottery, and that every detail of it, so
stale to him, would acquire freshness under her naive
and inquiring gaze.

In the slip-house begins the long manipulation
which transforms raw, porous, friable clay into the
moulded, decorated, and glazed vessel. The large
whitewashed place was occupied by ungainly machines
and receptacles through which the four sorts of clay
used in the common " body " ball clay, China clay,
flint clay, and stone clay were compelled to pass
before they became a white putty-like mixture meet
for shaping by human hands. The blurigcr crushed
the clay, the sifter extracted the iron from it by means
of a magnet, the press expelled the water, and the
pug-mill expelled the air. From the last reluctant
mouth slowly emerged a solid stream nearly a foot in
diameter, like a huge white snake. Already the clay
had acquired the uniformity characteristic of a manu-
factured product.

Anna moved to touch the bolts of the enormous
twenty-four-chambered press.

" Don't stand there," said Mynors. " The pressure

is tremendous, and if the thing were to burst "

192

THE POTTER'S GRAFT

She fled hastily. " But isn't it dangerous for the
workmen ? " she asked.

Eli Machin, the engineman, the oldest employee
on the works, a moneyed man and the pattern of
reliability, allowed a vague smile to flit across his
face at this remark. He had ascended from the
engine-house below in order to exhibit the tricks of
the various machines, and that done he disappeared.
Anna was awed by the sensation of being surrounded
by terrific forces always straining for release and held
in check by the power of a single wall.

" Gome and see a plate made : that is one of the
simplest things, and the batting-machine is worth
looking at," said Mynors, and they went into the
nearest shop, ahot interior in the shape of four corridors
round a solid square middle. Here men and women
were working side by side, the women subordinate to
the men. All were preoccupied, wrapped up in their
respective operations, and there was the sound of
irregular whirring movements from every part of the
big room. The air was laden with whitish dust, and
clay was omnipresent on the floor, the walls, the
benches, the windows, on clothes, hands, and faces.
It was in this shop, where both hollow- ware presses
and flat presses were busy as only craftsmen on piece-
work can be busy, that more than anywhere else clay
was to be seen " in the hand of the potter." Near the
door a stout man with a good-humoured face flung
some clay on to a revolving disk, and even as Anna
passed a jar sprang into existence. One instant the
clay was an amorphous mass, the next it was a vessel
perfectly circular, of a prescribed width and a pre-
scribed depth ; the flat and apparently clumsy fingers
of the craftsman had seemed to lose themselves in the
clay for a fraction of time, and the miracle was
accomplished. The man threw these vessels with the
rapidity of a Roman candle throwing off coloured

193

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

stars, and one woman was kept busy in supplying him
with material and relieving his bench of the finished
articles. Mynors drew Anna along to the batting-
machine for plate-makers, at that period rather a
novelty and the latest invention of the dead genius
whose brain has reconstituted a whole industry on
new lines. Confronted with a piece of clay, the
batting-machine descended upon it with the ferocity
of a wild animal, worried it, stretched it, smoothed
it into the width and thickness of a plate, and then
desisted of itself and waited inactive for the flat
presser to remove its victim to his more exact shaping
machine. Several men were producing plates, but
their rapid labours seemed less astonishing than the
preliminary feat of the batting-machine. All the
ware as it was moulded disappeared into the vast
cupboards occupying the centre of the shop, where
Mynors showed Anna innumerable rows of shelves
full of pots in process of steam-drying. Neither time
nor space nor material was wasted in this ant-heap
of industry. In order to move to and fro, the women
were compelled to insinuate themselves past the
stationary bodies of the men. Anna marvelled at the
careless accuracy with which they fed the batting-
machines with lumps precisely calculated to form a
plate of a given diameter. Everyone exerted himself
as though the salvation of the world hung on the pro-
duction of so much stuff by a certain hour ; dust,
heat, and the presence of a stranger were alike unheeded
in the mad creative passion.

" Now," said Mynors the cicerone, opening another
door which gave into the yard, " when all that stuff
is dried and fettled smoothed, you know it goes into
the biscuit oven ; that's the first firing. There's the
biscuit oven, but we can't inspect it because it's just
being drawn."

He pointed to the oven near by, in whose dark

THE POTTER'S GRAFT

interior the forms of men, naked to the waist, could
dimly be seen struggling with the weight of saggars l
full of ware. It seemed like some release of martyrs,
this unpacking of the immense oven, which, after
being flooded with a sea of flame for fifty-four hours,
had cooled for two days, and was yet hotter than the
Equator. The inertness and pallor of the saggars
seemed to be the physical result of their fiery trial,
and one wondered that they should have survived the
trial. Mynors went into the place adjoining the
oven and brought back a plate out of an open saggar ;
it was still quite warm. It had the matt surface of a
biscuit, and adhered slightly to the fingers : it was
now a " crook " ; it had exchanged malleability for
brittleness, and nothing mortal could undo what the
fire had done. Mynors took the plate with him to
the biscuit-warehouse, a long room where one was
forced to keep to narrow alleys amid parterres of pots.
A solitary biscuit-warehouseman was examining the
ware in order to determine the remuneration of the
pressers.

They climbed a flight of stairs to the printing-shop,
where, by means of copper-plates, printing-presses,
mineral colours, and transfer-papers, most of the
decoration was done. The room was filled by a little
crowd of people oldish men, women, and girls,
divided into printers, cutters, transferrers, and appren-
tices. Each interminably repeated some trifling pro-
cess, and every article passed through a succession of
hands until at length it was washed in a tank and
rose dripping therefrom with its ornament of flowers
and scrolls fully revealed. The room smelt of oil
and flannel and humanity ; the atmosphere was more
languid, more like that of a family party, than in the
pressers' shop ; the old women looked stern and

1 Saggars : large oval receptacles of coarse clay, in which the
ware is placed for firing.

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

shrewish, the pretty young women pert and defiant,
the younger girls meek. The few men seemed out of
place. By what trick had they crept into the very
centre of that mass of feminity ? It seemed wrong,
scandalous that they should remain. Contiguous
with the printing-shop was the painting-shop, in which
the labours of the former were taken to a finish by
the brush of the paintress, who filled in outlines with
flat colour, and thus converted mechanical printing
into handiwork. The paintresses form the noblesse of
the banks. Their task is a light one, demanding
deftness first of all ; they have delicate fingers, and
enjoy a general reputation for beauty ; the wages
they earn may be estimated from their finery on
Sundays. They come to business in cloth jackets,
carry dinner in little satchels ; in the shop they wear
white aprons, and look startlingly neat and tidy.
Across the benches over which they bend their
coquettish heads gossip flies and returns like a shuttle ;
they are the source of a thousand intrigues, and one
or other of them is continually getting married or
omitting to get married. On the bank they con-
stitute " the sex." An infinitesimal proportion of
them, from among the branch known as ground-
layers, die of lead-poisoning a fact which adds pathos
to their frivolous charm. In a subsidiary room off
the painting-shop a single girl was seated at a revolv-
ing table actuated by a treadle. She was doing the
" band-and-line " on the rims of saucers. Mynors
and Anna watched her as with her left hand she
flicked saucer after saucer into the exact centre of the
table, moved the treadle, and, holding a brush firmly
against the rim of the piece, produced with infallible
exactitude the band and the line. She was a brunette,
about twenty-eight ; she had a calm, vacuously con-
templative face ; but God alone knew whether she
thought. Her work represented the summit of mono-

196

THE POTTER'S CRAFT

tony ; the regularity of it hypnotised the observer,
and Mynors himself was impressed by this stupendous
phenomenon of absolute sameness, involuntarily assum-
ing towards it the attitude of a showman.

" She earns as much as eighteen shillings a week
sometimes/' he whispered.

" May I try ? " Anna timidly asked of a sudden,
curious to experience what the trick was like.

" Certainly," said Mynors, in eager assent. " Pris-
cilla, let this lady have your seat a moment, please."

The girl got up, smiling politely. Anna took her
place.

" Here, try on this," said Mynors, putting on the
table the plate which he still carried.

" Take a full brush," the pain tress suggested, not
attempting to hide her amusement at Anna's unaccus-
tomed efforts. " Now push the treadle. There !
It isn't in the middle yet. Now ! "

Anna produced a most creditable band, and a
trembling but passable line, and rose flushed with the
small triumph.

" You have the gift," said Mynors ; and the paint-
ress respectfully applauded.

" I felt I could do it," Anna responded. " My
mother's mother was a paintress, and it must be in
the blood."

Mynors smiled indulgently. They descended again
to the ground floor, and following the course of manu-
facture came to the " hardening-on " kiln, a minor
oven where for twelve hours the oil is burnt out of the
colour in decorated ware. A huge, jolly man in
shirt and trousers, with an enormous apron, was in
the act of drawing the kiln, assisted by two thin boys.
He nodded a greeting to Mynors and exclaimed,
" Warm ! " The kiln was nearly emptied. As Anna
stopped at the door the man addressed her.

" Step inside, miss, and try it."

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" No, thanks ! " she laughed.

" Gome now," he insisted, as if despising this hesita-
tion. " An ounce of experience " The two boys

grinned and wiped their foreheads with their bare,
skeleton-like arms. Anna, challenged by the man's
look, walked quickly into the kiln. A blasting heat
seemed to assault her on every side, driving her back ;
it was incredible that any human being could support
such a temperature.

" There ! " said the jovial man, apparently sum-
ming her up with his bright, quizzical eyes. " You
know summat as you didn't know afore, miss. Gome
along, lads," he added with brisk heartiness to the
boys, and the drawing of the kiln proceeded.

Next came the dipping-house, where a middle-aged
woman, enveloped in a protective garment from head
to foot, was lipping jugs into a vat of lead-glaze, a
boy assisting her. The woman's hands were covered
with the grey, slimy glaze. She alone of all the
employees appeared to be cool.

" That is the last stage but one," said Mynors.
" There is only the glost-firing," and they passed out
into the yard once more. One of the glost-ovens was
empty ; they entered it and peered into the lofty
inner chamber, which seemed like the cold crater of
an exhausted volcano, or like a vault, or like the
ruined scat of some forgotten activity. The other
oven was firing, and Anna could only look at its
exterior, catching glimpses of the red glow at its
twelve mouths, and guess at the Tophet, within,
where the lead was being fused into glass.

" Now for the glost-warehouse, and you will have
seen all," said Mynors, " except the mould-shop,
and that doesn't matter."

The warehouse was the largest place on the works,
a room sixty feet long and twenty broad, low, white-
washed, bare, and clean. Piles of ware occupied the

THE HONDEKOETER

whole of the walls and of the immense floor-space,
but there was no trace here of the soilure and untidi-
ness incident to manufacture ; all processes were at an
end, clay had vanished into crock ; and the calmness
and the whiteness atoned for the disorder, noise, and
squalor which had preceded. Here was a sample of
the total and final achievement towards which the
thousands of small, disjointed efforts that Anna had
witnessed were directed. And it seemed a miraculous,
almost impossible, result ; so definite, precise, and
regular after a series of acts apparently variable,
inexact, and casual : so inhuman after all that in-
tensely inhuman labour ; so vast in comparison with
the minuteness of the separate endeavours. As Anna
looked, for instance, at a pile of tea-sets, she found it
difficult even to conceive that, a fortnight or so before,
they had been nothing but lumps of dirty clay. No
stage of the manufacture was incredible by itself, but
the result was incredible. It was the result that
appealed to the imagination, authenticating the adage
that fools and children should never see anything till
it is done.

ARNOLD BENNETT

THE HONDEKOETER

ENCOUNTERING his old friend Traquair opposite the
Horse Guards, in the summer of 1880, James Forsyte,
who had taken an afternoon off from the City, pro-
ceeded alongside with the words :

" I'm not well."

His friend answered : " You look bobbish enough.
Going to the Club ? "

" No," said James. " I'm going to Jobson's.
They're selling Smelter's pictures. Don't suppose
there's anything, but I thought I'd look in."

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PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" Smelter ? Selling his ' Cupid and Pish,' as he
used to call it ? He never could speak the Queen's
English."

" I'm sure I don't know what made him die," said
James ; " he wasn't seventy. His '47 was good."

" Ah ! And his brown sherry."

James shook his head.

" Liverish stuff. I've been walking from the
Temple ; got a touch of liver now."

" You ought to go to Carlsbad ; that's the new
place, they say."

" Homburg," said James, mechanically. " Emily
likes it too fashionable for me. I don't know I'm
sixty- nine." He pointed his umbrella at a lion.

" That chap Landseer must ha' made a pretty
penny," he muttered : " They say Dizzy's very shaky.
He won't last long."

" M'm ! That old fool Gladstone'll set us all by
the ears yet. Going to bid at Jobson's ? "

" Bid ? Haven't got the money to throw away.
My family's growing up."

" Ah ! How's your married daughter Winifred ? "

The furrow between James' brows increased in
depth.

" She never tells me. But I know that chap Dartie
she married makes the money fly."

" What is he ? "

" An outside broker," said James gloomily : " But
so far as I can see, he does nothing but gallivant about
to races and that. He'll do no good with himself."

He halted at the pavement edge, where a crossing
had been swept, for it had rained ; and extracting a
penny from his trouser pocket, gave it to the crossing-
sweeper, who looked up at his long figure with a round
and knowing eye.

" Well, good-bye, James. I'm going to the Club.
Remember me to Emily."

200

THE HONDEKOETER

James Forsyte nodded, and moved, stork-like, on
to the narrow crossing. Andy Traquair ! He still
looked very spry ! Gingery chap ! But that wife of
his fancy marrying again at his age ! Well, no fool
like an old one. And, incommoded by a passing four-
wheeler, he instinctively raised his umbrella they
never looked where they were going.

Traversing St. James' Square, he reflected gloomily
that these new Clubs were thundering great places ;
and this asphalt pavement that was coming in he
didn't know ! London wasn't what it used to be,
with horses slipping about all over the place. He
turned into Jobson's. Three o'clock ! They'd be
just starting. Smelter must have cut up quite well.

Ascending the steps, he passed through the lobbies
into the sale-room. Auction was in progress, but they
had not yet reached the c property of William
Smelter, Esq.'

Putting on his tortoiseshell pince-nez, James studied
the catalogue. Since his purchase of a Turner some
said c not a Turner ' all cordage and drowning men,
he had not bought a picture, and he had a blank space
on the stairs. It was a large space in a poor light ; he
often thought it looked very bare. If there were any-
thing going at a bargain, he might think of it. H'm !
There was the Bronzino : ' Cupid and Pish ' that
Smelter had been so proud of a nude ; he didn't
want nudes in Park Lane. His eye ran down the
catalogue : " Claud Lorraine," " Bosboem," " Cor-
nells van Vos," " Snyders " " Snyders " m'm !
still life all ducks and geese, hares, artichokes, onions,
platters, oysters, grapes, turkeys, pears, and starved-
looking greyhounds asleep under them. No. 17,
" M. Hondekoeter." Fowls. 1 1 foot by 6. What a
whopping great thing ! He took three mental steps
into the middle of the picture and three steps out
again. " Hondekoeter." His brother Jolyon had

201

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

one in the billiard room at Stanhope Gate lot of
fowls ; not so big as that. " Snyders ! " " Ary
Scheffer " bloodless-looking affair, he'd be bound !
" Rosa Bonheur." " Snyders."

He took a seat at the side of the room, and fell into
a reverie with James a serious matter, indissolubly
connected with investments. Soames in partnership
now was shaping well ; bringing in a lot of business.
That house in Bryanston Square the tenancy would
be up in September he ought to get another hundred
on a re-let, with the improvements the tenant had
put in. He'd have a couple of thousand to invest
next Quarter Day. There was Cape Copper, but he
didn't know ; Nicholas was always telling him to buy
' Midland.' That fellow Dartie, too, kept worrying
him about Argentines he wouldn't touch them with
a pair of tongs. And, leaning forward with his hands
crossed on the handle of his umbrella, he gazed fixedly
up at the skylight, as if seeing some annunciation or
other, while his shaven lips, between his grey Dun-
drearys, filled sensually as though savouring a dividend.

" The collection of William Smelter, Esquire, of
Russell Square."

Now for the usual poppycock ! " This well-known
collector," " masterpieces of the Dutch and French
Schools " ; " rare opportunity " ; " Connoisseur " ;
all me eye and Betty Martin ! Smelter used to buy
'em by the yard.

" No. i. Cupid and Psyche : Bronzino. Ladies
and Gentlemen : what shall I start it at this beautiful
picture, an undoubted masterpiece of the Italian
School ? "

James sniggered. Connoisseur with his * Cupid
and Pish ' !

To his astonishment there was some brisk bidding;
and James' upper lip began to lengthen, as ever at
any dispute about values. The picture was knocked

202

THE HONDEKOETER

down and a c Snyders ' put up. James sat watching
picture after picture disposed of. It was hot in the
room and he felt sleepy he didn't know why he had
come ; he might have been having a nap at the Club,
or driving with Emily.

" What no bid for the Hondekoeter ? This large
masterpiece."

James gazed at the enormous picture on the easel,
supported at either end by an attendant. The huge
affair was full of poultry and feathers floating in a bit
of water and a large white rooster looking as if it
were about to take a bath. It was a dark painting,
save for the rooster, with a yellowish tone.

" Gome, gentlemen ? By a celebrated painter of
domestic poultry. May I say fifty ? Forty ? Who'll
give me forty pounds ? It's giving it away. Well,
thirty to start it ? Look at the rooster ! Masterly
painting ! Come now ! I'll take any bid."

" Five pounds ! " said James, covering the words
so that no one but the auctioneer should see where
they came from.

" Five pounds for this genuine work by a master of
domestic poultry ! Ten pounds did you say, Sir ?
Ten pounds bid."

" Fifteen," muttered James.

" Twenty."

" Twenty-five," said James ; he was not going
above thirty.

" Twenty-five why, the frame's worth it. Who
says thirty ? "

No one said thirty ; and the picture was knocked
down to James, whose mouth had opened slightly.
He hadn't meant to buy it ; but the thing was a
bargain the size had frightened them ; Jolyon had
paid one hundred and forty for his Hondekoeter.
Well, it would cover that blank on the stairs. He
waited till two more pictures had been sold ; then,

203

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

leaving his card with directions for the despatch of the
Hondekoeter, made his way up St. James' Street and
on towards home.

He found Emily just starting out with Rachel and
Cicely in the barouche, but refused to accompany
them a little afraid of being asked what he had been
doing. Entering his deserted house, he told Warmson
that he felt liverish ; he would have a cup of tea and
a muffin, nothing more ; then passing on to the stairs,
he stood looking at the blank space. When the
picture was hung, it wouldn't be there. What would
Soames say to.it, though the boy had begun to
interest himself in pictures since his run abroad ?
Still, the price he had paid was not the market value ;
and, passing on up to the drawing-room, he drank
his China tea, strong, with cream, and ate two muffins.
If he didn't feel better to-morrow, he should have
Dash look at him.

The following morning, starting for the office, he
said to Warmson :

" There'll be a picture come to-day. You'd better
get Hunt and Thomas to help you hang it. It's to
go in the middle of that space on the stairs. You'd
better have it done when your mistress is out. Let
'em bring it in the back way it's eleven foot by six ;
and mind the paint."

When he returned, rather late, the Hondekoeter
was hung. It covered the space admirably, but the
light being poor and the picture dark, it was not
possible to see what it was about. It looked quite
well. Emily was in the drawing-room when he
went in.

" What on earth is that great picture on the stairs,
James ? "

" That ? " said James. " A Hondekoeter ; picked
it up, a bargain, at Smelter's sale. Jolyon's got one
at Stanhope Gate."

204

THE HONDEKOETER

" I never saw such a lumbering great thing."

" What ? " said James. " It covers up that space
well. It's not as if you could see anything on the
stairs. There's some good poultry in it."

"It makes the stairs darker than they were before.
I don't know what Soames will say. Really, James,
you oughtn't to go about alone, buying things like
that."

" I can do what I like with my money, I suppose,"
said James. " It's a well-known name."

" Well," said Emily, " for a man of your age Never
mind ! Don't fuss ! Sit down and drink your tea."

James sat down, muttering. Women always un-
just, and no more sense of values than an old tom-cat !

Emily said no more, ever mistress of her suave and
fashionable self.

Winifred, with Montagu Dartie, came in later, so
that all the family were assembled for dinner ; Cicely
having her hair down, Rachel her hair up she had
" come out " this season ; Soames, who had just
parted with the little whiskers of the late 'seventies,
looking pale and flatter-cheeked than usual. Wini-
fred, beginning to be " interesting," owing to the
approach of a little Dartie, kept her eyes somewhat
watchfully on " Monty," square and oiled, with a
" handsome " look on his sallow face, and a big
diamond stud in his shining shirt-front.

It was she who broached the Hondekoeter.

" Pater dear, what made you buy that enormous
picture ? "

James looked up, and mumbled through his mutton:

" Enormous ! It's the right size for that space on
the stairs." It seemed to him at the moment that his
family had very peculiar faces.

" It's very fine and large ! " Dartie was speaking !
" Um ! " thought James : " What does he want-
money ? "

205

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" It's so yellow," said Rachel, plaintively.

" What do you know about a picture ? "

" I know what I like, Pater. 55

James stole a glance at his son, but Soames was
looking down his nose.

" It's very good value, 55 said James, suddenly.
" There's some first-rate feather painting in it. 55

Nothing more was said at the moment, nobody
wanting to hurt the Pater's feelings, but, upstairs, in
the drawing-room after Emily and her three daughters
had again traversed the length of the Hondekoeter,
a lively conversation broke out.

Really the Pater ! Rococo was not the word for
pictures that size ! And chickens who wanted to
look at chickens, even if you could see them ? But, of
course, Pater thought a bargain excused everything.

Emily said :

" Don't be disrespectful, Cicely."

" Well, Mater, he does, you know. All the old
Forsytes do."

Emily, who secretly agreed, said : " H'ssh ! "

She was always loyal to James, in his absence.
They all were, indeed, except among themselves.

" Soames thinks it dreadful, 55 said Rachel. " I
hope he'll tell the Pater so."

" Soames will do nothing of the sort," said Emily.
" Really your father can do what he likes in his own
house you children are getting very uppish. 55

" Well, Mater, you know jolly well it's awfully out
of date."

" I wish you would not say c awfully ' and ' jolly,"
Cicely."

" Why not ? Everybody does, at school."

Winifred cut in :

" They really are the latest words, Mother."

Emily was silent ; nothing took the wind out of her
sails like the word ' latest,' for, though a woman of

206

THE HONDEKOETER

much character, she could not bear to be behind-
hand.

" Listen ! " said Rachel, who had opened the door.

A certain noise could be heard ; it was James, ex-
tolling the Hondekoeter, on the stairs.

" That rooster," he was saying, " is a fine bird ;
and look at those feathers floating. Think they could
paint those nowadays ? Your Uncle Jolyon gave a
hundred an' forty for his Hondekoeter, and I picked
this up for twenty-five."

" What did I say ? " whispered Cicely. " A bar-
gain. I hate bargains ; they lumber up everything.
That Turner was another ! "

" 'Shh ! " said Winifred, who was not so young,
and wished that Monty had more sense of a bargain
than he had as yet displayed. " I like a bargain
myself; you know youVe got something for your
money."

"I'd rather have my money," said Cicely.

" Don't be silly, Cicely," said Emily ; " go and
play your piece. Your father likes it."

James and Dartie now entered, Soames having
passed on up to his room where he worked at night.

Cicely began her piece. She was at home owing
to an outbreak of mumps at her school on Ham
Common ; and her piece, which contained a number
of runs up and down the piano, was one which she
was perfecting for the school concert at the end of term.
James, who made a point of asking for it, partly be-
cause it was good for Cicely, and partly because it
was good for his digestion, took his seat by the hearth
between his whiskers, averting his eyes from animated
objects. Unfortunately, he never could sleep after
dinner, and thoughts buzzed in his head. Soames
had said there was no demand now for large pictures,
and very little for the Dutch school he had admitted,
however, that the Hondekoeter was a bargain as

207

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

values went ; the name alone was worth the money.
Cicely commenced her " piece " ; James brooded on.
He really didn't know whether he was glad he had
bought the thing or not. Every one of them had dis-
approved, except Dartie ; the only one whose dis-
approval he would have welcomed. To say that
James was conscious of a change in the mental outlook
of his day would be to credit him with a philosophic
sensibility unsuited to his breeding and his age ; but
he was uncomfortably conscious that a bargain was
not what it had been. And while Cicely's fingers ran
up and down he didn't know, he couldn't say.

" D'you mean to tell me," he said, when Cicely shut
the piano, " that you don't like those Dresden vases ? "

Nobody knew whom he was addressing or why, so
no one replied.

" I bought 'em at Jobson's in '67, and they're worth
three times what I gave for them."

It was Rachel who responded.

" Well, Pater, do you like them yourself? "

" Like them ? What's that got to do with it ?
They're genuine, and worth a lot of money."

" I wish you'd sell them, then, James," said Emily.
" They're not the fashion now."

" Fashion ! They'll be worth a lot more before
I die."

" A bargain," muttered Cicely, below her breath.

" What's that ? " said James, whose hearing was
sometimes unexpectedly sharp.

" I said : ' A bargain,' Pater ; weren't they ? "

" Of course they were " ; and it could be heard
from his tone that if they hadn't been, he wouldn't
have bought them. " You young people know no-
thing about money, except how to spend it " ; and he
looked at his son-in-law, who was sedulously concerned
with his finger-nails.

Emily, partly to smooth James, whom she could see
208

THE HONDEKOETER

was ruffled, and partly because she had a passion for
the game, told Cicely to get out the card table, and
said with cheery composure :

" Come along, James, we'll play Nap."

They sat around the green board for a considerable
time playing for farthings, with every now and then
a little burst of laughter, when James said : " I'll go
Nap ! " At this particular game, indeed, James was
always visited by a sort of recklessness. At farthing
points he could be a devil of a fellow for very little
money. He had soon lost thirteen shillings, and was
as dashing as ever.

He rose at last, in excellent humour, pretending to
be bankrupt.

" Well, I don't know," he said, " I always lose my
money."

The Hondekoeter, and the misgivings it had given
rise to, had faded from his mind.

Winifred and Dartie departing, without the latter
having touched on finance, he went up to bed with
Emily in an almost cheerful condition ; and, having
turned his back on her, was soon snoring lightly.

He was awakened by a crash and bumping rumble,
as it might be thunder, on the right.

" What on earth's that, James ? " said Emily's
startled voice.

" What ? " said James : " Where ? Here, where
are my slippers ? "

" It must be a thunderbolt. Be careful, James."

For James, in his nightgown, was already standing
by the bedside in the radiance of a night-light, long
as a stork. He sniffed loudly.

" D'you smell burning ? "

" No," said Emily.

" Here, give me the candle."

" Put on this shawl, James. It can't be burglars ;
they wouldn't make such a noise."
209

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

" I don't know," muttered James, " I was asleep."
He took the candle from Emily, and shuffled to the
door.

" What's all this ? " he said on the landing. By
confused candle and night-light he could see a number
of white-clothed figures Rachel, Cicely, and the
maid Fifine, in their nightgowns. Soames in his
nightshirt, at the head of the stairs, and down below,
that fellow Warmson.

The voice of Soames, flat and calm, said :

" It's the Hondekoeter."

There, in fact, enormous, at the bottom of the
stairs, was the Hondekoeter, fallen on its face. James,
holding up his candle, stalked down and stood gazing
at it. No one spoke, except Fifine, who said : " La, la ! "

Cicely, seized with a fit of giggles, vanished.

Then Soames spoke into the dark well below him,
illumined faintly by James' candle.

" It's all right, Pater ; it won't be hurt ; there was
no glass."

James did not answer, but holding his candle low,
returned up the stairs, and without a word went back
into his bedroom.

" What was it, James ? " said Emily, who had
not risen.

" That picture came down with a run comes of not
looking after things yourself. That fellow Warmson !
Where's the eau-de-Cologne ? "

He anointed himself, got back into bed, and lay on
his back, waiting for Emily to improve the occasion.
But all she said was :

" I hope it hasn't made your head ache, James."

" No," said James ; and, for some time after she
was asleep, he lay with his eyes on the night-light, as if
waiting for the Hondekoeter to play him another trick
after he had bought the thing and given it a good
home, too !

210

THE HONDEKOETER

Next morning, going down to breakfast he passed
the picture, which had been lifted, so that it stood
slanting, with its back to the stair wall. The white
rooster seemed just as much on the point of taking a
bath as ever. The feathers floated on their backs,
curved like shallops. He passed on into the dining-
room.

They were all there, eating eggs and bacon, sus-
piciously silent.

James helped himself and sat down.

" What are you going to do with it now, James ? "
said Emily.

" Do with it ? Hang it again, of course ! "

" Not really, Pater ! " said Rachel. " It gave me
fits last night."

" That wall won't stand it," said Soames.

" What ! It's a good wall ! "

" It really is too big," said Emily.

" And we none of us like it, Pater," put in Cicely,
" it's such a monster, and so yellow ! "

" Monster, indeed ! " said James, and was silent,
till suddenly he spluttered :

" What would you have me do with it, then ? "

" Send it back ; sell it again."

" I shouldn't get anything for it."

"But you said it was a bargain, Pater," said Cicely.

" So it was ! "

There was another silence. James looked sidelong
at his son ; there was a certain pathos in that glance,
as if it were seeking help, but Soames was concentrated
above his plate.

" Have it put up in the lumber-room, James," said
Emily, quietly.

James reddened between his whiskers, and his
mouth opened ; he looked again at his son, but
Soames ate on. James turned to his teacup. And
there went on within him that which he could not

p

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

express. It was as if they had asked him : " When
is a bargain not a bargain ? " and he didn't know
the answer, but they did. A change of epoch, some-
thing new-fangled in the air. A man could no longer
buy a thing because it was worth more ! It was
it was the end of everything. And, suddenly, he
mumbled : " Well, have it your own way, then.
Throwing money away, I call it ! "

After he had gone to the office, the Hondekoeter
was conducted to the lumber-room by Warmson,
Hunt, and Thomas. There, covered by a dust-sheet
to preserve the varnish, it rested twenty-one years, till
the death of James in 1901, when it went forth and
again came under the hammer. It fetched five
pounds, and was bought by a designer of posters,
working for a poultry-breeding firm.

JOHN GALSWORTHY

212

NOTES

Nurse's Stories. From " The Uncommercial Traveller," by

Charles Dickens.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is almost certainly the most
popular prose-writer in English literature, as Shake-
speare is the most popular poet. Dickens and Shake-
speare between them probably created more living
characters than all the rest of our English authors
together. Shakespeare had this advantage over Dickens
that he could draw kings as easily as tapsters, whereas
Dickens was less easy in drawing characters in the higher
ranks of society : Dickens, nevertheless, in Mr. Pick-
wick achieved a perfect example of a natural gentleman.
" The Uncommercial Traveller " is a collection of
twenty-eight stories and sketches on topics where
Dickens thought reform desirable : the papers, which
are often Dickens at his best, were first published in
" All the Year Round," and were re-issued in 1861.

The Bear. From " The Cloister and the Hearth," by Charles

Reade.

Charles Reade (1814-1884), Lawyer and Fellow of
Magdalen College, Oxford, excelled as a story-teller,
and like Dickens, was an ardent reformer. " The
Cloister and the Hearth," an historical romance set in
the 1 5th century, was inspired by a study of the life of
Erasmus and the works of Luther and Froissart.

The Future Life. From " Introduction to ' The Phaedo',"

by Benjamin Jowett.

Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), Regius Professor of Greek
at Oxford, and the famous master of Balliol College,
was the author of works both on scriptural and classical
subjects. His translations of Plato and Introduction
to Plato are among his notable writings.

A Reading from " Coriolanus" From " Shirley," by Charlotte
Bronte.

213

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Charlotte Bronte (1816-1855), was the eldest of the three
brilliant literary sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.
Their father was an Irish clergyman with a living in
Yorkshire. Charlotte wrote four novels," The Professor,"
I'Jane Eyre," " Shirley," and " Villette." "Jane Eyre,"
in which the writer owed a debt to Thackeray, whom
she venerated as her literary master, is the most famous
of the four novels, but " Shirley," the scene of which
is laid in Yorkshire during the Napoleonic wars, is
scarcely inferior in power.

Death of Mr. Earnshaw. From " Wuthering Heights," by
Emily Bronte.

Emily Bronte (1818-1848), in " Wuthering Heights,"
produced a novel which, despite its unequal standard,
is regarded as one of the great tragical romances in our
literature. The central figure of the story is the
gloomy and vindictive Heathcliffe, originally a waif
picked up in Liverpool by Mr. Earnshaw, and reared as
one of his own children.

England's Forgotten Worthies. From " Short Studies on
Great Subjects," by James Antony Froude.

James Antony Froude (1818-1894), who reacted against
the Oxford High Church movement, was a fellow of
Exeter College and two years before his death was
elected Regius Professor of History at Oxford. Master of
an eloquent style, often extremely beautiful in quality, he
was a prolific, and often controversial writer. His longest
work was his " History of England," issued in twelve
volumes : among his shorter works his " Short Studies
on Great Subjects," and his " English Seamen in the
Sixteenth Century " retain their popularity.

Attack on the Stockade. From " Westward Ho ! " by Charles
Kingsley.

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875), a native of Devonshire,
took Holy Orders and passed his life in a living in
Hampshire. Kingsley is famous both as story-teller
and poet. "Alton Locke," "Yeast," " Hypatia,"
" Hereward the Wake," " The Heroes," and " The
Water Babies," are among his well-known prose works,
and "Westward Ho ! ", a romantic tale of Elizabethan
days, is the high-water mark of his success and
popularity as a novelist.

214

NOTES

Mr. Poulter. From " The Mill on the Floss/' by George

Eliot.

George Eliot (1819-1880) was the pen name of Mary
Ann Evans, one of the greatest of women novelists. Her
later novels, such as " Middlemarch " and " Daniel
Deronda " are somewhat over-weighted with philosophy
and religious prejudice, but the earlier books, " Scenes
from Clerical Life," " Adam Bede," " The Mill on the
Floss," and "Silas Marner," are wholly delightful
pictures of the humours and pathos of life.

Stabb kills a Whale. From "Moby Dick," by Herman

Melville.

Herman Melville (1819-1891), born in New York city,
started life as a sailor before the mast, and sailed
round the Gape of Good Hope at the age of twenty-
two in a whaler. Moby Dick is the name of a particu-
larly fierce and powerful whale ; Melville's story of
that title describes a search round nearly the whole
globe for Moby Dick and Moby Dick's ultimate victory.
In the course of the narrative Melville gives consider-
able information about the nature, habits, and anatomy
of whales.

Effect of Mountain Scenery on Shakespeare. From " Modern

Painters," by John Ruskin.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) devoted his life to expounding,
in an immense number of volumes, his views on art,
politics, and ethics. In 1869 he was appointed Slade
Professor of Fine Arts in Oxford, but had to abandon
the post eventually owing to ill-health. In " Modern
Painters," his first and longest work, he set out to
vindicate the painting of Turner, but as the book
progressed the author developed his views on a variety
of subjects. In his early writing Ruskin showed himself
master of a highly-coloured, sumptuous style, but in
his last books he writes with a simple economy of langu-
age which possesses another beauty of its own.

An Old War Horse. From " Black Beauty," by Anna Sewell.
Anna Sewell (1820-1878), born at Yarmouth, was a life-
long invalid owing to her having sprained both ankles
in childhood. In 1877 she published " Black Beauty,"
the autobiography of a horse, which had an immense
vogue. The obvious purpose of the book is to inculcate
kindness to animals.

215

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

The Fight. From " Tom Brown's School Days," by Thomas

Hughes.

Thomas Hughes (1822-1896) was educated at Rugby
under Dr. Arnold, and at Oriel College, Oxford. He
became a member of the Chancery Bar, and in due
course a Q.C., and a County Court Judge. He was a
Liberal member of Parliament for Lambeth and Frome,
and took part in founding a settlement in America.

" Tom Brown," in spite of the obvious respects in
which it dates, especially in its sentimental emphasis,
remains the foremost classic among books which describe
English public-school life.

A Fire at Sea. From "The Life-boat," by R. M.

Ballantync.

R. M. Ballantyne (1825-1894), born in Edinburgh,
wrote no less than eighty books, the majority of which
were intended specifically for boy readers. He had the
happiest knack of combining the telling of an exciting
story with providing useful information on a variety of
topics and with inculcating good morals.

The Great Winter. From " Lorna Doone," by R. D. Black-
more.

R. D. Blackmore (18251900) was educated at Blundell's
School and Exeter College. He published several
volumes of verse and a number of novels of which
" Lorna Doone " is the most famous : the story is set
in the reigns of Charles II and James II and the time
of the Monmouth Rebellion.

Rounding Cape Horn. From " Historical Sketches of the

Reign of George II," by Mrs. Oliphant.
Mrs. Oliphant (1828-1897), a vivid and voluminous
writer, was author of numerous novels and lives, and
of an autobiography in which she describes how by her
pen she laboured to provide for her children and also
those of her brother.

The Punishment of Shahpesh. From " The Shaving of Shag-
pat," by George Meredith.

George Meredith (18281909), born in Hampshire, was
educated privately, and at a Moravian school in Ger-
many. He supported himself, not without difficulty,
by contributing to periodicals, and eventually became
a reader to Chapman and Hall, the publishers. He was
twice married. He achieved eminence both as a

2l6

NOTES

novelist and poet. His fine sonnet-sequence, " Modern
Love," is as haunting as any poetry of the igth century.
As a novelist he first won popularity by " Diana of the
Crossways," published in 1885. " The Shaving of
Shagpat," a series of burlesque Arabian fantasies, was
an early work published in 1856.

The Mock Turtle's Story. From " Alice in Wonderland," by

Lewis Carroll.

Lewis Carroll, the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodg-
son (1832-1898), was a Student, in Holy Orders, and
a mathematical lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford.
" Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," and the sequel,
" Through the Looking-Glass," written to amuse certain
of Dodgson's youthful friends in Oxford, are the most
famous of all children's books in English literature, and
are appreciated equally, and probably more so, by
adults. Dodgson, although the persons in the stories
arc apparently nonsensical, has something of Shake-
speare's and Dickens's power of creating living human
characters.

The Rights of Animals. From " Erewhon," by Samuel

Butler.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902), son of Bishop Butler, was
educated at Shrewsbury and Cambridge. He started
his career as a sheep-breeder in New Zealand, but
returned to England to settle in Clifford's Inn. He was
a painter and composer as well as a satiric author ;
his most famous books are " Erewhon," an anagram of
" nowhere," a satirical romance which is founded in
part on his experience of New Zealand, and his auto-
biographical novel " The Way of All Flesh."

The Happy Thinker is Called. From " Happy Thoughts,"

by Sir Francis Burnand.

Sir Francis Burnand (1836-1917) was editor of" Punch "
from 1880-1906, and " Happy Thoughts " first appeared
as a series in the pages of " Punch." Burnand also
wrote dramatic burlesques, including the famous " Cox
and Box," which was set to music by Sullivan.

The Happy Thinker, i.e. the protagonist of " Happy
Thoughts " it is a pity the author gave him no name,
which might have made the book and the character
more celebrated is a nai've member of comfortable
Victorian society who spends his time paying country

217

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

house visits and in other pleasant pursuits in which he
invariably depicts himself as a well-meaning booby.

La Gioconda. From " Leonardo da Vinci/' by Walter

Pater.

Walter Pater (1839-1894) was a Fellow of Brasenose
College, Oxford. He made his fame as an essayist
notably in sympathy with the Pre-Raphaelite ideals.

The Battle of Cannae. From " Carthage and the Cartha-
ginians," by R. Bosworth Smith.

Reginald Bosworth Smith (1839-1908) was appointed a
classical master to Harrow School in 1 864. In due course
he built " The Knoll," where he presided as Housemaster
over a highly successful House till he retired from
the school in 1901. Notable among his books are his
life of Lord Lawrence and " Carthage and the Car-
thaginians," the latter being a collection of seven
lectures first delivered before the Royal Institution.

Egdon Heath. From " The Return of the Native," by

Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), born near Dorchester,
first practised as an architect. He became eminent in
literature as novelist, poet, and author of the epic
drama " The Dynasts." An austere philosophy of
gloom pervades his work, in which man is represented
as the victim of an indifferent and heartless power.
Hardy was awarded the Order of Merit and, despite
his sombre creed, is buried in Westminster Abbey.

The Great Forest after London. From " After London," by

Richard Jefferies.

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887) was the son of a Wiltshire
farmer, which probably accounts for his notable
powers of observing and describing Nature in his articles,
sketches, and novels. " After London, or Wild Eng-
land " is a curious vision of the future of England in
which life has returned again to a condition of primitive
wilderness.

The Yellow Paint. From "Fables," by Robert Louis

Stevenson.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), born in Edinburgh,
was educated at Edinburgh University. He studied
engineering and then law. He suffered from lung trouble
which necessitated many journeys in search of health.

2l8

NOTES

In 1888 he settled in Samoa, where he died and was
buried. In the varied collection of essays, novels, and
poetry which he wrote Stevenson maintained a brilliant
standard of descriptive power in a faultless, though
sometimes a somewhat mannered style.

The King's Stratagem. From " In King's Byways," by

Stanley Weyman.

Stanley Weyman (1855-1928) was educated at Oxford
and became a barrister. He is famous for his numerous
romantic stories and novels, the scenes of almost all of
which are laid in France. Though neither in style
nor creation of characters is Weyman's work of the
highest quality, he displays great ingenuity in devising
his plots, an unflagging zest in telling a story, and a
genuine power of creating a not very subtle atmosphere.

Jim. From " Lord Jim," by Joseph Conrad.
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) was born in the Ukraine.
His parents were Polish and his full name was Teodor
Josef Konrad Korzeniowski. He accompanied his
parents to northern Russia, to which on charges of
revolutionary intrigue they were exiled. He was
educated at Cracow. At the age of seventeen he went
. to sea in the Mediterranean. In 1 878 he visited England,
when he determined to sail thereafter under the British
flag. He rose in the British Merchant Service to the
rank of master-mariner. After ill-health had caused him
to have to leave the sea in 1894 he devoted himself to
writing his beautiful, powerful, sane but exotic novels, in
which the sea as a subject not unnaturally predominates.

Packing. From " Three Men in a Boat," by Jerome K.

Jerome.

Jerome K.Jerome (18591923), clerk, schoolmaster, and
actor, was born in Walsall, but grew up in London.
His story " Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the
Dog) " is one of the most high-spirited of humorous
books, while his morality play " The Passing of the
Third Floor Back " provided a famous part for Sir
Johnston Forbes-Robertson, and later proved an im-
pressive film.

Pterodactyls. From "The Lost World," by Sir Arthur

Conan Doyle.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) was a member of
the medical profession and practised as a doctor at

2IQ

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

Southsea till 1890. He won fame by creating Sher-
lock Holmes, the amateur detective, whose adventures
he described in a cycle of stories. He wrote other popular
romances, including " The White Company," " Rodney
Stone," and " The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard," and
a history of spiritualism in which subject he became
much interested. His fantasy " The Lost World " was
filmed with great success.

The Potter's Craft. From " Anna of the Five Towns," by

Arnold Bennett.

Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), born in Staffordshire,
started life as a solicitor's clerk, but soon devoted him-
self to journalism and literature. He won fame as a
novelist by his stories of the Five Towns in the Midlands,
namely Tunstall, Burslem, Hanlcy, Stoke-upon-Trent,
and Longton. Much of Bennett's work is too photo-
graphic to rank as first-rate literature, but at times, as
in his novel " Riceyman Steps " and his play " Mile-
stones," written in conjunction with Edward Knoblock,
he achieved work which is likely to endure.

The Hondekoeter. From " On Forsyte Change," by John

Galsworthy.

John Galsworthy (1867-1933), educated at Harrow and
Oxford, set himself throughout his work to present
sympathetically the case of the " under-dog " in our
social system. He was equally successful as a play-
wright and novelist. " Strife," " Justice," " The Skin
Game," and " Loyalties," are specially notable among
his plays, and in his novel " The Forsyte Saga " he
drew a classic picture of upper middle-class society in
the later Victorian age. This picture he continues in
subsequent Forsyte stories up to the description of the
typical Forsyte era caused by the Great War. " On
Forsyte Change " was a collection of " apocryphal
Forsyte tales " which appeared in 1930.

22O

ESSAY QUESTIONS

1. Nurse's Stories, by Dickens. Write such a story as told
by a nurse would be calculated to frighten a modern child
of the post- War era.

2. The Bear, by Charles Reade. Write an account of this
adventure told from the Bear's point of view.

3. The Future Life, by Jowett. Compare this passage with
the Christian view of immortality.

4. A Reading from " Coriolanus," by Charlotte Bronte.
Invent and describe another Shakespeare reading in differ-
ent circumstances.

5. Death of Mr. Earnshaw, by Emily Bronte. Discuss
features in this passage which support the view that " Wuther-
ing Heights " is one of the most powerful of English novels.

6. England's Forgotten Worthies, by Froude. Pay a similar
tribute to some of England's forgotten soldiers.

7. Attack on the Stockade, by Charles Kingsley. Describe
any other type of tree in the manner in which Kingsley
describes the ceiba tree.

8. Mr. Poulter, by George Eliot. Contrast George Eliot's
humour, as exemplified in this passage, with a kindred
passage or character sketch' in Dickens.

9. Stubb kills a Whale, by Herman Melville. Describe
the killing of a shark or any other inhabitant of the sea.

10. Effect of Mountain Scenery on Shakespeare, by Ruskin.
Discuss the effect of any type of scenery on any other
English author.

1 1. An Old War Horse, by Anna Sewell. Tell the story of
An Old Taxicab.

12. The Fight, by Thomas Hughes. What features in
this passage are out of tune with school life of to-day ?

13. A Fire at Sea, by R. M. Ballantyne. In what respects
would one expect to find a ship of to-day better provided
with the means of avoiding a fire, or of fighting one ?

14. The Great Winter, by R. D. Blackmore. Describe a
Great Summer.

15. Rounding Cape Horn, by Mrs. Oliphant. What signs

221

PROSE OF YESTERDAY

do you find in this narrative which suggest that the author
is a woman ?

1 6. The Punishment of Shahpesh.

" East is East and West is West

And never the twain shall meet."
In what respects does this tale bear out the truth of this ?

17. The Mock Turtle's Story, by Lewis Carroll. Invent
and tell in a similar style the Mock Turtle's account of the
university he attended or the business house in which he
worked.

1 8. The Rights of Animals, by Samuel Butler. Show in
what respects this passage is a justifiable satire on our social
outlook.

19. The Happy Thinker is Called, by Sir Francis Burnand.
What features in this passage are typical of the pre-War era
when it was written ?

20. La Gioconda by Walter Pater. Describe and analyse
any other famous picture with which you are familiar.

2 1 . The Battle of Cannae, by R. Bos worth Smith. Contrast
the characteristics of the Romans and Carthaginians as
evidenced by this passage.

22. Egdon Heath, by Thomas Hardy. What features in
this passage show that Thomas Hardy was a great poet as
well as a great novelist ?

23. The Great Forest after London, by Richard Jefferies.
Imagine that Brighton, or Edinburgh, or Paris have similarly
passed away, and describe what remains.

24. The Yellow Paint, by R. L. Stevenson. Invent and
write a fable of your own.

25. The King's Stratagem. What weight does this story
give to the criticism that Stanley Weyman invented diffi-
culties for his heroes only in order to get them out of them?

26. Jim, by Joseph Conrad. What evidence does this
passage give that the author was trained to the life of
the sea?

27. Packing, by Jerome K. Jerome. Consider whether or
not the humour of Jerome K. Jerome dates.

28. Pterodactyls, by Conan Doyle. What features in this
passage make it evident that the story was likely to prove
as highly successful a film as was the case ?

29. The Potter's Craft, by Arnold Bennett. Describe any
round of a factory or works which you yourself have made.

30. The Hondekoeter, by Galsworthy. Write a similar type
of story concerned not with a picture but with a rare postage
stamp.

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