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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE

OF

_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._

OCTOBER, 1880.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J. B.
LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.




A CHAPTER OF AMERICAN EXPLORATION.


[Illustration: GLEN CAÑON.]

Those adventurous gentlemen who derive exhilaration from peril, and
extract febrifuge for the high pressure of a too exuberant constitution
from the difficulties of the Alps, cannot find such peaks as the
Aiguille Verte and the Matterhorn, with their friable and precipitous
cliffs, among the Rocky Mountains. The geological processes have been
gentler in evolving the latter than the former, and in the proper season
summits not less elevated nor less splendid or comprehensive than that
of the Matterhorn, upon which so many lives have been defiantly wasted,
may be attained without any great degree of danger or fatigue. All but
the apex may often be reached in the saddle. The _bergschrund_ with its
fragile lip of ice, the _crevasse_ with its treacherous bridges, and the
_avalanche_ which an ill-timed footstep starts with overwhelming havoc,
do not threaten the explorer of the Western mountains; and ordinarily he
passes from height to height--from the base with its wreaths of
evergreens to the zone where vegetation is limited to the gnarled
dwarf-pine, from the foot-hills to the basin of the crisp alpine lake
far above the life-limits--without once having to scale a cliff,
supposing, of course, that he has chosen the best path. The trail may be
narrow at times, with nothing between it and a gulf, and it may be
pitched at an angle that compels the use of "all-fours;" but with
patience and discretion the ultimate peak is conquered without
rope-ladder or ice-axe, and the vastness of the world below, gray and
cold at some hours, and at others lighted with a splendor which words
cannot transcribe, is revealed to the adventurer as satisfaction for his
toil.

But, though what may be called the pure mountain-peaks do not entail the
same perils and difficulties as the members of the Alpine Club discover
in Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany, the volcanic cones and
cañon-walls of the West have an unstable verticality which, when it is
not absolutely insurmountable, is more difficult than the top of the
Matterhorn itself; and though the various expeditions under Wheeler,
Powell, King and Hayden have not had Aiguilles Vertes to oppose them,
they have been confronted by obstacles which could only be overcome by
as much courage as certain of the clubmen have required in their most
celebrated exploits. Indeed, nothing in the journals of the Alpine Club
compares in the interest of the narrative or the peril of the
undertaking with Major Powell's exploration of the cañons of the
Colorado, which, though its history has become familiar to many readers
through the official report, gathers significance in contrast with all
other Western expeditions, and stands out as an achievement of
extraordinary daring.

The Colorado is formed by the junction of the Grand and Green Rivers.
The Grand has its source in the Rocky Mountains five or six miles west
of Long's Peak, and the Green heads in the Wind River Mountains near
Fremont's Peak. Uniting in the Colorado, they end as turbid floods in
the Gulf of California, a goal which they reach through gorges set deep
in the bosom of the earth and bordered by a region where the mutations
of Nature are in visible process. In all the world there is no other
river like this. The phenomenal in form predominates: the water has
grooved a channel for itself over a mile below the surrounding country,
which is a desert uninhabited and uninhabitable, terraced with long
series of cliffs or _mesa_-fronts, verdureless, voiceless and
unbeautiful. It is a land of soft, crumbling soil and parched rock, dyed
with strange colors and broken into fantastic shapes. Nature is titanic
and mad: the sane and alleviating beauty of fertility is displaced by an
arid and inanimate desolateness, which glows with alien splendor in
evanescent conditions of the atmosphere, but which in those moments when
the sun casts a fatuous light upon it is more oppressive in its
influence upon the observer than when the blaze of high noon exposes all
of its unyielding harshness. To the feeling of desolation which comes
over one in such a region as this a quickened sense and apprehension of
the supernatural are added, and we seem to be invaders of a border-land
between the solid earth and phantasy. Nature is distraught; and so much
has man subordinated and possessed her elsewhere that here, where
existence is defeated by the absolute impossibility of sustenance, a
poignant feeling of her imperfection steals over us and weighs upon the
mind.

Perhaps no portion of the earth's surface is more irremediably sterile,
none more hopelessly lost to human occupation, and yet, an eminent
geologist has said, it is the wreck of a region once rich and beautiful,
changed and impoverished by the deepening of its draining streams--the
most striking and suggestive example of over-drainage of which we have
any knowledge. Though valueless to the agriculturist, dreaded and
shunned by the emigrant, the miner and the trapper, the Colorado plateau
is a paradise to the geologist, for nowhere else are the secrets of the
earth's structure so fully revealed as here. Winding through it is the
profound chasm within which the river flows from three thousand to six
thousand feet below the general level for five hundred miles in
unimaginable solitude and gloom, and the perpendicular crags and
precipices which imprison the stream exhibit with, unusual clearness the
zoological and physical history of the land.

[Illustration: SWALLOW CAVE, GREEN RIVER.]

[Illustration: INDIANS NEAR FLAMING GORGE (SAI-AR AND FAMILY).]

It was this chasm, with its cliffs of unparalleled magnitude and its
turbulent waters, that Major Powell explored, and no chapter of Western
adventure is more interesting than his experiences. His starting-point
was Green River City, Wyoming Territory, which is now reached from the
East by the Union Pacific Railway. On the second morning out from Omaha
the passengers find themselves whirling through sandy yellowish gullies,
and, having completed their toilettes amid the flying dust, they emerge
at about eight o'clock in a basin of gigantic and abnormal forms, upon
which lie bands of dull gold, pink, orange and vermilion. In some
instances the massive sandstones have curious architectural
resemblances, as if they had been designed and scaled on a
draughting-board, but they have been so oddly worked upon by the
elements, by the attrition of their own disintegrated particles and the
intangible carving of water, that while one block stands out as a castle
embattled on a lofty precipice, another looms up in the quivering air
with a quaint likeness to something neither human nor divine. This is
where the Overland traveller makes his first acquaintance with those
erosions which are a characterizing element of Western scenery. A broad
stream flows easily through the valley, and acquires a vivid emerald hue
from the shales in its bed, whence its name is derived. Under one of
the highest buttes a small town of newish wooden buildings is scattered,
and this is ambitiously designated Green River City, which, if for
nothing else, is memorable to the tourist for the excellence of the
breakfast which the tavern-keeper serves.

[Illustration: INDIAN LODGE NEAR FLAMING GORGE.]

But it was from here, on May 28, 1869, that Major Powell started down
the cañon on that expedition from which the few miners, stock-raisers
and tradespeople who saw his departure never expected to see him return
alive. His party consisted of nine men--J.C. Sumner and William H. Dunn,
both of whom had been trappers and guides in the Rocky Mountains;
Captain Powell, a veteran of the civil war; Lieutenant Bradley, also of
the army; O. G. Howland, formerly a printer and country editor, who had
become a hunter; Seneca Howland; Frank Goodman; Andrew Hall, a Scotch
boy; and "Billy" Hawkins, the cook, who had been a soldier, a teamster
and a trapper. These were carefully selected for their reputed courage
and powers of endurance. The boats in which they travelled were four in
number, and were built upon a model which, as far as possible, combined
strength to resist the rocks with lightness for portages and protection
against the over-wash of the waves. They were divided into three
compartments, oak being the material used in three and pine in the
fourth. The three larger ones were each twenty-one feet long: the other
was sixteen feet long, and was constructed for speed in rowing.
Sufficient food was taken to last ten months, with plenty of ammunition
and tools for building cabins and repairing the boats, besides various
scientific instruments.

Thus equipped and in single file, the expedition left Green River City
behind and pulled into the shadows of the phenomenal rocks in the early
morning of that May day of 1869. During the first few days they had no
serious mishap: they lost an oar, broke a barometer-tube and
occasionally struck a bar. All around them abounded examples of that
natural architecture which is seen from the passing train at the
"City"--weird statuary, caverns, pinnacles and cliffs, dyed gray and
buff, red and brown, blue and black--all drawn in horizontal strata like
the lines of a painter's brush. Mooring the boats and ascending the
cliffs after making camp, they saw the sun go down over a vast landscape
of glittering rock. The shadows fell in the valleys and gulches, and at
this hour the lights became higher and the depths deeper. The Uintah
Mountains stretched out in the south, thrusting their peaks into the sky
and shining as if ensheathed with silver. The distant pine forests had
the bluish impenetrability of a clear night-sky, and pink clouds floated
in motionless suspense until, with a final burst of splendor, the light
expired.

At the end of sixty-two miles they reached the mouth of Flaming Gorge,
near which some hunters and Indians are settled. Flaming Gorge is a
cañon bounded by perpendicular bluffs, banded with red and yellow to a
height of fifteen hundred feet, and the water flowing through it is a
positive malachite in color, crossed and edged with bars of glistening
white sand. It leads into Red Cañon, and in 1869 it was the gateway to a
region which was almost wholly unknown. An old Indian endeavored to
deter Major Powell from his purpose. He held his hands above his head,
with his arms vertical, and, looking between them to the sky, said,
"Rocks h-e-a-p, h-e-a-p high; the water go h-oo-woogh; water-pony (boat)
heap buck. Water catch 'em, no see 'em squaw any more, no see 'em Injin
any more, no see 'em pappoose any more." The prophecy was not
encouraging, and with some anxiety the explorers left the last vestige
of civilization behind them. Below the gorge they ran through Horseshoe
Cañon, which describes an elongated letter U in the mountains, and
several portages became necessary. The cliffs increased a thousand feet
in height, and in many places the water completely filled the channel
between them; but occasionally the cañon opened into a little park, from
the grassy carpet of which sprang crimson flowers on the stems of
pear-shaped cactus-plants, patches of blue and yellow blossoms, and a
fragrant _Spiræa_.

As often as a rapid was approached Major Powell stood on the deck of the
leading boat to examine it, and if he could see a clear passage between
the rocks he gave orders to go ahead, but if the channel was barricaded
he signalled the other boats to pull ashore, and landing himself he
walked along the edge of the cañon for further examination. If still no
channel could be found, the boats were lowered to the head of the falls
and let down by ropes secured to the stem and stern, or when this was
impracticable both the cargoes and the boats were carried by the men
beyond the point of difficulty. When it was decided to run the rapids
the greatest danger was encountered in the first wave at the foot of the
falls, which gathered higher and higher until it broke. If the boat
struck it the instant after it broke she cut through it, and the men had
all they could do to keep themselves from being washed overboard. If in
going over the falls she was caught by some side-current and borne
against the wave "broadside on," she was capsized--an accident that
happened more than once, without fatal results, however, as the
compartments served as buoys and the men clung to her and were dragged
through the waves until quieter water was reached. Where these rapids
occur the channel is usually narrowed by rocks which have tumbled from
the cliffs or have been washed in by lateral streams; but immediately
above them a bay of smooth water may usually be discovered where a
landing can be made with ease.

[Illustration: INDIANS GAMBLING.]

In such a bay Major Powell landed one day, and, seeing one of the rear
boats making for the shore after he had given his signal, he supposed
the others would follow her example, and walked along the side of the
cañon-wall to look for the fall of which a loud roar gave some
premonition. But a treacherous eddy carried the boat manned by the two
Howlands and Goodman into the current, and a moment later she
disappeared over the unseen falls. The first fall was not great--not
more than ten or twelve feet--but below the river sweeps down forty or
fifty feet through a channel filled with spiked rocks which break it
into whirlpools and frothy crests. Major Powell scrambled around a crag
just in time to see the boat strike one of these rocks, and, rebounding
from the shock, careen and fill the open compartment with water. The
oars were dashed out of the hands of two of the crew as she swung around
and was carried down the stream with great velocity, and immediately
after she struck another rock amidships, which broke her in two and
threw the men into the water. The larger part of the wreck floated
buoyantly, and seizing it the men supported themselves by it until a few
hundred feet farther down they came to a second fall, filled with huge
boulders, upon which the wreck was dashed to pieces, and the men and the
fragments were again carried out of Major Powell's sight. He struggled
along the scant foothold afforded by the cañon-wall, and coming suddenly
to a bend saw one of the men in a whirlpool below a large rock, to which
he was clinging with all possible tenacity. It was Goodman, and a little
farther on was Howland tossed upon a small island, with his brother
stranded upon a rock some distance below. Howland struck out for Goodman
with a pole, by means of which he relieved him from his precarious
position, and very soon the wrecked crew stood together, bruised, shaken
and scared, but not disabled. A swift, dangerous river was on each side
of them and a fall below them. It was now a problem how to release them
from this imprisonment. Sumner volunteered, and in one of the other
boats started out from above the island, and with skilful paddling
landed upon it. Together with the three shipwrecked men he then pushed
up stream until all stood up to their necks in water, when one of them
braced himself against a rock and held the boat while the three others
jumped into her: the man on the rock followed, and all four then pulled
vigorously for the shore, which they reached in safety. Many years
before an adventurous trapper and his party had been wrecked here and
several lives had been lost. Major Powell named the spot Disaster Falls.

The cliffs are so high that the twilight is perpetual, and the sky seems
like a flat roof pressed across them. As the worn men stretched
themselves out in their blankets they saw a bright star that appeared
to rest on the very verge of the eastern cliff, and then to float from
its resting-place on the rock over the cañon. At first it was like a
jewel set on the brink of the cliff, and as it moved out from the rock
they wondered that it did not fall. It did seem to descend in a gentle
curve, and the other stars were apparently in the cañon, as if the sky
was spread over the gulf, resting on either wall and swayed down by its
own weight.

Sixteen days after leaving Green River City the explorers reached the
end of the Cañon of Lodore, which is nearly twenty-four miles long. The
walls were never less than two thousand feet high except near the foot.
They are very irregular, standing in perpendicular or overhanging cliffs
here, terraced there, or receding in steep slopes broken by many
side-gulches. The highest point of the wall is twenty-seven hundred
feet, but the peaks a little distance off are a thousand feet higher.
Yellow pines, nut pines, firs and cedars stand in dense forests on the
Uintah Mountains, and clinging to moving rocks they have come down the
walls to the water's edge between Flaming Gorge and Echo Park. The red
sandstones are lichened over, delicate mosses grow in the moist places
and ferns festoon the walls.

[Illustration: HORSESHOE CAÑON.]

A few days later they were upset again, losing oars, guns and
barometers, and on July 18th they had only enough provisions left for
two months, though they had supplied themselves with quantities which,
barring accidents, should have lasted ten months. On July 19th the Grand
Cañon of the Colorado became visible, and from an eminence they could
follow its course for miles and catch glimpses of the river. The Green,
down which they had come so far, bears in from the north-west through a
narrow, winding gorge. The Grand comes in from the north-east through a
channel which from the explorer's point of view seems bottomless. Away
to the west are lines of cliffs and ledges of rock, with grotesque forms
intervening. In the east a chain of eruptive mountains is visible, the
slopes covered with pines, the summits coated with snow and the gulches
flanked by great crags. Wherever the men looked there were rocks, deep
gorges in which the rivers were lost under cliffs, towers and pinnacles,
thousands of strangely-carved forms, and mountains blending with the
clouds. They passed the junction of the Grand and Green, and on July
21st they were on the Colorado itself. The walls are nearly vertical,
and the river is broad and swift, but free from rocks and falls. From
the edge of the water to the brink of the cliffs is nearly two thousand
feet, and the cliffs are reflected on the quiet surface until it seems
to the travellers that there is a vast abyss below them. But the
tranquillity is not lasting: a little way below this space of majestic
calm it was necessary to make three portages in succession, the distance
being less than three-quarters of a mile, with a fall of seventy-five
feet. In the evening Major Powell sat upon a rock by the edge of the
river to look at the water and listen to its roar. Heavy shadows settled
in the cañon as the sun passed behind the cliffs, and no glint of light
remained on the crags above, but the waves were crested with a white
that seemed luminous. A great fall broke at the foot of a block of
limestone fifty feet high, and rolled back in immense billows. Over the
sunken rocks the flood was heaped up into mounds and even cones. The
tumult was extraordinary. At a point where the rocks were very near the
surface the water was thrown up ten or fifteen feet, and fell back in
gentle curves as in a fountain.

On August 3d the party traversed a cañon of diversified features. The
walls were still vertical in places, especially near the bends, and the
river sweeping round the capes had undermined the cliffs. Sometimes the
rocks overarched: again curious narrow glens were found. The men
explored the glens, in one of which they discovered a natural stairway
several hundred feet high leading to a spring which burst out from an
overhanging cliff among aspens and willows, while along the edges of the
brooklet there were oaks and other rich vegetation. There were also many
side-cañons with walls nearer to each other above than below, giving
them the character of grottoes; and there were carved walls, arches,
alcoves and monuments, to all of which the collective name of Glen Cañon
was given.

One morning the surveyors came to a point where the river filled the
entire channel and the walls were sheer to the water's edge. They saw a
fall below, and in order to inspect it they pulled up against one of the
cliffs, in which was a little shelf or crevice a few feet above their
heads. One man stood on the deck of the boat while another climbed over
his shoulders into this insecure foothold, along which they passed until
it became a shelf which was broken by a chasm some yards farther on.
They then returned to the boat and pulled across the stream for some
logs which had lodged on the opposite shore, and with which it was
intended to bridge the gulf. It was no easy work hauling the wood along
the fissure, but with care and patience they accomplished it, and
reached a point in the cliffs from which the falls could be seen. It
seemed practicable to lower the boats over the stormy waters by holding
them with ropes from the cliffs; and this was done successfully, the
incident illustrating how laborious their progress sometimes became.

The scenery was of unending interest. The rocks were of many
colors--white, gray, pink and purple, with saffron tints. At an elbow of
the river the water has excavated a semicircular chamber which would
hold fifty thousand people, and farther on the cliffs are of
softly-tinted marble lustrously polished by the waves. At one place
Major Powell walked for more than a mile on a marble pavement fretted
with strange devices and embossed with a thousand different patterns.
Through a cleft in the wall the sun shone on this floor, which gleamed
with iridescent beauty. Exploring the cleft, Major Powell found a
succession of pools one above another, and each cold and clear, though
the water of the river was a dull red. Then a bend in the cañon
disclosed a massive abutment that seemed to be set with a million
brilliant gems as they approached it, and every one wondered. As they
came closer to it they saw many springs bursting from the rock high
overhead, and the spray in the sunshine forms the gems which glitter in
the walls, at the base of which is a profusion of mosses, ferns and
flowers. To the place above where the three portages were necessary the
name of Cataract Cañon was given; and they were now well into the Grand
Cañon itself. The walls were more than a mile in height, and, as Major
Powell says, a vertical altitude like this is not easily pictured.
"Stand on the south steps of the Treasury Building in Washington and
look down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Park, and measure this
distance overhead, and imagine cliffs to extend to that altitude, and
you will understand what I mean," the explorer has written; "or stand at
Canal street in New York and look up Broadway to Grace Church, and you
have about the distance; or stand at the Lake street bridge in Chicago
and look down to the Central Dépôt, and you have it again." A thousand
feet of the distance is through granite crags, above which are slopes
and perpendicular cliffs to the summit. The gorge is black and narrow
below, red and gray and flaring above.

[Illustration: THE HEART OF CATARACT CAÑON.]

Down these gloomy depths the expedition constantly glided, ever
listening and ever peering ahead, for the cañon is winding and they
could not see more than a few hundred yards in advance. The view
changed every minute as some new crag or pinnacle or glen or peak became
visible; but the men were fully engaged listening for rapids and looking
for rocks. Navigation was exceedingly difficult, and it was often
necessary to hold the boats from ledges in the cliffs as the falls were
passed. The river was very deep and the cañon very narrow. The waters
boiled and rushed in treacherous currents, which sometimes whirled the
boats into the stream or hurried them against the walls. The oars were
useless, and each crew labored for its own preservation as its frail
vessel was spun round like a top or borne with the speed of a locomotive
this way and that.

[Illustration: MARY'S VEIL, A SIDE CAÑON.]

While they were thus uncontrollable the boats entered a rapid, and one
of them was driven in shore, but as there was no foothold for a portage
the men pushed into the stream again. The next minute a reflex wave
filled the open compartment and water-logged her: breaker after breaker
rolled over her, and one capsized her. The men were thrown out, but they
managed to cling to her, and as they were swept down the other boats
rescued them.

Heavy clouds rolled in the cañon, filling it with gloom. Sometimes they
hung above from wall to wall and formed a roof: then a gust of wind from
a side-cañon made a rift in them and the blue heavens were revealed, or
they dispersed in patches which settled on the crags, while puffs of
vapor issued out of the smaller gulches, and occasionally formed bars
across the cañon, one above another, each opening a different vista.
When they discharged their rains little rills first trickled down the
cliff, and these soon became brooks: the brooks grew into creeks and
tumbled down through innumerable cascades, which added their music to
the roar of the river. As soon as the rain ceased rills, brooks, creeks
and cascades disappeared, their birth and death being equally sudden.

[Illustration: LIGHTHOUSE ROCK IN THE CAÑON OF DESOLATION.]

Desolate and inaccessible as the cañon is, many ruins of buildings are
found perched upon ledges in the stupendous cliffs. In some instances
the mouths of caves have been walled in, and the evidences all point to
a race for ever dreading and fortifying itself against an invader. Why
did these people chose their embattlements so far away from all
tillable land and sources of subsistence? Major Powell suggests this
solution of the problem: For a century or two after the settlement of
Mexico many expeditions were sent into the country now comprised in
Arizona and New Mexico for the purpose of bringing the town-building
people under the dominion of the Spanish government. Many of their
villages were destroyed, and the inhabitants fled to regions at that
time unexplored; and there are traditions among the existing Pueblos
that the cañons were these lands. The Spanish conquerors had a monstrous
greed for gold and a lust for saving souls. "Treasure they must have--if
not on earth why, then, in heaven--and when they failed to find heathen
temples bedecked with silver they propitiated Heaven by seizing the
heathen themselves. There is yet extant a copy of a record made by a
heathen artist to express his conception of the demands of the
conquerors. In one part of the picture we have a lake, and near by
stands a priest pouring water on the head of a native. On the other side
a poor Indian has a cord around his throat. Lines run from these two
groups to a central figure, a man with a beard and full Spanish panoply.
The interpretation of the picture-writing is this: 'Be baptized as this
saved heathen, or be hanged as this damned heathen.' Doubtless some of
the people preferred a third alternative, and rather than be baptized or
hanged they chose to be imprisoned within these cañon-walls."

The rains and the accidents in the rapids had seriously reduced the
commissary by this time, and the provisions left were more or less
injured. The bacon was uneatable, and had to be thrown away: the flour
was musty, and the saleratus was lost overboard. On August 17th the
party had only enough food remaining for ten days' use, and though they
hoped that the worst places had been passed, the barometers were broken,
and they did not know what descent they had yet to make. The canvas
which they had brought with them for covering from Green River City was
rotten, there was not one blanket apiece for the men, and more than half
the party were hatless. Despite their hopes that the greatest obstacles
had been overcome, however, on the morning of August 27th they reached a
place which appeared more perilous than any they had so far passed. They
landed on one side of the river, and clambered over the granite
pinnacles for a mile or two without seeing any way by which they could
lower the boats. Then they crossed to the other side and walked along
the top of a crag. In his eagerness to reach a point where he could see
the roaring fall below, Major Powell went too far, and was caught at a
point where he could neither advance nor retreat: the river was four
hundred feet below, and he was suspended in front of the cliff with one
foot on a small projecting rock and one hand fixed in a little crevice.
He called for help, and the men passed him a line, but he could not let
go of the rock long enough to seize it. While he felt his hold becoming
weaker and expected momentarily to drop into the cañon, the men went to
the boats and obtained three of the largest oars. The blade of one of
them was pushed into the crevice of a rock beyond him in such a manner
that it bound him across the body to the wall, and another oar was fixed
so that he could stand upon it and walk out of the difficulty. He
breathed again, but had felt that cold air which seems to fan one when
death is near.

Another hour was spent in examining the river, but a good view of it
could not be obtained, and they once more went to the opposite side.
After some hard work among the cliffs they discovered that the lateral
streams had washed a large number of boulders into the river, forming a
dam over which the water made a broken fall of about twenty feet, below
which was a rapid beset by huge rocks for two or three hundred yards.
This was bordered on one side by a series of sharp projections of the
cañon-walls, and beyond it was a second fall, ending in another and no
less threatening rapid. At the bottom of the latter an immense slab of
granite projected fully halfway across the river, and upon the inclined
plane which it formed the water rolled with all the momentum gained in
the falls and rapids above, and then swept over to the left. The men
viewed the prospect with dismay, but Major Powell had an insatiable
desire to complete the exploration. He decided that it was possible to
let the boats down over the first fall, then to run near the right cliff
to a point just above the second fall, where they could pull into a
little chute, and from the foot of that across the stream to avoid the
great rock below. The men shook their heads, and after supper--a sorry
supper of unleavened flour and water, coffee and rancid bacon, eaten on
the rocks--the elder Howland endeavored to dissuade the leader from his
purpose, and, failing to do so, told him that he with his brother and
Dunn would go no farther. That night Major Powell did not sleep at all,
but paced to and fro, now measuring the remaining provisions, then
contemplating the rushing falls and rapids. Might not Howland be right?
Would it be wise to venture into that maëlstrom which was white during
the darkest hours of the night? At one time he almost concluded to leave
the river and to strike out across the table-lands for the Mormon
settlements. But this trip had been the object of his life for many
years, looked forward to and dreamed of, and to leave the exploration
unfinished when he was so near the end, to acknowledge defeat, was more
than he could reconcile himself to.

[Illustration: GRANITE WALLS.]

In the morning his brother, Captain Powell, Sumner, Bradley, Hall and
Hawkins promised to remain with him, but the Howlands and Dunn were
fixed in their determination to go no farther. The provisions were
divided, and one of the boats was left with the deserters, who were also
provided with three guns: Howland was also entrusted with duplicate
copies of the records and with some mementos the voyagers desired to
have sent to friends and relatives should they not be heard of again. It
was a solemn parting. The Howlands and Dunn entreated the others not to
go on, telling them that it was obvious madness; but the decision had
been made, and the two boats pushed out into the stream.

They glided rapidly along the foot of the wall, grazing one large rock,
and then they pulled into the falls and plunged over them. The open
compartment of the major's boat was filled when she struck the first
wave below, but she cut through the upheaval, and by vigorous strokes
was drawn away from the dangerous rock farther down. They were scarcely
a minute in running through the rapids, and found that what had seemed
almost hopeless from above was really less difficult than many other
points on the river. The Rowlands and their companion were now out of
sight, and guns were fired to indicate to them that the passage had been
safely made and to induce them to follow; but no answer came, and after
waiting two hours the descent of the river was resumed.

[Illustration: CAÑON IN ESCALANTE BASIN.]

A succession of falls and rapids still had to be overcome, and in the
afternoon the explorers were once more threatened with defeat. A little
stream entered the cañon from the left, and immediately below the river
broke over two falls, beyond which it rose in high waves and subsided in
whirlpools. The boats hugged the left wall for some distance, but when
the men saw that they could not descend on this side they pulled up
stream several hundred yards and crossed to the other. Here there was a
bed of basalt about one hundred feet high, which, disembarking, they
followed, pulling the boats after them by ropes. The major, as usual,
went ahead, and discovered that it would be impossible to lower the
boats from the cliff; but the men had already brought one of them to the
brink of the falls and had secured her by a bight around a crag. The
other boat, in which Bradley had remained, was shooting in and out from
the cliffs with great violence, now straining the line by which she was
held, and now whirling against the rock as if she would dash herself to
pieces. An effort was made to pass another rope to Bradley, but he was
so preoccupied that he did not notice it, and the others saw him take a
knife out of its sheath and step forward to cut the line. He had decided
that it was better to go over the falls with her than to wait for her to
be completely wrecked against the rocks. He did not show the least
alarm, and as he leaned over to cut the rope the boat sheered into the
stream, the stern-post broke and he was adrift. With perfect composure
he seized the large scull-oar, placed it in the stern rowlock and pulled
with all his strength, which was considerable, to turn the bow down
stream. After the third stroke she passed over the falls and was
invisible for several seconds, when she reappeared upon a great wave,
dancing high over its crest, then sinking between two vast walls of
water. The men on the cliff held their breath as they watched. Again she
disappeared, and this time was out of sight so long that poor Bradley's
fate seemed settled; but in a moment more something was noticed emerging
from the water farther down the stream: it was the boat, with Bradley
standing on deck and twirling his hat to show that he was safe. He was
spinning round in a whirlpool, however, and Sumner and Powell were sent
along the cliff to see if they could help him, while the major and the
others embarked in the remaining boat and passed over the fall. After
reaching the brink they do not remember what happened to them, except
that their boat was upset and that Bradley pulled them out of the water.
Powell and Sumner joined them by climbing along the cliff, and, having
put the boats in order, they once more started down the stream.

[Illustration: PA-RU-NU-WEAP CAÑON.]

On the next day, August 29th, three months and five days after leaving
Green River City, they reached the foot of the Grand Cañon of the
Colorado, the passage of which had been of continuous peril and toil,
and on the 30th they ended their exploration at a ranch, from which the
way was easy to Salt Lake City. "Now the danger is over," writes Major
Powell in his diary; "now the toil has ceased; now the gloom has
disappeared; now the firmament is bounded only by the horizon; and what
a vast expanse of constellations can be seen! The river rolls by us in
silent majesty; the quiet of the camp is sweet; our joy is almost
ecstasy. We sit till long after midnight talking of the Grand Cañon,
talking of home, but chiefly talking of the three men who left us. Are
they wandering in those depths, unable to find a way out? are they
searching over the desert-lands above for water? or are they nearing the
settlements?"

It was about a year afterward that their fate became known. Major Powell
was continuing his explorations, and having passed through Pa-ru-nu-weap
(or Roaring Water) Cañon, he spent some time among the Indians in the
region beyond, from whom he learned that three white men had been
killed the year before. They had come upon the Indian village starving
and exhausted with fatigue, saying that they had descended the Grand
Cañon. They were fed and started on the way to the settlements, but they
had not gone far when an Indian arrived from the east side of the
Colorado and told of some miners who had killed a squaw in a drunken
brawl. He incited the tribe to follow and attack the three whites, who
no doubt were the murderers. Their story of coming down the Grand Cañon
was impossible--no men had ever done that--and it was a falsehood
designed to cover their guilt. Excited by a desire for revenge, a party
stole after them, surrounded them in ambush and filled them with arrows.
This was the tragic end of Dunn and the Rowland brothers.

Little need be added. The unflinching courage, the quiet persistence and
the inexhaustible zeal of Major Powell enabled him to achieve a
geographical exploit which had been deemed wholly impracticable, and
which in adventurousness puts most of the feats of the Alpine Club in
the shade. But the narrative may derive a further interest from one
other fact concerning this intrepid explorer, whom we have seen standing
at the bow of his boats and guiding them over tempestuous falls, rapids
and whirlpools, soaring among the crags of almost perpendicular
cañon-walls and suspended by his fingers from the rocks four hundred
feet above the level of the river: Major Powell is a one-armed man!

                          WILLIAM H. RIDEING.




ADAM AND EVE.


CHAPTER XXX.

For an instant every one seemed paralyzed and transfixed in the position
into which upon Jonathan's entrance they had started. Then a sudden rush
was made toward the door, which several of the strongest blocked up,
while Adam called vainly on them to stand aside and give the chance of
more air. Joan flew for water, and Jerrem dashed it over Jonathan.

There was a minute of anxious watching, and then slowly over Jonathan's
pallid face the signs of returning animation began to creep.

"Now, stand back--stand back from him, do!" said Adam, fearing the
effect of so many faces crowding near would only serve to further daze
his scared senses.--"What is it, Jonathan? what is it, lad?" he asked,
kneeling down by him.

Jonathan tried to rise, and Adam motioned for Barnabas Tadd to come and
assist in getting him on his feet.

"Now, sit down there," said Adam, "and put your lips to this, and then
tell us what's up."

Jonathan cowered down as he threw a hasty glance round, the meaning of
which was answered by a general "You knaws all of us, Jonathan, don't
ee?"

"Iss," said Jonathan, breaking into a feeble laugh, "but somehows I'd a
rinned till I'd got 'em all, as I fancied, to my heels, close by."

"And where are they, then?" said Adam, seizing the opportunity of
getting at the most important fact.

"Comin' 'long t' roadway, man by man, and straddled on to their horses'
backs. They'm to take 'ee all, dead or livin', sarch by night or day.
Some o' 'em is come all the ways fra Plymouth, vowin' and swearin'
they'll have blid for blid, and that if they can't pitch 'pon he who
fired to kill their man every sawl aboard the Lottery shall swing
gallows-high for un."

A volley of oaths ran through the room, Joan threw up her arms in
despair, Eve groaned aloud.

Suddenly there was a movement as if some one was breaking from a
detaining hand. 'Twas Jerrem, who, pushing forward, cried out, "Then
I'll give myself up to wance: nobody sha'n't suffer 'cos o' me. I did
it, and I wasn't afeared to do it, neither, and no more I ain't afeared
to answer for it now."

The buzz which negatived this offer bespoke the appreciation of Jerrem's
magnanimity.

Adam alone had taken no part in it: turning, he said sternly, "Do we
risk our lives together, then, to skulk off when danger offers and leave
one to suffer for all? Let's have no more of such idle talk. While
things promised to run smooth you was welcome to the boast of havin'
fired first shot, but now every man aboard fired it; and let he who says
he didn't stand out and say it now."

"Fair spoke and good sense," said the men.

"Then off with you, each to the place he thinks safest.--Jerrem and you,
father, must stay here. I shall go to the mill, and, Jonathan, for the
night you'd best come along with me."

With little visible excitement and but few words the men began to
depart, all of them more or less stupefied by the influence of drink,
which, combined with this unexpected dash to their hopes and overthrow
of their boastings, seemed to rob them of all their energy. They were
ready to do whatever they were asked, go wherever they were told, listen
to all that was said, but anything beyond this was then impossible. They
had no more power of deciding, proposing, arranging for themselves, than
if they had been a flock of sheep warned that a ravenous wolf was near.

The one necessary action which seemed to have laid hold upon them was
that they must all solemnly shake hands; and this in many cases they
did over and over again, repeating each time, with a warning nod of the
head, "Well, mate, 'tis a bad job o' it, this," until some of the more
collected felt it necessary to interfere and urge their immediate
departure: then one by one they stole away, leaving the house in
possession of its usual occupants.

Adam had already been up stairs to get Uncle Zebedee--now utterly
incapable of any thought for himself--safely placed in a secret closet
which was hollowed in the wall behind the bed. Turning to Jerrem as he
came down, he said, "You can manage to stow yourself away; only mind, do
it at once, so that the house is got quiet before they've time to get
here."

"All right," said Jerrem doggedly, while Joan slid back the seat of the
settle, turned down a flap in the wall, and discovered the hole in which
Jerrem was to lie concealed. "There! there ain't another hidin'-place
like that in all Polperro," she said. "They may send a whole reg'ment o'
sodgers afore a man among 'em 'ull pitch on 'ee there, Jerrem."

"And that's the reason why I don't want to have it," said Jerrem. "I
don't see why I'm to have the pick and choice, and why Adam's to go off
to where they've only got to search and find."

"Well, but 'tis as he says," urged Joan. "They may ha' got you in their
eye already. Come, 'tis all settled now," she continued persuasively;
"so get 'longs in with 'ee, like a dear."

Jerrem gave a look round. Eve was busy clearing the table, Adam was
putting some tobacco into his pouch. He hesitated, then he made a step
forward, then he drew back again, until at last, with visible effort, he
said, "Come, give us yer hand, Adam." With no affectation of cordiality
Adam held out his hand. "Whatever comes, you've spoke up fair for me,
and acted better than most would ha' done, seem' that I've let my tongue
run a bit too fast 'bout you o' late."

"Oh, don't think I've done any more for you than I should ha' done for
either one o' the others," said Adam, not willing to accept a feather's
weight of Jerrem's gratitude. "However," he added, trying to force
himself into a greater show of graciousness, "here's wishin' all may go
well with you, as with all of us!"

Not over-pleased with this cold reception of his advances, Jerrem turned
hastily round to Joan. "Here, let's have a kiss, Joan," he said.

"Iss, twenty, my dear, so long as you'll only be quick 'bout it."

"Eve!"

"There! nonsense now!" exclaimed Joan, warned by an expression in Adam's
face: "there's no call for no leave-takin' with Eve: her'll be here so
well as you."

The words, well-intentioned as they were, served as fuel to Adam's
jealous fire, and for a moment he felt that it was impossible to go away
and leave Jerrem behind; but the next instant the very knowledge of that
passing weakness was only urging him to greater self-command, although
the effort it cost him gave a hardness to his voice and a coldness to
his manner. One tender word, and his resolve would be gone--one soft
emotion, and to go would be impossible.

Eve, on her part, with all her love reawakened, her fears excited and
her imagination sharpened, was wrought up to a pitch of emotion which
each moment grew more and more beyond her control. In her efforts to
keep calm she busied herself in clearing the table and moving to and fro
the chairs, all the time keenly alive to the fact that Joan was hovering
about Adam, suggesting comforts, supplying resources and pouring out a
torrent of wordy hopes and fears. Surely Adam would ask--Joan would
think to give them--one moment to themselves? If not she would demand
it, but before she could speak, boom on her heart came Adam's "Good-bye,
Joan, good-bye." What can she do now? How bear this terrible parting? In
her efforts to control the desire to give vent to her agony her powers
of endurance utterly gave way. A rushing sound as of many waters came
gurgling in her ears, dulling the voice of some one who spoke from far
off.

"What are they saying?" In vain she tried to catch the words, to speak,
to move: then, gathering up all her strength, with a piercing cry she
tried to break the spell. The room reeled, the ground beneath her gave
way, a hundred voices shrieked good-bye, and with their clamor ringing
in her ears Eve's spirit went down into silence and darkness. Another
minute, and she was again alive to all her misery: Joan was kneeling
beside her, the tears streaming from her eyes.

"What is it? Where's Adam?" exclaimed Eve, starting up.

"Gone," said Joan: "he said 'twas better to, 'fore you comed to yourself
agen."

"Gone! and never said a word?" she cried. "Gone! Oh, Joan, how could he?
how could he?"

"What would 'ee have un do, then?" said Joan sharply. "Bide dallyin'
here to be took by the hounds o' sodgers that's marchin' 'pon us all?
That's fine love, I will say." But suddenly a noise outside made them
both start and stand listening with beating hearts until all again was
still and quiet: then Joan's quick-roused anger failed her, and,
repenting her sharp speech, she threw her arms round Eve's neck, crying,
"Awh, Eve, don't 'ee lets you and me set 'bout quarrellin', my dear, for
if sorrow ain't a-drawin' nigh my name's not Joan Hocken. I never before
felt the same way as I do to-night. My spirits is gived way: my heart
seems to have falled flat down and died within me, and, be doing what I
may, there keeps soundin' in my ears a nickety-knock like the tappin' on
a coffin-lid."


CHAPTER XXXI.

Since the night on which Jonathan's arrival had plunged the party
assembled at Zebedee Pascal's into such dismay a week had passed
by--seven days and nights of terror and confusion.

The determined manner in which the government authorities traced out
each clew and tracked every scent struck terror into the stoutest
hearts, and men who had never before shrunk from danger in any open form
now feared to show their faces, dared not sleep in their own houses,
nor, except by stealth, visit their own families. At dead of night, as
well as in the blaze of day, stealthy descents would be made upon the
place, the houses surrounded and strict search made. One hour the
streets would be deserted, the next every corner bristled with rude
soldiery, flinging insults and imprecations on the feeble old men and
defenceless women, who, panic-stricken, stood about vainly endeavoring
to seem at their ease and keep up a show of indifference.

One of the first acts had been to seize the Lottery, and orders had been
issued to arrest all or any of her crew, wherever they might be found;
but as yet no trace of them had been discovered. Jerrem and Uncle
Zebedee still lay concealed within the house, and Adam at the mill,
crouched beneath corn-bins, lay covered by sacks and grain, while the
tramp of the soldiers sounded in his ears or the ring of their voices
set his stout heart quaking with fear of discovery. To men whose lives
had been spent out of doors, with the free air of heaven and the fresh
salt breeze of the sea constantly sweeping over them, toil and hardship
were pastimes compared to this inactivity; and it was little to be
wondered at that for one and all the single solace left seemed drink.
Drink deadened their restlessness, benumbed their energies, made them
forget their dangers, sleep through their durance. So that even Adam
could not always hold out against a solace which helped to shorten the
frightful monotony of those weary days, dragged out for the most time in
solitude and darkness. With no occupation, no resources, no companion,
ever dwelling on self and viewing each action, past and present, by the
light of an exaggerated (often a distorted) vision, Adam grew irritable,
morose, suspicious.

Why hadn't Joan come? Surely there couldn't be anything to keep Eve
away? And if so, might they not send a letter, a message or some token
to show him that he was still in their thoughts? In vain did Mrs. Tucker
urge the necessity of a caution hitherto unknown: in vain did she repeat
the stories brought of footsteps dogged, and houses watched so that
their inmates dare not run the smallest risk for fear of its leading to
detection. Adam turned a deaf ear to all she said, sinking at last down
to the conclusion that he could endure such suspense no longer, and,
come what might, must the next day steal back home and satisfy himself
how things were going on. The only concession to her better judgment
which Mrs. Tucker could gain was his promise to wait until she had been
in to Polperro to reconnoitre; for though, from having seen a party of
soldiers pass that morning, they knew some of the troop had left, it was
impossible to say how many remained behind nor whether they had received
fresh strength from the opposite direction.

"I sha'n't give no more o' they than I sees the wisdom of," reflected
Mrs. Tucker as, primed with questions to ask Joan and messages to give
to Eve, she securely fastened the doors preparatory to her departure.
"If I was to tell up such talk to Eve her'd be piping off here next
minit or else sendin' back a pack o' silly speeches that 'ud make Adam
mazed to go to she. 'Tis wonderful how took up he is with a maid he
knows so little of. But there! 'tis the same with all the men, I
b'lieve--tickle their eye and good-bye to their judgment." And giving
the outer gate a shake to assure herself that it could not be opened
without a preparatory warning to those within, Mrs. Tucker turned away
and out into the road.

A natural tendency to be engrossed by personal interests, together with
a life of narrowed circumstances, had somewhat blunted the acuteness of
Mrs. Tucker's impressionable sensibilities, yet she could not but be
struck at the change these last two weeks had wrought in the aspect of
the place. The houses, wont to stand open so that friendly greetings
might be exchanged, were now closed and shut; the blinds of most of the
windows were drawn down; the streets, usually thronged with idlers, were
all but deserted; the few shops empty of wares and of customers. Calling
to her recollection the frequent prophetic warnings she had indulged in
about these evil days to come, Mrs. Tucker's heart smote her. Surely
Providence had never taken her at her word and really brought a judgment
on the place? If so, seeing her own kith and kin would be amongst the
most to suffer, it had read a very wrong meaning in her words; for it
stood to reason when folks talked serious-like they didn't always stop
to measure what they said, and if a text or two o' Scripture sounded
seemly, 'twas fitted in to help their speech out with, not to be pulled
abroad to seek the downright meanin' o' each word.

Subdued and oppressed by these and like reflections, Mrs. Tucker reached
Uncle Zebedee's house, inside which the change wrought was in keeping
with the external sadness. Both girls looked harassed and
careworn--Joan, now that there was no further occasion for that display
of spirit and bravado which before the soldiers she had successfully
contrived to maintain, utterly broken down and apathetically dejected;
Eve, unable to enter into all the difficulties or sympathize in the
universal danger, ill at ease with herself and irritable with all around
her. In her anxiety to hear about Adam--what message he had sent and
whether she could not go to see him--she had barely patience to listen
to Mrs. Tucker's roundabout details and lugubrious lamentations, and,
choosing a very inopportune moment, she broke out with, "What message
has Adam sent, Mrs. Tucker? He's sent a message to me, I'm sure: I know
he must have."

"Awh, well, if you knaws, you don't want to be told, then," snorted Mrs.
Tucker, ill pleased at having her demands upon sympathy put to such
sudden flight. "Though don't you think, Eve, that Adam hasn't got
somethin' else to think of than sendin' love-messages and nonsense o'
that sort? He's a good deal too much took up 'bout the trouble we'm all
in for that.--He hoped you was all well, and keepin' yer spirits up,
Joan."

"Poor sawl!" sighed Joan: "I 'spects he finds that's more than he can
do."

"Ah, you may well say that," replied Mrs. Tucker, casting a troubled
look toward her daughter's altered face. "Adam's doin' purtty much the
same as you be, Joan--frettin' his insides out."

"He's fretting, then?" gasped Eve, managing to get the words past the
great lump which seemed to choke her further utterance.

"Frettin'," repeated Mrs. Tucker with severity. "But there! why should
I?" she added, as if blaming her sense of injury. "I keeps forgettin'
that, compared with Joan, Eve, you'm nothin' but a stranger, as you may
say; and, though I dare say I sha'n't get your thanks for saying it,
still Adam could tell 'ee so well as me that fresh faces is all very
well in fair weather, but in times of trouble they counts for very
little aside o' they who's bin brought up from the same cradle, you may
say."

Eve's swelling heart could bear no more. This sense of being set aside
and looked on as a stranger was a gall which of late she had been
frequently called upon to endure, but to have it hinted at that Adam
could share in this feeling toward her--oh, it was too much, and rising
hastily she turned to run up stairs.

"Now, there's no call to fly off in no tantrums, Eve," said Mrs. Tucker;
"so just sit down now and listen to what else I've got to say."

But Eve's outraged love could hide itself no longer: to answer Joan's
mother with anything like temper was impossible, and, knowing this, her
only refuge was in flight. "I don't want to hear any more you may have
to say, Mrs. Tucker;" and though Eve managed to keep under the sharpness
of her voice, she could not control the indignant expression of her
face, which Mrs. Tucker fully appreciating, she speeded her departure by
the inspiriting prediction that if Eve didn't sup sorrow by the spoonful
before her hair was gray her name wasn't Ann Tucker.

"Awh, don't 'ee say that," said Joan. "You'm over-crabbit with her,
mother, and her only wantin' to hear some word that Adam had sent to her
ownself."

"But, mercy 'pon us! her must give me time to fetch my breath,"
exclaimed Mrs. Tucker indignantly, "and I foaced to fly off as I did for
fear that Adam should forestall me and go doin' somethin' foolish!"

"He ain't wantin' to come home?" said Joan hurriedly.

"Iss, but he is, though. And when us see they sodgers go past I thought
no other than he'd a set off then and there. As I said to un, ''Tis true
you knows o' they that's gone, but how can 'ee tell how many's left
behind?'"

Joan shook her head. "They'm all off," she said: "every man of 'em's
gone; but, for all that, Adam mustn't come anighst us or show his face
in the place. 'Tis held everywhere that this move is nothin' but a decoy
to get the men out o' hidin', and that done, back they'll all come and
drop down on 'em."

"Well, then, I'd best go back to wanst," cried Mrs. Tucker, starting up,
"and try and put a stop to his comin', tho' whether he'll pay any heed
to what I say is more than I'll answer for."

"Tell un," said Joan, "that for all our sakes he mustn't come, and say
that I've had word that Jonathan's lurkin' nigh about here some place,
so I reckon there's somethin' up; and what it is he shall know so soon
as I can send word to un. Say _that_ ought to tell un 'tisn't safe to
stir, 'cos he knows that Jonathan would sooner have gone to he than to
either wan here."

"Well, I'll tell un all you tells me to," said Mrs. Tucker with a
somewhat hopeless expression; "but you knaw what Adam is, Joan, when he
fixes his mind on anythin'; and I've had the works o' the warld to keep
un from comin' already: he takes such fancies about 'ee all as you never
did. I declare if I didn't knaw that p'r'aps he's a had more liquor than
he's used to take o' times I should ha' fancied un light-headed like."

"And so he'll be if you gives much sperrit to un, mother," said Joan
anxiously: "'tis sure to stir his temper up. But there!" she added
despondingly, "what can anybody do? 'Tis all they ha' got to fly to.
There's Jerrem at it fro' mornin' to night; and as for uncle, dear sawl!
he's as happy as a clam at high watter."

"Iss, I reckon," said Mrs. Tucker: "it don't never matter much what goes
wrong, so long as uncle gets his fill o' drink. I've said scores o'
times uncle's joy 'ud never run dry so long as liquor lasted."

"Awh, well," said Joan, "I don't knaw what us should ha' done if there'd
ha' bin no drink to give 'em: they'd ha' bin more than Eve and me could
manage, I can tell 'ee. Nobody but our ownselves, mother, will ever
knaw what us two maidens have had to go through."

"You've often had my thoughts with 'ee, Joan," said Mrs. Tucker, her
eyes dimmed by a rush of motherly sympathy for all the girls must have
suffered; "and you can tell Eve (for her'll take it better from you than
from me) that Adam's allays a-thinkin' of her, and begged and prayed
that she wudn't forget un."

"No fear o' that," said Joan, anxious that her mother should depart;
"and mind now you say, no matter what time 'tis, directly I'se seen
Jonathan and knaws 'tis safe for we somebody shall bring un word to come
back, for Eve and me's longin' to have a sight of un."

Charged with these messages, Mrs. Tucker hastened back to the mill,
where all had gone well since her departure, and where she found Adam
more tractable and reasonable than she had had reason to anticipate. He
listened to all Joan's messages, agreed with her suspicions and seemed
contented to abide by her decision. The plain, unvarnished statement
which Mrs. Tucker gave of the misery and gloom spread over the place
affected him visibly, and her account of the two girls, and the
alteration she had seen in them, did not tend to dispel his emotion.

"As for Joan," she said, letting a tear escape and trickle down her
cheek, "'tis heart-breakin' to look at her. Her's terrible wrapped up in
you, Adam, is Joan--more than, as her mother, I cares for her to awn to,
seein' how you'm situated with Eve."

"Oh, Eve never made no difference 'twixt us two," said Adam. Then, after
a pause, he asked, "Didn't Eve give you no word to give to me?"

"Well, no," said Mrs. Tucker: then, with the determination to deal
fairly, she added quickly, "but her was full o' questions about 'ee, and
that 'fore I'd time to draw breath inside the place." Adam was silent,
and Mrs. Tucker, considering the necessity for further explanation
removed by the compromise she had made, continued: "You see, what with
Jerrem and uncle, and the drink that goes on, they two poor maidens is
kept pretty much on the go; and Eve, never bein' used to no such ways,
seems terrible harried by it all."

"Harried?" repeated Adam, with ill-suppressed bitterness, "and well she
may be; still, I should ha' thought she might have managed to send, if
'twas no more than a word, back to me."


CHAPTER XXXII.

Under the plea that, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, Jonathan
might still possibly put in an appearance, Adam lingered in his aunt's
cheerful-looking kitchen until after the clock had struck eleven: then
he very reluctantly got up, and, bidding Mrs. Tucker and Sammy
good-night, betook himself to the mill-house, in which, with regard to
his greater safety, a bed had been made up for him.

Adam felt that, court it as he might, sleep was very far from his eyes,
and that, compared to his own society and the torment of thought which
harassed and racked him each time he found himself alone, even Sammy
Tucker's company was a boon to be grateful for. There were times during
these hours of dreary loneliness when Adam's whole nature seemed
submerged by the billows of love--cruel waves, which would toss him
hither and thither, making sport of his hapless condition, to strand him
at length on the quicksands of fear, where a thousand terrible alarms
would seize him and fill him with dread as to how these disasters might
end. What would become of him? how would it fare with Eve and himself?
where could they go? what could they do?--questions ever swallowed up by
the constantly-recurring, all-important bewilderment as to what could
possibly have brought about this dire disaster.

On this night Adam's thoughts were more than usually engrossed by Eve:
her form seemed constantly before him, distracting him with images as
tempting and unsatisfying as is the desert spring with which desire
mocks the thirst of the fainting traveller. At length that relaxation of
strength which in sterner natures takes the place of tears subdued Adam,
a softened feeling crept over him, and, shifting his position so that
he might rest his arms against the corn-bin near, a deep-drawn sigh
escaped him.

"Hist!"

Adam started at the sound, and without moving turned his head and looked
rapidly about him. Nothing was to be seen: with the exception of the
small radius round the lantern all was darkness and gloom.

"Hist!" was repeated, and this time there was no more doubt but that the
sound came from some one close by.

A clammy sweat stood on Adam's forehead, his tongue felt dry and so
powerless that it needed an effort to force it to move. "Who's there?"
he said.

"'Tis me--Jonathan."

Adam caught up the lantern, and, turning it in the direction whence the
voice came, found to his relief that the rays fell upon Jonathan's face.
"Odds rot it, lad!" he exclaimed, "but you've gived me a turn! How the
deuce did you get in here? and why didn't ye come inside to the house
over there?"

"I've a bin scrooged down 'tween these 'ere sacks for ever so long,"
said Jonathan, trying to stretch out his cramped limbs: "I reckon I've
had a bit o' a nap too, for the time ha'n't a took long in goin', and
when I fust come 'twasn't altogether dark."

"'Tis close on the stroke o' twelve now," said Adam. "But come, what
news, eh? Have ye got hold o' anything yet? Are they devils off for
good? Is that what you've come to tell me?"

"Iss, they's off this time, I fancy," said Jonathan; "but 'twasn't that
broffed me, though I should ha' comed to tell 'ee o' that too."

"No? What is it then?" demanded Adam impatiently, turning the light so
that he could get a better command of Jonathan's face.

"'Twas 'cos o' this," said Jonathan, his voice dropping to a whisper, so
that, though the words were trembling on his lips, his agitation and
excitement almost prevented their utterance: "I've found it out--all of
it--who blowed the gaff 'pon us."

Adam started forward: his face all but touched Jonathan's, and an
expression of terrible eagerness came into his eyes.

"'Twas she!" hissed Jonathan--"she--her from London--Eve;" but before
the name was well uttered Adam had thrown himself upon him and was
grasping at his throat as if to throttle him, while a volley of
imprecations poured from his mouth, denouncing the base lie which
Jonathan had dared to utter. A moment more, and this fit of impotent
rage over, he flung him violently off, and stood for a moment trying to
bring back his senses; but the succession of circumstances had been too
much for him: his head swam round, his knees shook under him, and he had
to grasp hold of a beam near to steady himself.

"What for do 'ee sarve me like that, then?" muttered Jonathan. "I ain't
a-tellin' 'ee no more than I've a-heerd, and what's the truth. Her
name's all over the place," he went on, forgetful of the recent outburst
and warming with his narration. "Her's a reg'lar bad wan; her's
a-carr'ed on with a sodger-chap so well as with Jerrem; her's a--"

"By the living Lord, if you speak another word I'll be your death!"
exclaimed Adam.

"Wa-al, and so you may," exclaimed Jonathan doggedly, "if so be you'll
lave me bide 'til I'se seed the end o' she. Why, what do 'ee mane,
then?" he cried, a sudden suspicion throwing a light on Adam's storm of
indignation. "Her bain't nawthin' to you--her's Jerrem's maid: her
bain't your maid? Why," he added, finding that Adam didn't speak, "'twas
through the letter I carr'ed from he that her'd got it to blab about. I
wishes my hand had bin struck off"--and he dashed it violently against
the wooden bin--"afore I'd touched his letter or his money."

"What letter?" gasped Adam.

"Wa-al, I knaws you said I warn't to take neither wan; but Jerrem he
coaxes and persuades, and says you ain't to knaw nawthin' about it, and
'tain't nawthin' in it, only 'cos he'd a got a letter fra' she to
Guernsey, and this was t' answer; and then I knawed, 'cos I seed em,
that they was sweetheartin' and that, and--"

"Did you give her that letter?" said Adam; and the sound of his voice
was so strange that Jonathan shrank back and cowered close to the wall.

"Iss, I did," he faltered: "leastwise, I gived un to Joan, but t'other
wan had the radin' in it."

There was a pause, during which Adam stood stunned, feeling that
everything was crumbling and giving way beneath him--that he had no
longer anything to live for, anything to hope, anything to fear. As, one
after another, each former bare suggestion of artifice now passed before
him clothed in the raiment of certain deceit, he made a desperate clutch
at the most improbable, in the wild hope that one falsehood at least
might afford him some ray of light, however feeble, to dispel the
horrors of this terrible darkness.

"And after she'd got the letter," he said, "what--what about the rest?"

"Why 'twas this way," cried Jonathan, his eyes rekindling in his
eagerness to tell the story: "somebody dropped a bit of paper into the
rendevoos winder, with writin' 'pon it to say when and where they'd find
the Lottery to. Who 'twas did it none knaws for sartain, but the talk's
got abroad 'twas a sergeant there, 'cos he'd a bin braggin' aforehand
that he'd got a watch-sale and that o' her'n'."

"Her'n?" echoed Adam.

"Iss, o' Eve's. And he's allays a-showin' of it off, he is; and when
they axes un questions he doan't answer, but he dangles the sale afront
of 'em and says, 'What d'ee think?' he says; and now he makes his brag
that he shall hab the maid yet, while her man's a-dancin' gallus-high a
top o' Tyburn tree."

The blood rushed up into Adam's face, so that each vein stood a separate
cord of swollen, bursting rage.

"They wasn't a-manin' you, ye knaw," said Jonathan: "'twar Jerrem. Her's
played un false, I reckon. Awh!" and he gave a fiendish chuckle, "but
us'll pay her out for't, woan't us, eh? Awnly you give to me the
ticklin' o' her ozel-pipe;" and he made a movement of his bony fingers
that conveyed such a hideous embodiment of his meaning that Adam,
overcome by horror, threw up his arms with a terrible cry to heaven,
and falling prone he let the bitterness of death pass over the love that
had so late lain warm at his heart; while Jonathan crouched down,
trembling and awestricken by the sight of emotion which, though he could
not comprehend nor account for, stirred in him the sympathetic
uneasiness of a dumb animal. Afraid to move or speak, he remained
watching Adam's bent figure until his shallow brain, incapable of any
sustained concentration of thought, wandered off to other interests,
from which he was recalled by a noise, and looking up he saw that Adam
had raised himself and was wiping his face with his handkerchief. Did he
feel so hot, then? No, it must be that he felt cold, for he shivered and
his teeth seemed to chatter as he told Jonathan to stoop down by the
side there and hand him up a jar and a glass that he would find; and
this got, Adam poured out some of its contents, and after tossing it off
told Jonathan to take the jar and help himself, for, as nothing could be
done until daylight, they might as well lie down and try and get some
sleep. Jonathan's relish for spirit once excited, he made himself
tolerably free of the permission, and before long had helped himself to
such purpose that, stretched in a heavy sleep, unless some one roused
him he was not likely to awake for some hours to come.

Then Adam got up and with cautious movements stole down the ladder,
undid the small hatch-door which opened out on the mill-stream, fastened
it after him, and leaping across stood for a few moments asking himself
what he had come out to do. He didn't know, for as yet, in the tumult of
jealousy and revenge, there was no outlet, no gap, by which he might
drain off any portion of that passionate fire which was rapidly
destroying and consuming all his softer feelings. The story which
Jonathan had brought of the betrayal to the sergeant, the fellow's
boastings and his possession of the seal Adam treated as an idle tale,
its possibility vanquished by his conviction that Eve could have had no
share in it. It was the letter from Jerrem which was the damnatory proof
in Adam's eyes--the proof by which he judged and condemned her; for had
not he himself seen and wondered at Jerrem's anxiety to go to Guernsey,
his elation at finding a letter waiting him, his display of wishing to
be seen secretly reading it, and now his ultimate betrayal of them by
sending an answer to it?

As for Jerrem--oh he would deal with him as with a dog, and quickly send
him to that fate he so richly deserved. It was not against Jerrem that
the depths of his bitterness welled over: as the strength of his love,
so ran his hate; and this all turned to one direction, and that
direction pointed toward Eve.

He must see her, stand face to face with her, smite her with reproaches,
heap upon her curses, show her how he could trample on her love and
fling her back her perjured vows. And then? This done, what was there
left? From Jerrem he could free himself. A word, a blow, and all would
be over: but how with her? True, he could kill the visible Eve with his
own hands, but the Eve who lived in his love, would she not live there
still? Ay; and though he flung that body which could court the gaze of
other eyes than his full fathoms deep, the fair image which dwelt before
him would remain present to his vision. So that, do what he would, Eve
would live, must live. Live! Crushing down on that thought came the
terrible consequences which might come of Jonathan's tale being told--a
tale so colored with all their bitterest prejudices that it was certain
to be greedily listened to; and in the storm of angry passion it would
rouse everything else would be swallowed up by resentment against Eve's
baseness; and the fire once kindled, what would come of it?

The picture which Adam's heated imagination conjured up turned him hot
and cold; an agony of fear crept over him; his heart sickened and grew
faint within him, and the hands which but a few minutes before had
longed to be steeped in her blood now trembled and shook with nervous
dread lest a finger of harm should be laid upon her.

These and a hundred visions more or less wild coursed through Adam's
brain as his feet took their swift way toward Polperro--not keeping
along the open road, but taking a path which, only known to the
inhabitants, would bring him down almost in front of his own house.

The night was dark, the sky lowering and cloudy. Not a sound was to be
heard, not a soul had he seen, and already Adam was discussing with
himself how best, without making an alarm, he should awaken Joan and
obtain admittance. Usually bars and bolts were unknown, doors were left
unfastened, windows often open; but now all would be securely shut, and
he would have to rely on the possibility of his signal being heard by
some one who might chance to be on the watch.

Suddenly a noise fell upon his ear. Surely he heard the sound of
footsteps and the hum of voices. It could never be that the surprise
they deemed a possibility had turned out a certainty. Adam crouched
down, and under the shadow of the wall glided silently along until he
came opposite the corner where the house stood. It was as he feared.
There was no further doubt. The shutters were flung back, the door was
half open, and round it, easing their tired limbs as best they might,
stood crowded together a dozen men, the portion of a party who had
evidently spread themselves about the place.

Fortunately for Adam, the steps which led up to the wooden orrel or
balcony--at that time a common adornment to the Polperro
houses--afforded him a tolerably safe retreat, and, screened here, he
remained a silent watcher, hearing only a confused murmur and seeing
nothing save an occasional movement as one and the other changed posts
and passed in and out of the opposite door. At length a general parley
seemed to take place: the men fell into rank and at a slow pace moved
off down the street in the direction of the quay. Adam looked cautiously
out. The door was now closed. Dare he open it? Might he not find that a
sentinel had been left behind? How about the other door? The chances
against it were as bad. The only possible way of ingress was by a
shutter in the wall which overlooked the brook and communicated with the
hiding-place in which his father lay secreted. This shutter had been
little used since the days of press-gangs. It was painted in so exact an
imitation of the slated house-wall as to defy detection, and to mark the
spot to the initiated eye a root of house-leek projected out below and
served to further screen the opening from view. The contrivance of this
shutter-entrance was well known to Adam, and the mode of reaching it
familiar to him: therefore if he could but elude observation he was
certain of success.

The plan once decided on, he began putting it into execution, and
although it seemed half a lifetime to him, but very few minutes had
elapsed before he had crossed the road, ran waist-high into the brook,
scaled the wall and scrambled down almost on top of old Zebedee, who,
stupefied by continual drink, sleep and this constant confinement, took
the surprise in a wonderfully calm manner.

"Hist, father! 'tis only me--Adam."

"A' right! a' right!" stammered Zebedee, too dazed to take in the whole
matter at once. "What is it, lad, eh? They darned galoots ha'n't a
tracked 'ee, have 'em? By the hooky! but they'm givin' 't us hot and
strong this time, Adam: they was trampin' 'bout inside here a minit
agone, tryin' to keep our sperrits up by a-rattlin' the bilboes in our
ears. Why, however did 'ee dodge 'em, eh? What's the manin' o' it all?"

"I thought they was gone," said Adam, "so I came down to see how you
were all getting on here."

"Iss, iss, sure. Wa-al, all right, I s'pose, but I ha'n't a bin let
outside much: Joan won't have it, ye knaw. Poor Joan!" he sighed, "her's
terrible moody-hearted 'bout 't all; and so's Eve too. I never see'd
maids take on as they'm doin'; but there! I reckon 'twill soon be put a
end to now."

"How so?" said Adam.

"Wa-al, you mustn't knaw, down below, more than you'm tawld," said the
old man with a significant wink and a jerk of his head, "but Jerrem he
let me into it this ebenin' when he rinned up to see me for a bit.
Seems one o' they sodger-chaps is carr'in' on with Eve, and Jerrem's
settin' her on to rig un up so that her'll get un not to see what
'tain't maned for un to look at."

"Well?" said Adam.

"Iss," said Zebedee, "but will it be well? That's what I keeps axin' of
un. He's cock sure, sartain, that they can manage it all. He's sick, he
says, o' all this skulkin', and he's blamed if he'll go on standin' it,
neither."

"Oh!" hissed Adam, "he's sick of it, is he?" and in the effort he made
to subdue his voice the veins in his face rose up to be purple cords.
"He'd nothing to do with bringing it on us all? it's no fault of his
that the place is turned into a hell and we hunted down like a pack o'
dogs?"

"Awh, well, I dawn't knaw nuffin 'bout that," said old Zebedee, huffily.
"How so be if 'tis so, when he's got clane off 'twill be all right
agen."

"All right?" thundered Adam--"how all right? Right that he should get
off and we be left here?--that he shouldn't swing, but we must stay to
suffer?"

"Awh, come, come, come!" said the old man with the testy impatience of
one ready to argue, but incapable of reasoning. "'Tain't no talk o'
swingin', now: that was a bit o' brag on the boy's part: he's so eager
to save his neck as you or me either. Awnly Jonathan's bin here and
tawld up summat that makes un want to be off to wance, for he says, what
us all knaws, without he's minded to it you can't slip a knot round
Jonathan's clapper; and 'tain't that Jerrem's afeared o' his tongue,
awnly for the keepin' up o' pace and quietness he fancies 'twould be
better for un to make hisself scarce for a bit."

Adam's whole body quivered as a spasm of rage ran through him; and
Zebedee, noting the trembling movement of his hands, conveyed his
impression of the cause by bestowing a glance, accompanied with a
pantomimic bend of his elbow, in the direction of a certain stone bottle
which stood in the corner.

"Did Jonathan tell you what word 'twas he'd brought?" Adam managed to
say.

"Noa: I never cast eyes on un. He warn't here 'bove a foo minits 'fore
he slipped away, none of 'em knaws where or how. He was warned not to go
anighst you," he added after a moment's pause; "so I reckon you knaws no
more of un than us does."

"And Eve and Joan? were they let into the secret?" asked Adam; and the
sound of his harsh voice grated even on Zebedee's dulled ears.

"Iss, I reckon," he said, half turning, "'cos Eve's got to do the trick:
her's to bamfoozle the sodger.--Odds rot it, lad!" he cried, startled at
the expression which leaped into Adam's haggard face, "what's come to
'ee that you must turn round 'pon us like that? Is it the maid you's got
a spite agen? Lors! but 'tis a poor stomach you's got to'rds her if
you'm angered by such a bit o' philanderin' as I've tawld 'ee of. What
d'ee mane, then?" he added, his temper rising at such unwarrantable
inconsistency. "I've knawed as honest women as ever her is that's a done
that, and more too, for to get their men safe off and out o' way--iss,
and wasn't thought none the wus of, neither. You'm growed mighty
fancikul all to wance 'bout what us is to do and what us dussn't think
o'. I'm sick o' such talk. 'Taint nawthin' else fra' mornin' to night
but Adam this and Adam that. I'm darned if 'tis to be wondered at if the
maid plays 'ee false: by gosh! I'd do the trick, if I was she, 'fore I'd
put up with such fantads from you or either man like 'ee. So there!"

Adam did not answer, and old Zebedee, interpreting the silence into an
admission of the force of his arguments, forbore to press the advantage
and generously started a fresh topic. "They's a tawld 'ee, I reckon,
'bout the bill they's a posted up, right afore the winder, by the Three
Pilchards," he said. "Iss," he added, not waiting for an answer, "the
king's pardon and wan hunderd pound to be who'll discover to 'em the man
who 'twas fired the fatal shot. Wan hunderd pound!" he sneered. "That's
a fat lot, surely; and as for t' king's pardon, why 'twudn't lave un
braithin'-time to spend it in--not if he war left here, 'twudn't. No
fear! Us ain't so bad off yet that either wan in Polperro 'ud stink
their fingers wi' blid-money. Lord save un! sich a man 'ud fetch up the
divil hisself to see un pitched head foremost down to bottom o' say,
which 'ud be the end I'd vote for un, and see it was carr'd out
too--iss, tho' his bones bore my own flesh and blid 'pon 'em, I wud;"
and in his anger the old man's rugged face grew distorted with emotion.

But Adam neither spoke nor made comment on his words. His eyes were
fixed on mid-air, his nostrils worked, his mouth quivered. Within him a
legion of devils seemed to have broken loose, and, sensible of the
mastery they were gaining over him, he leaped up and with the wild
despair of one who catches at a straw to save him from destruction, it
came upon him to rush down and look once more into the face of her whom
he had found so fair and proved so false.

"What is it you'm goin' to do, then?" said Zebedee, seeing that Adam had
stooped down and was raising the panel by which exit was effected.

"Goin' to see if the coast's clear," said Adam.

"Better bide where you be," urged Zebedee. "Joan or they's sure to rin
up so soon as 'tis all safe."

But Adam paid no heed: muttering something about knowing what he was
about, he slipped up the partition and crept under, cautiously
ascertained that the outer room was empty, and then, crossing the
passage, stole down the stairs.

The door which led into the room was shut, but through a convenient
chink Adam could take a survey of those within. Already his better self
had begun to struggle in his ear, already the whisper which desire was
prompting asked what if Eve stood there alone and--But no, his glance
had taken in the whole: quick as the lightning's flash the details of
that scene were given to Adam's gaze--Eve, bent forward, standing beside
the door, over whose hatch a stranger's face was thrust, while Joan,
close to the spot where Jerrem still lay hid, clasped her two hands as
if to stay the breath which longed to cry, "He's free!"... The blow
dealt, the firebrand flung, each evil passion quickened into life,
filled with jealousy and mad revenge, Adam turned swiftly round and
backward sped his way.

"They'm marched off, ain't 'em?" said old Zebedee as, Adam having given
the signal, he drew the panel of the door aside. "I've a bin listenin'
to their trampin' past.--Why, what's the time, lad, eh?--must be close
on break o' day, ain't it?"

"Just about," said Adam, pushing back the shutter so that he might look
out and see that no one stood near enough to overlook his descent.

"Why, you bain't goin' agen, be 'ee?" said Zebedee in amazement. "Why,
what for be 'ee hikin' off like this, then--eh, lad?--Lord save us, he's
gone!" he exclaimed as Adam, swinging himself by a dexterous twist on to
the first ledge, let the shutter close behind him. "Wa-al, I'm blamed if
this ain't a rum start! Summat gone wrong with un now. I'll wager he's a
bin tiched up in the bunt somehows, for a guinea; and if so be, 'tis
with wan o' they. They'm all sixes and sebens down below; so I'll lave
'em bide a bit, and hab a tot o' liquor and lie down for a spell. Lord
send 'em to knaw the vally o' pace and quietness! But 'tis wan and all
the same--

      Friends and faws,
      To battle they gaws;
    And what they all fights about
      Nawbody knaws."

It was broad daylight when Joan, having once before failed to make her
uncle hear, gave such a vigorous rap that, starting up, the old man
cried, "Ay, ay, mate!" and with all speed unfastened the door.

Joan crept in and some conversation ensued, in the midst of which, as
the recollection of the events just past occurred to his mind, Zebedee
asked, "What was up with Adam?"

"With Adam?" echoed Joan.

"Iss: what made un start off like he did?"

Joan looked for a minute, then she lifted the stone bottle and shook its
contents. "Why, whatever be 'ee tellin' up?" she said.

"Tellin' up? Why, you seed un down below, didn't 'ee? Iss you did now."

Completely puzzled what to think, Joan shook her head.

"Lor' ha' massy! don't never tell me he didn't shaw hisself. Why, the
sodgers was barely out o' doors 'fore he comes tumblin' in to shutter
there, and after a bit he says, 'I'll just step down below,' he says,
and out he goes; and in a quarter less no time back he comes tappin'
agen, and when I drawed open for un by he pushes, and 'fore I could say
'Knife' he was out and clane off."

"You haven't a bin dreamin' of it, have 'ee?" said Joan, her face
growing pale with apprehension.

"Naw, 'tis gospel truth, every ward. I've a had a toothful of liquor
since, and a bit o' caulk, but not a drap more."

"Jerrem's comin' up into t'other room," said Joan, not wishing to betray
all the alarm she felt: "will 'ee go into un there the whiles I rins
down and says a word to Eve?"

"Iss," said the old man, "and I'll freshen mysen up a bit with a dash o'
cold watter: happen I may bring some more o' it to my mind then."

But, his ablutions over and the whole family assembled, Zebedee could
throw no more light on the subject, the recital of which caused so much
anxiety that Joan, yielding to Eve's entreaties, decided to set off with
all speed for Crumplehorne.

"Mother, Adam's all right? ain't he here still, and safe?" cried Joan,
bursting into the kitchen where Mrs. Tucker, only just risen, was
occupied with her house-duties.

"Iss, plaise the Lord, and, so far as I knaws of, he is," replied Mrs.
Tucker, greatly startled by Joan's unexpected appearance. "Why, what do
'ee mane, child, eh? But there!" she added starting up, "us'll make sure
to wance and knaw whether 'tis lies or truth we'm tellin'.--Here, Sammy,
off ever so quick as legs can carry 'ee, and climber up and fetch Adam
back with 'ee."

Sammy started off, and Joan proceeded to communicate the cause of her
uneasiness.

"Awh, my dear, is that all?" exclaimed Mrs. Tucker, at once pronouncing
sentence on poor old Zebedee's known failing: "then my mind's made easy
agen. There's too much elbow-crookin' 'bout that story for me to set any
hold by it."

"Do 'ee think so?" said Joan, ready to catch at any straw of hope.

"Why, iss; and for this reason too. I--"

But at this moment Sammy appeared, and, without waiting for him to
speak, the two women uttered a cry as they saw in his face a
confirmation of their fears. "Iss, 'tis every ward true; he's a gone
shure 'nuf," exclaimed Sammy; "but by his own accord, I reckon, 'cos
there ain't no signs o' nothin' bein' open 'ceptin 'tis the hatch over
by t' mill-wheel."

"Awh, mother," cried Joan, "whatever can be the manin' of it? My poor
heart's a sinkin' down lower than iver. Oh Lord! if they should ha'
cotched un, anyways!"

"Now, doan't 'ee take on like that, Joan," said Mrs. Tucker. "'Tis like
temptin' o' Providence to do such like. I'll be bound for't he's safe
home alongst afore now: he ain't like wan to act wild and go steppin'
into danger wi' both his eyes wide open."

The possibility suggested, and Joan was off again, back on her way to
Polperro, too impatient to wait while her mother put on her bonnet to
accompany her.

At the door stood Eve, breathless expectation betraying itself in her
every look and gesture. Joan shook her head, while Eve's finger, quick
laid upon her lip, warned her to be cautious.

"They're back," she muttered as Joan came up close: "they've just
marched past and gone down to the quay."

"What for?" cried Joan.

"I don't know. Run and see, Joan: everybody's flocking that way."

Joan ran down the street, and took her place among a mob of people
watching with eager interest the movements of a soldier who, with much
unnecessary parade and delay, was taking down the bill of reward posted
outside the Three Pilchards. A visible anticipation of the effect about
to be produced stirred the small red-coated company, and they wheeled
round so as to take note of any sudden emotion produced by the surprise
they felt sure awaited the assembly.

"Whatever is it, eh?" asked Joan, trying to catch a better sight of what
was going on.

"They'm stickin' up a noo reward, 't seems," said an old man close by.
"'Tain't no--"

But the swaying back of the crowd carried Joan with it. A surge forward,
and then on her ear fell a shrill cry, and as the name of Jerrem
Christmas started from each mouth a hundred eyes seemed turned upon her.
For a moment the girl stood dazed, staring around like some wild animal
at bay: then, flinging out her arms, she forced those near her aside,
and rushing forward to the front made a desperate clutch at the soldier.
"Speak! tell me! what's writ there?" she cried.

"Writ there?" said the man, startled by the scared face that was turned
up to him. "Why, the warrant to seize for murder Jerrem Christmas,
living or dead, on the king's evidence of Adam Pascal."

And the air was rent by a cry of unutterable woe, caught up by each
voice around, and coming back in echoes from far and near long after
Joan lay a senseless heap on the stones upon which she had fallen.

                          _The Author of "Dorothy Fox."_

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




SEVEN WEEKS A MISSIONARY.


The sights of Honolulu had not lost their novelty--the tropical foliage
of palm, banana, bread-fruit, monkey-pod and algaroba trees; the
dark-skinned, brightly-clad natives with flowers on their heads, who
walked with bare feet and stately tread along the shady sidewalks or
tore through the streets on horseback; the fine stone or wooden
residences with wide cool verandas, or humbler native huts surrounded by
walls of coral-rock instead of fences; the deep indigo-blue ocean on one
hand and the rich green mountains on the other, dripping with moisture
and alternately dark and bright with the gloom of clouds and the glory
of rainbows, still wore for me their original freshness and
interest--when I received an urgent request to come to Waialua, a little
village on the other side of the island. My host, to whom the note was
addressed, explained to me that there was a mission-school at that
place, a seminary for native girls. It was conducted by Miss G----, the
daughter of one of the missionaries who first came to the Hawaiian
Islands fifty years before. She had been sent to this country to be
educated, like most of the children of the early missionaries, and had
returned to devote herself to the mental, moral and physical welfare of
the native girls--a task which she was now accomplishing with all the
fervor, devotion and self-sacrifice of a Mary Lyon.

At this juncture she had forty-five girls, from six to eighteen, under
her care, and but one assistant. The English teacher who had assisted
her for several years had lately married, and the place was still
vacant. She wrote to my host, saying that she had heard there was a
teacher from California at his house, and begging me, through him, to
come and help her a few weeks. I signified my willingness to go, and in
a few days Miss G----, accompanied by a native girl, came on horseback
to meet me and conduct me to Waialua. A gentleman of Honolulu, his
sister and a native woman called Maria, who were going to Waialua and
beyond, joined us, so that our party consisted of six. We were variously
mounted, on horses of different appearance and disposition, and carried
our luggage and lunch in saddle-bags strapped on behind. Maria's outfit
especially interested me. It was the usual costume for native women, and
consisted of a long flowing black garment called a _holoku_, gathered
into a yoke at the shoulders and falling unconfined to her bare feet.
Around her neck she wore a bright red silk handkerchief, and on her head
a straw hat ornamented with a _lei_, or wreath of fresh, fragrant
flowers, orange or jasmine. Men, women and children wear these wreaths,
either on their heads or around their necks. Sometimes they consist
of the bright yellow _ilimu_-flowers or brilliant scarlet
pomegranate-blossoms strung on a fibre of the banana-stalk--sometimes
they are woven of ferns or of a fragrant wild vine called _maile_. Maria
was seated astride on a wiry little black horse, and instead of slipping
her bare feet into the stirrups she clasped the irons with her toes.
Besides her long, flowing black dress she wore a width of bright
red-flowered damask tied around her waist, caught into the stirrup on
either side and flowing a yard or two behind.

Waialua, our destination, was about a third of the way around the
island, but the road, instead of following the sea-coast all the way,
took a short cut across an inland plateau, so that the distance was but
twenty-seven miles. We started about one o'clock in the afternoon, the
hour when the streets are least frequented, and rode past the shops and
stores shaded with awnings, past the bazaars where sea-shells and white
and pink coral are offered for sale, through the fish-market where
shellfish and hideous-looking squid and bright fish, colored like
rainbows or the gayest tropical parrots, lay on little tables or floated
in tanks of sea-water. Men with bundles of green grass or hay for sale
made way for us as we passed, and the fat, short-legged dogs scattered
right and left.

Although it was December, the air was warm and balmy, tree and fruit and
flower were in the glory of endless summer, and the ladies seated on
verandas or swinging in hammocks wore white dresses. For one who dreads
harsh, cold winters the climate of Honolulu is perfection. At the end of
King street we crossed a long bridge over the river, which at that point
widens out into a marsh bordered by reeds and rushes. Here we saw a
number of native canoes resting on poles above the water. They were
about twenty feet long and quite narrow, being hollowed out of
tree-trunks. An outrigger attached to one side serves to balance them in
the water. A fine smooth road built on an embankment of stone and earth
leads across this marsh to a strip of higher land near the sea where the
prison buildings stand. They are of gray stone, with miniature towers,
surrounded by a wall capped with stone, the whole surmounted by a tower
from which waves the Hawaiian flag. In front is a smooth lawn where grow
century-plants and ornamental shrubs, including the India-rubber tree.
It is much finer than the so-called palace of the king, a many-roomed,
one-story wooden cottage in the centre of the city, surrounded by a
large grassy yard enclosed by a high wall.

The land beyond the marshes is planted in _taro_ and irrigated by a
network of streams. Taro is the principal article of food used by the
natives: the root, which looks somewhat like a gray sweet potato, is
made into a paste called _poi_, and the tops are eaten as greens. The
plant grows about two feet high, and has an arrow-shaped leaf larger
than one's hand. Like rice, it grows in shallow pools of water, and a
patch of it looks like an inundated garden. As we passed along we saw
half-clad natives standing knee-deep in mud and water pulling the
full-grown plants or putting in young ones. Reaching higher ground, we
cantered along a hard, smooth road bordered with short green grass. On
either side were dwellings of wood surrounded by broad-leafed banana
trees, with here and there a little shop for the sale of fruit. This is
a suburb of Honolulu and is called Kupalama. We met a number of natives
on horseback going into town, the men dressed in shirts and trousers of
blue or white cotton cloth, the women wearing the long loose gowns I
have described.

At last we reached the open country, and started fairly on our long
ride. On our left was the ocean with "league-long rollers thundering on
the reef:" on our right, a few miles away, was a line of mountains,
divided into numerous spurs and peaks by deep valleys richly clothed in
tropical verdure. The country about us was uncultivated and generally
open, but here and there were straggling lines of low stone walls
overgrown with a wild vine resembling our morning-glory, the masses of
green leaves starred with large pink flowers. The algaroba, a graceful
tree resembling the elm, grew along the roadside, generally about
fifteen feet high. In Honolulu, where they are watered and cared for,
these trees attain a height of thirty or forty feet, sending forth long
swaying branches in every direction and forming beautiful shade trees.
Now and then we crossed water-courses, where the banks were carpeted
with short green grass and bordered with acacia-bushes covered with
feathery leaves and a profusion of yellow ball-shaped flowers that
perfumed the air with their fragrance. The view up and down these
winding flower-bordered streams was lovely. We rode for miles over this
monotonous country, gradually rising to higher ground. Suddenly, almost
at our very feet, a little bowl-shaped valley about half a mile in
circumference opened to view. The upper rim all around was covered with
smooth green grass, and the sides were hidden by the foliage of
dark-green mango trees, light-green _kukui_, bread-fruit and banana.
Coffee had formerly been cultivated here, and a few bushes still grew
wild, bearing fragrant white flowers or bright red berries. Through the
bottom of the valley ran a little stream, and on its banks were three or
four grass huts beneath tufts of tall cocoanut palms. Several
scantily-clad children rolled about on the ground, and in the shade of a
tamarind tree an old gray-headed man was pounding taro-root. The gray
mass lay before him on a flat stone, and he pounded it with a stone
pestle, then dipped his hands into a calabash of water and kneaded it. A
woman was bathing in the stream, and another stood at the door of one of
the huts holding her child on her hip.

We passed through three other deep valleys like this, and in every case
they opened suddenly to view--hidden nests of tropical foliage and
color. The natives were seated in circles under the trees eating poi, or
wading in the stream looking for fish, or lounging on the grass near
their huts as though life were one long holiday.

Now we entered a vast sunburnt plain overgrown with huge thorny cactus
twelve or fifteen feet high. Without shade or water or verdure it
stretched before us to distant table-lands, upholding mountains whose
peaks were veiled in cloud. The solitude of the plain was rendered more
impressive by the absence of wild creatures of any kind: there were no
birds nor insects nor ground-squirrels nor snakes. The cactus generally
grew in clumps, but sometimes it formed a green prickly wall on either
side of the road, between which we had to pass as between the bayonets
of sentinels. Wherever the road widened out we clattered along, six
abreast, at full speed. Maria, the native woman, presented a picturesque
appearance with her black dress and long flowing streamers of bright
red. She was an elderly woman--perhaps fifty years old--but as active as
a young girl, and a good rider. She had an unfailing fund of good-humor,
and talked and laughed a great deal. My other companions, with the
exception of the native girl, were children of early missionaries, and
enlivened the journey by many interesting incidents of island life. At
last we crossed the cactus desert, ascended an eminence, and then sank
into a valley grand and deep, shut in by walls carved in fantastic shape
by the action of water. Our road was a narrow pathway, paved with
stone, that wound down the face of the cliff. The natives call this
place Ki-pa-pa, which signifies "paved way."

As we were making the descent on one side we saw a party of natives on
horseback winding down on the opposite. First rode three men, single
file, with children perched in front of them, then three or four women
in black or gay-colored holokus, then a boy who led two pack-mules laden
with large baskets. All wore wreaths of ferns or flowers. When we met
they greeted us with a hearty "_Aloha!_" ("Love to you!"), and in reply
to a question in Hawaiian said that they were going to Honolulu with
fresh fish, bananas and oranges.

We climbed the rocky pathway rising out of the valley, and found
ourselves on the high table-land toward which we had shaped our course.
It was smooth as a floor and covered with short rich grass. Instead of a
broad road there were about twenty parallel paths stretching on before
us as far as we could see, furrowed by the feet of horses and
pack-mules. Miles away on either side was a line of lofty mountains
whose serrated outlines were sharply defined against the evening sky.
Darkness overtook us on this plateau, and the rest of the journey is a
confused memory of steep ravines down whose sides we cautiously made our
way, torrents of foaming water which we forded, expanses of dark plain,
and at last the murmur of the ocean on the reef. After reaching
sea-level again we passed between acres and acres of taro-patches where
the water mirrored the large bright stars and the arrow-shaped leaves
cast sharp-pointed shadows. We rode through the quiet little village of
Waialua, sleeping beneath the shade of giant pride-of-India and kukui
trees, without meeting any one, and forded the Waialua River just where
it flows over silver sands into the sea. As we paused to let our horses
drink I looked up at the cluster of cocoanut palms that grew upon the
bank, and noticed how distinctly each feathery frond was pencilled
against the sky, then down upon the placid river and out upon the gently
murmuring sea, and thought that I had never gazed upon a more peaceful
scene. Little did I think that it would soon be associated with danger
and dismay. Beyond the river were two or three native huts thatched with
grass, and a little white cottage, the summer home of Princess Lydia,
the king's sister. Passing these, we rode over a smooth green lawn
glittering with large bright dewdrops, and dismounted in front of the
seminary-gate. The large whitewashed brick house, two stories and a half
high, with wide verandas around three sides, looks toward the sea. In
front of it is a garden filled with flowers and vines and shrubbery, the
pride and care of the school-girls. There are oleander trees with
rose-colored blossoms, pomegranate trees whose flowers glow amid the
dark-green foliage like coals of fire, and orange and lime trees covered
with fragrant white flowers, which the girls string and wear around
their necks. Besides roses, heliotrope, geraniums, sweet-pea, nasturtium
and other familiar flowers, there are fragrant Japanese lilies, and also
plants and shrubs from the Micronesian Islands. On one side is a grove
of tamarind and kukui-nut trees, mingled with tall cocoanut palms, which
stretches to the deep, still river, a few rods away: on the other is the
school-house, a two-story frame, painted white, shaded by tall
pride-of-India trees and backed by a field of corn. My room opened on a
veranda shaded with kukui trees, and as the "coo-coo-ee coo-coo-ee" of
the doves in the branches came to my ears I thought that the trees had
received their name from the notes of the doves, but afterward learnt
that _kukui_ in the Hawaiian language meant "light," and that the nuts,
being full of oil, were strung on bamboo poles by the natives and used
as torches.

The morning after my arrival I saw the girls at breakfast, and found
them of all shades of complexion from deep chocolate-brown to white.
Their glossy black hair, redolent of cocoanut oil, was ornamented with
fresh flowers, and their bright black eyes danced with fun or languished
with sullen scorn. The younger ones were bright and happy in their
expression, but the older ones seemed already to realize the curse that
rests upon their decaying race, and to move with melancholy languor, as
if brooding over it in stifled rebellion or resigned apathy. Some would
be called beautiful anywhere: they were graceful in form, had fine
regular features and lovely, expressive eyes; others were attractive
only on account of their animation; while one comical little negro girl,
who had somehow got mixed with the Malay race, was as ugly as a
Hottentot, and a veritable imp of darkness, as I afterward learned, so
far as mischief was concerned. The girls were dressed in calico, and
wore no shoes or stockings. When they had eaten their beef and poi, and
we had finished our breakfast, each girl got her Hawaiian Testament and
read a verse: then Miss G----, the principal, offered prayer in the same
language. When this was over the routine work of the day began. Some of
the older girls remained in the dining-room to put away the food, wash
the dishes and sweep the floor; one went to the kitchen to wash the pots
and pans; and the younger ones dispersed to various tasks--to sweep and
dust the parlor, the sitting-room or the school-room, to gather up the
litter of leaves and branches from the yard and garden-paths, or to put
the teachers' rooms in order. The second floor and attic, both filled
with single beds covered with mosquito-netting, were the girls'
dormitories. Each girl was expected to make her own bed and hang up her
clothes or put them away in her trunk. A _luna_, or overseer, in each
dormitory superintended this work, and reported any negligence on the
part of a girl to one of the teachers.

Miss G---- was the life and soul of the institution--principal and
housekeeper and accountant, all in one. She had a faithful and devoted
assistant in Miss P----, a young woman of twenty-two, the daughter of a
missionary then living in Honolulu. My duties were to teach classes in
English in the forenoon and to oversee the sewing and some departments
of housekeeping in the afternoon. Miss P---- had the smaller children,
Miss G---- taught the larger ones in Hawaiian and gave music-lessons.

The routine of the school-room from nine to twelve in the forenoon and
from one till four in the afternoon was that of any ordinary school,
except that the girls who prepared the meals were excused earlier than
the others. One day in the week was devoted to washing and ironing down
on the river-bank and in the shade of the tamarind trees.

The girls had to be taught many things besides the lessons in their
books. At home they slept on mats on the floor, ate poi out of
calabashes with their fingers and wore only the holoku. Here they were
required to eat at table with knife and fork and spoon, to sleep in beds
and to adopt the manners and customs of civilization. Now and then, as a
special privilege, they asked to be allowed to eat "native fashion," and
great was their rejoicing and merrymaking as they sat, crowned with
flowers, on the veranda-floor and ate poi and raw fish with their
fingers, and talked Hawaiian. They were required to talk English usually
until the four-o'clock bell sounded in the afternoon. From that until
supper-time they were allowed to talk native, and their tongues ran
fast.

On Wednesday afternoons the girls went to bathe in the river, and on
Saturday afternoons to bathe in the sea. It usually fell to my lot to
accompany them. The river, back of the house a few rods, had steep banks
ten or fifteen feet high and a deep, still current. The girls would
start to run as soon as they left the house, race with each other all
the way and leap from the bank into the river below. Presently their
heads would appear above water, and, laughing and blowing and shaking
the drops from their brown faces, they would swim across the river. The
older girls could dive and swim under water for some distance. They had
learned to swim as soon as they had learned to walk. They sometimes
brought up fish in their hands, and one girl told me that her father
could dive and bring up a fish in each hand and one in his mouth. The
little silver-fish caught in their dress-skirts they ate raw. The girls
were always glad when the time came to go swimming in the sea, for they
were very fond of a green moss which grew on the reef, and the whole
crowd would sit on rocks picking and eating it while the spray dashed
over them.

_Waialua_ means "the meeting of the waters," or, literally, "two
waters," and the place is named from the perpetual flow and counterflow
of the river and the ocean tide. The river pours into the sea, the sea
at high tide surges up the river, beating back its waters, and the foam
and spray of the contending floods are dashed high into the air,
bedewing the cluster of cocoanut palms that stand on the bank above
watching this perpetual conflict. In calm weather and at low tide there
is a truce between the waters, and the river flows calmly into the sea;
but immediately after a storm, when the river is flooded with rains from
the mountains and the sea hurls itself upon the reef with a shock and a
roar, then the antagonism between the meeting waters is at its height
and the clash and uproar of their fury are great.

Sometimes we went on picnic excursions to places in the neighborhood--to
the beach of Waiamea, a mile or two distant, where thousands of pretty
shells lay strewn upon the sand and branches of white coral could be had
for the picking up, or to the orange-groves and indigo-thickets on the
mountain-sides, where large sweet oranges ripened, coming back wreathed
with ferns and the fragrant vine maile.

But we had plenty of oranges without going after them. For half a dollar
we could buy a hundred large fine oranges from the natives, who brought
them to the door, and we usually kept a tin washing-tub full of the
delicious fruit on hand. A _real_ (twelve and a half cents) would buy a
bunch of bananas so heavy that it took two of us to lift it to the hook
in the veranda-ceiling, and limes and small Chinese oranges grew
plentifully in the front yard. Of cocoanuts and tamarinds we made no
account, they were so common. Guavas grew wild on bushes in the
neighborhood, and made delicious pies. For vegetables we had taro, sweet
potatoes and something that tasted just like summer squash, but which
grew in thick, pulpy clusters on a tree. The taro was brought to us
just as it was pulled, roots and nodding green tops, and of the donkey
who was laden with it little showed but his legs and his ears as his
master led him up to the gate. Another old man furnished boiled and
pounded taro, which the girls mixed with water and made into poi. He
brought it in large bundles wrapped in broad green banana-leaves and
tied with fibres of the stalk. He had two daughters in the school, and
always inquired about their progress in their studies. One day,
happening to look out of the front door, I saw him coming up the
garden-walk. He had nothing on but a shirt and a _malo_ (a strip of
cloth) about his loins: the malo was all that the natives formerly wore.
Neither the girls who were weeding their garden, nor the other teachers
who were at work in the parlor, seemed to think that there was anything
remarkable in his appearance. He talked with Miss G---- as usual about
the supply of taro for the school, and inquired how his girls were
doing. When he was going away she said, "Uncle, why do you not wear your
clothes when you come to see us? I thought you had laid aside the
heathen fashion." He replied that he had but one suit of clothes, and
that he must save them to wear to church, adding that he was anxious to
give his daughters an education, and must economize in some way in order
to pay for their schooling.

The fuel needed for cooking was brought down from the mountains by the
native boy who milked the cows for us and took Calico, Miss G----'s
riding horse, to water and to pasture. One day, when one of the girls
had started a fire in the stove, a fragrance like incense diffused
itself through the house. Hastening to the kitchen, I pulled out a
half-burned piece of sandal-wood and put it away in my collection of
shells and island curiosities. A few days afterward an old native man
named Ka-hu-kai (Sea-shore), who lived in one of the grass huts near the
front gate, came to sell me a piece of fragrant wood of another kind. He
had learned that I attached a value to such things, and expected to get
a good price. He inquired for the _wahine haole_ (foreign woman), and
presented his bit of wood, saying that he would sell it for a dollar. I
declined to purchase. He walked down through the garden and across the
lawn, but paused at the big gate for several minutes, then retraced his
steps. Holding out the wood again, he said, "This is my thought: you may
have it for a real." I gave him a real, and he went away satisfied.

Every Sunday we crossed the bridge that spanned Waialua River near the
ford, and made our way to the huge old-fashioned mission-church, which
stood in an open field surrounded by prickly pears six or eight feet
high. The thorny prickly pears were stiff and ungraceful, but a delicate
wild vine grew all over them and hung in festoons from the top. While
Pai-ku-li, the native minister, preached a sermon in Hawaiian, I, not
understanding a word, looked at the side pews where the old folks sat,
and tried to picture the life they had known in their youth, when the
great Kamehameha reigned. In the pew next to the side door sat Mr.
Sea-shore, straight and solemn as a deacon, and his wife, a fat old
woman with a face that looked as if it had been carved out of knotty
mahogany, but which was irradiated with an expression of kindness and
good-nature. She wore a long black holoku, and on her head was perched a
little sailor hat with a blue ribbon round it, which would have been
suitable for a girl six or eight years old, but which looked decidedly
comical and out of place on Mrs. Sea-shore. She was barefooted, as I
presently saw. Two or three times during the sermon a red-eyed,
dissipated-looking dog with a baked taro-root in his mouth had come to
the door, and seemed about to enter, but Mrs. Sea-shore, without
disturbing the devotions, had kept him back by threatening gestures. But
when the minister began to pray and nearly every head was bowed, the dog
came sneaking in. Mrs. Sea-shore happened to raise her head, and saw
him. Drawing back her holoku, she extended her bare foot and planted a
vigorous kick in his ribs, exclaiming at the same time in an explosive
whisper, "Hala palah!" ("Get out!" or "Begone!") The dog went forth
howling, and did not return.

A few days later Miss G----'s shoulder was sprained by a fall from her
horse, and she sent for Mrs. Sea-shore. The old woman came and
_lomi-lomi_-ed the shoulder--kneaded it with her hands--until the pain
and stiffness were gone, then extracted the oil from some kukui-nuts by
chewing them and applied it to the sprain. All the time she kept up a
chatter in Hawaiian, talking, asking questions and showing her white
teeth in hearty, good-humored laughs. In answer to the questions I put
to her through Miss G----, she told us much about her early life, the
superstitions and _taboos_ that forbade men and women to eat together
and imposed many meaningless and foolish restrictions, and about her
children, who had died and gone to Po, the great shadowy land, where, as
she once believed, their spirits had been eaten by the gods. We formed
quite a friendship for each other, and she came often to see me, but
would not come into the house any farther than the veranda or front
hall, and there, refusing our offer of a chair, she would sit on the
floor. I spoke of going to see her in return, but she said that her
house was not good enough to receive me, and begged me not to come. Just
before I left Waialua she brought a mat she had woven out of the long
leaves of the pandanus or screw pine, a square of _tappa_, or native
cloth, as large as a sheet, made from the bark of a tree, and the
tappa-pounder she had made it with (a square mallet with different
patterns cut on each of the four faces), and gave them to me. I offered
her money in return, but she refused it, saying she had given the things
out of _aloha_, or love for me. On my return to Honolulu I got the most
gorgeous red silk Chinese handkerchief that could be found in Ah Fong
and Ah Chuck's establishment and sent it to her, and Miss G---- wrote me
that she wore it round her neck at church every Sunday.

One of my duties was to go through the dormitories the last thing at
night, and see that the doors were fastened and that the girls had their
mosquito-netting properly arranged, and were not sleeping with their
heads under the bedclothes. A heathen superstition, of which they were
half ashamed, still exercised an influence over them, and they were
afraid that the spirits of their dead relatives would come back from Po
and haunt them in the night. They would not confess to this fear, but
many of them, ruled by it, covered their heads with the bedclothes every
night. In my rounds, besides clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitos, I
frequently saw centipedes crawling along the floor or wall or up the
netting, and sometimes a large tarantula would dart forth from his
hiding-place in some nook or corner. The centipedes were often six or
seven inches long. They were especially numerous during or immediately
after rainy weather. Little gray and green lizards (_mo-o_) glided about
the verandas, but they were harmless. Scorpions are common in the
islands, but we were not troubled with them. They frequent hot, dry
places like sandbanks, and are often found in piles of lumber.

We had fine views of the scenery as we passed to and fro between the
main building and the school-house--the sea, fringed with cocoanut
palms; the fertile level plain, dotted with trees, on which the village
stood; and the green mountains, whose tops were generally dark with
rainclouds or brightened with bits of rainbows. It seemed to be always
raining in that mysterious mountainous centre of the islands which human
foot has never crossed, but it was usually clear and bright at
sea-level. After an unusually hard rain we could see long, flashing
white waterfalls hanging, like ribbons of silver, down the sides of the
green cliffs. From the attic-windows the best view of the bay could be
obtained, and it was my delight to lean out of them like "a blessed
damosel" half an hour at a time, gazing seaward and drinking in the
beauty of the scene. Waialua Bay was shaped like a half moon, the tips
of which were distant headlands, and the curve was the yellow,
palm-fringed beach. Into this crescent-shaped reach of water rolled
great waves from the outside ocean, following each other in regular
stately order with a front of milk-white foam and a veil of mist flying
backward several yards from the summit. The Hawaiian name for this place
is E-hu-kai (Sea-mist), and it is appropriately named, for the floating
veils of the billows keep the surface of the entire bay dim with mist.
Gazing long upon the scene, my eyes would be dazzled with color--the
intense blue of the sky and the water, the bright yellow of the sand,
the dark rich green of the trees, and, looking into the garden below,
the flame-scarlet blossoms of the pomegranates, the rose-pink flowers of
the oleanders and the cream-white clusters of the limes and oranges.

It seemed a land for poetry, for romance, for day-dreaming, and the
transition from the attic-window to the prosaic realities of house and
school-room work was like a sudden awakening. I was destined before
leaving the place to have a still more violent awakening to the reality
that underlies appearances. Nature in these beautiful islands is fair
and lovely, but deceitful. During long months of sunny weather the waves
gently kiss the shore, the green slopes smile, the mountains decorate
themselves with cloud-wreaths and rainbows; but there comes a dreadful
day when the green and flowery earth yawns in horrid chasms, when Mauna
Loa trembles and belches forth torrents of blood-red lava, when the
ocean, receding from the shore, returns in a tidal wave that sweeps to
the top of the palms on the beach and engulfs the people and their
homes.

And the human nature here is somewhat similar. The Hawaiians are
pleasing in form and feature, graceful, polite, fond of music and
dancing and wreathing themselves with flowers, and possess withal a deep
fund of poetry, which finds expression in their own names, the names
they have bestowed upon waterfalls and valleys and green peaks and
sea-cliffs, and in the _meles_ or native songs which commemorate events
of personal interest or national importance. But they too have their
volcanic outbursts, their seasons of fury and destruction. The last
public display of this side of their character was on the occasion of
the election of the present king. The supporters of Queen Emma, the
defeated candidate, burst into the court-house, broke the heads of the
electors or threw them bodily out of the windows, and raised a riot in
the streets of Honolulu which was quelled only by the assistance of the
crews of the men-of-war then in the harbor--the English ship Tenedos and
the United States vessels Portsmouth and Tuscarora.

I come now to the rebellion which broke forth in Waialua school when I
had been there three weeks. A month or two before one of the
school-girls had died after a brief illness. The old heathen
superstition about praying to Death had been revived by the lower class
of natives in the place, who were not friendly to the school, and had
been transmitted by them to the older girls. While yet ignorant of this
I had noticed the scowls and dark looks, the reluctant obedience and
manifest distrust, of ten or twelve girls from fifteen to eighteen, the
leaders in the school. The younger girls were affectionate and obedient:
they brought flowers from their gardens and wove wreaths for us; they
lomi-lomi-ed our hands and feet when we were sitting at rest; if they
neglected their tasks or broke any of the taboos of the school, it was
through the carelessness of childhood. But it seemed impossible to gain
the confidence of the older girls.

One day Miss P----, the assistant teacher, received word that her father
was quite sick, and immediately set out for Honolulu on horseback. Miss
G----and I carried on the work of the school as well as we could. A day
or two after Miss P---- left a tropical storm burst upon us. It seemed
as if the very heavens were opened. The rain fell in torrents and the
air was filled with the flying branches of trees. This continued a day
and a night. The next day, Sunday, the rain and wind ceased, but sullen
clouds still hung overhead, and there was an oppressive stillness and
languor in the air. Within, there was something of the same atmosphere:
the tropical nature of the girls seemed to be in sympathy with the
stormy elements. They were silent and sullen and brooding. The bridge
over Waialua had been washed away, and we could not go to church. The
oppressive day passed and was succeeded by a similar one. The older
girls cast dark looks upon us as they reluctantly went through the round
of school- and house-work. At night the explosion occurred. All the
girls were at the usual study-hour in the basement dining-room. It was
Miss G----'s turn to sit with them: I was in the sitting-room directly
above. Suddenly I heard a loud yell, a sound as of scuffling and Miss
G----'s quick tones of command. The next moment I was down stairs. There
stood Miss G---- in the middle of the room holding Elizabeth Aukai, one
of the largest and worst girls, by the wrist. The girl's head was bent
and her teeth were buried in Miss G----'s hand. The heathen had burst
forth, the volcanic eruption and earthquake had come. I tried to pull
her off, but she was as strong as an ox. Loosening her hold directly and
hurling us off, she poured forth a flood of abuse in Hawaiian. She
reviled the teachers and all the cursed foreigners who were praying her
people to death. The Hawaiian language has no "swear words," but it is
particularly rich in abusive and reviling epithets, and these were
freely heaped upon us. She ended her tirade by saying, "You shall not
pray us to death, you wicked, black-hearted foreigners!" and her
companions answered with a yell. Then, snatching up a lamp, they ran up
stairs to their sleeping-rooms, screaming and laughing and singing
native songs that had been forbidden in the school, and, taking their
shawls and Sunday dresses from their trunks, they arrayed themselves in
all their finery and began dancing an old heathen dance which is taboo
among the better class of natives and only practised in secret by the
more degraded class of natives and half-whites.

It sounded like Bedlam let loose. The little girls, frightened and
crying, and a half-white girl of seventeen, Miss G----'s adopted
daughter, remained with us. We put the younger children to bed in their
sleeping-room, which was on the first floor, and held a council
together. "One of us must cross the river and bring Pai-ku-li" (the
native minister), said Miss G----. "He is Elizabeth Aukai's
guardian--she is his wife's niece--and he can control her if anybody
can, and break the hold of this superstition on the girls' minds.
Nothing that we can say or do will do any good while they are in this
frenzy. Which of us shall go?"

The bridge was washed away; there was no boat; Miss P---- had taken the
only horse to go to Honolulu. Whoever went must ford the river. Like
Lord Ullin's daughter, who would meet the raging of the skies, but not
an angry father, I was less afraid to go than to stay, and volunteered
to bring Pai-ku-li.

"Li-li-noe shall go with you," said Miss G----: "she is a good swimmer,
and can find the best way through the river."

Just then the whole crowd of girls came screaming and laughing down the
stairs, swept through the sitting-room, mocking and insulting Miss
G----, then went back up the other flight of stairs, which led to the
teachers' rooms and was taboo to the school-girls. They were anxious to
break as many rules as possible.

With a lighted lantern hidden between us Li-li-noe and I stole down
through the flower-garden and across the lawn. We were anxious to keep
the girls in ignorance of our absence, lest they should attempt some
violence to Miss G---- while we were gone. Stealing quietly past the
grass huts of the natives, we approached the place where the bridge had
been, and brought forth our lantern to shed light on the water-soaked
path. Just ahead the surf showed through the darkness white and
threatening, and beyond was the ocean, dim heaving in the dusk. The
clash and roar of the meeting waters filled the air, and we were
sprinkled by the flying spray as we stood debating on the river's edge.
Li-li-noe stepped down into the water to find, if possible, a place
shallow enough to ford, but at the first step she disappeared up to her
shoulders. "That will never do," she said, clambering back: "you cannot
cross there."

"Can we cross above the bridge?" I asked.

"No: the water is ten feet deep there; it is shallower toward the sea."

"Then let us try there;" and into the water we went, Li-li-noe first. It
was not quite waist-deep, and in calm weather there would have been no
danger, but now the current of the river and the tide of the inrushing
sea swept back and forth with the force of a whirlpool. We had got to
the middle when a great wave, white with foam, came roaring toward us
from the ocean. Li-li-noe threw herself forward and began to swim. For a
moment there were darkness and the roar of many waters around me, and my
feet were almost swept from under me. Looking upward at the cloudy sky
and the tall cocoanut trees on the bank, I thought of the home and
friends I might never see again. The bitter salt water wet my face,
quenched the light and carried away my shawl, but the wave returned
without carrying me out to sea. Then above the noise of the waters I
heard Li-li-noe's voice calling to me from the other shore, and just as
another wave surged in I reached her side and sank down on the sand.
After resting a few moments we rose and began picking our way toward the
village, half a mile distant. Our route led along a narrow path between
the muddy, watery road on one side and a still more muddy, watery
taro-patch on the other. Without a light to guide our steps, we slipped,
now with one foot into the road, now with the other into the taro-patch,
and by the time we emerged into the level cactus-field around the church
we were covered with mud to our knees.

Pai-ku-li lived nearly a mile beyond the village, but close by the
church lived Mrs. W----, whose place I had taken as English teacher in
the school. We knocked at her door to beg for a light, and when she
found what the matter was she made us come in, muddy and dripping as we
were, and put on some dry clothes, while her husband, pulling on his
boots, went for Pai-ku-li. She begged me to stay all night, saying that
she would not trust her life with the girls at such a time--they might
attempt to poison us or to burn the house down--but I thanked her for
her hospitality and lighted our lantern, and we started back as soon as
Mr. W---- returned saying that Pai-ku-li would come. We listened for
the sound of his horse's feet, for we had planned to ride across the
river, one at a time, behind Pai-ku-li, but he did not overtake us, and
we waited at the river nearly half an hour. One span of the bridge
remained, and as we stood on it waiting, listening to the flapping of
the cocoanut fronds in the night wind and the hoarse murmuring and
occasional roar of the ocean, I thought of that line of Longfellow's--

    I stood on the bridge at midnight--

and laughed to myself at the contrast between the poetical and the
actual. Still, Pai-ku-li did not come, and, growing anxious on Miss
G----'s account, we resolved to cross as we had before. Again we went
down into the cold flood, again our light was quenched and our feet
nearly swept from under us, but we reached the opposite side in safety.
As we crossed the lawn we saw every window lighted, and knew by the
sounds of yelling and singing and laughing that the girls were still
raving. Miss G---- sat quietly in the parlor. She had been up stairs to
try to reason with the girls, but they drowned her voice with hooting
and reviling. Pai-ku-li came a little later, but he had no better
success. He remained with us that night and all the next day. The
screaming up stairs continued till two or three o'clock at night, and
began again as soon as the first girl woke. Early next morning a fleet
messenger started to Honolulu, and just at dusk two gentlemen, the
sheriff and Mr. P----, who was Miss G----'s brother-in-law and president
of the board of trustees of Waialua Seminary, rode up on foaming horses.
A court was held in the school-room, many natives--a few of the better
class who disapproved of the rebellion, and more of the lower class who
upheld the rebels--being present as spectators, but no one interrupting
the prompt and stern proceedings of Mr. P----. Elizabeth Aukai was
whipped on her bare feet and legs below the knee until she burst out
crying and begged for mercy and asked Miss G----'s forgiveness for
biting her. Then she and the other rebels were expelled, and the
sheriff took them away that night. Those who lived on other islands were
sent home by the first schooner leaving Honolulu. Thus ended the
rebellion at Waialua school.

The remaining month of my stay passed in peace and quietness. The need
for my assistance was less after the expulsion of so many girls, but I
remained in order that Miss G---- might take a short vacation and the
rest she so much needed. During her absence Miss P---- and I carried on
the school. A few days after the storm a little native boy brought to
the seminary the shawl which had been washed from my shoulders the night
I went through the river. He had found it lying on the beach half a mile
below the ford. It had been washed out to sea and returned again by the
waves. After that we called it "the travelled shawl." Every Monday
morning the toot of the postman's horn was heard in the village, and one
of us immediately went across to get the mail. The bridge being gone, we
had to wade the river at the shallowest place, near the sea. When I
waded across on such occasions I usually found on the opposite shore a
group of half-naked little natives who drew near to watch with silent
interest the process of buttoning my shoes with a button-hook. The whole
school waded across to church on Sundays.

The population of the village, with the exception of two or three
families, was composed of natives and half-whites of the lower class.
Heathen superstition mingled with modern vice. In some instances men and
women lived together without the ceremony of marriage. Beyond the
village the cane-fields began, and beyond them, at the foot of the
mountains, lived a better class of natives, moral and industrious. Here,
too, were the cane-mills and the residences of the planters. I remember
one pretty little cottage with walls of braided grass and wooden roof
and floor, surrounded by cool, vine-shaded verandas. It stood in the
middle of a cane-plantation, and was the home of an Englishman and his
wife, both highly cultivated and genial, companionable people. He was a
typical Englishman in appearance, stout and ruddy, and wore a blue
flannel suit and the white head-covering worn by his countrymen in
India. She was a graceful little creature with appealing dark eyes, and
looked too frail to have ever borne hardship or cruelty, yet she had
known little else all her early life. She had been left an orphan in
England, and had been sent out to Australia to make her living as a
governess. She was thrown among brutal, coarse-mannered people, and
received harsh treatment and suffered many vicissitudes of fortune.
Finally, her husband met and loved and married her, and lifted her out
of that hard life into one which appeared by contrast a heaven of peace
and kindness and affection. She often said frankly, "That was the
happiest event of my life. I can never be thankful enough to him or love
him enough. Sometimes I dream I am back again enduring that dreadful
life in Australia, and when I wake and realize that I am here in our own
little cottage, thousands of miles from Australia, I am freshly happy
and grateful."

Near the foot of the mountains was a Catholic church and a school, round
which a little village had grown up. The self-sacrificing efforts of the
teachers have been productive of good among the natives, but there seems
little hope of any co-operation between the Protestant missionaries and
them.

When the time came for me to return to Honolulu, Miss P---- offered to
accompany me, and suggested that instead of returning by the way I came
we should take the longer way and complete the circuit of the island. As
the road lay directly along the sea-coast the entire distance, there was
no danger of our losing our way. Miss P---- rode Calico, the missionary
steed, and I hired a white horse of Nakaniella (Nathaniel), one of the
patrons of the school, choosing it in preference to a bay brought for my
inspection the night before we started by a sullen-looking native from
the village. When we had gone two or three miles on our way we heard the
sound of furious galloping behind us, and looking back saw this native,
with a face like a thunder-cloud, approaching us on his bay horse.
Reaching us, he insisted on my dismounting and taking his horse, saying
that I had promised to hire it the night before. Miss P----, being able
to speak Hawaiian, answered for me without slackening our pace. She
said, in reply to his demands, that the wahine haole had not promised to
take his horse; that she would not pay him for his time and trouble in
bringing over the horse that morning and riding after us; that he might
ride all the way to Honolulu with us or go to law about the matter, both
of which he threatened. Fuming with wrath, he rode along with us for a
mile or two, breathing out threatenings and slaughter in vigorous
Hawaiian: then, uttering the spiteful wish, "May your horses throw you
and break your necks!" he turned and rode back toward Waialua.

We passed through the ruins of a once-populous village: stone walls
bordered the road for a mile or more, and back of them were the stone
foundations of native houses and _heiaus_ (temples). Pandanus trees,
with roots like stilts or props that lifted them two or three feet from
the ground, grew inside the deserted enclosures: long grass waved from
the chinks and crevices. It was a mournful reminder of the decay of the
Hawaiian race. Just beyond the ruined village a sluggish creek flowed
into the sea. At the mouth of the valley whence it issued stood two or
three native huts. A man wearing a malo was up on the roof of one,
thatching it with grass. Riding near, we hailed him and inquired about a
quicksand which lay just ahead and which we must cross. He told us to
avoid the _makai_ side and keep to the _mouka_ side. We followed his
directions, and crossed in safety. For all practical purposes there are
but two directions in the islands--_mouka_, meaning toward the
mountains, and _makai_, toward the sea.

We rode all the forenoon over a level strip of grassy open country
bordering the sea, with here and there a native hut near a clump of
cocoanuts or a taro-patch. Toward noon we passed fenced pastures in
which many horses were grazing, and came in sight of a picturesque
cottage near the shore. Miss G---- had told us that on the lawn in front
of this cottage were two curious old stone idols which had been
discovered in a fish-pond, and we rode up to the gate intending to ask
permission to enter and look at them. A Chinese servant let us in, and
the owner, an Englishman who lived here during part of the year, came
and showed us the idols, and then invited us inside his pretty cottage
and gave us a lunch of bread and butter and guava jelly and oranges. The
walls and ceilings were of native wood, of the kinds used in delicate
cabinet-work and were polished until they shone. The floor was covered
with fine straw matting, and around the room were ranged easy-chairs and
sofas of willow and rattan. In one corner stood a piano in an ebony
case, and on a koa-wood centre-table were a number of fine photographs
and works of art. Hanging baskets filled with blooming plants hung in
each window and in the veranda. Altogether, it was the prettiest
hermitage imaginable.

Riding along that afternoon through a country much like that we had
passed over in the morning, we heard from a native hut the sound of the
mournful Hawaiian wail, "Auea! auea!" (pronounced like the word "away"
long drawn out). To our inquiry if any one was dead within, a woman
answered, "No, but that some friends had come from a distance on a
visit." I have frequently seen two Hawaiian friends or relations who had
not met for a long time express their emotions at seeing one another
again, not by kissing and laughing and joyful exclamations, but by
sitting down on the ground and wailing. Perhaps it was done in
remembrance of their long separation and of the changes that had taken
place during that time. The native mode of kissing consists in rubbing
noses together.

Not far from this place we passed a Mormon settlement, a little colony
sent out from Utah. The group of bare white buildings was some distance
back from the road, and we did not stop to visit them. Near by was a
_hou_-tree swamp, a spongy, marshy place where cattle were eating grass
that grew under water. They would reach down until their ears were
almost covered, take a mouthful and lift up their heads while they
chewed it. Thus far on our journey there had been a level plain two or
three miles wide between the sea and the mountains, but here the
mountains came close down to the sea, leaving only a little strip of
land along the beach. High, stern cliffs with strange profiles, such as
a lion, a canoe and a gigantic hen on her nest, frowned upon us as we
rode along their base. We passed a cold bubbling spring which had worn a
large basin for itself in the rock. It had formerly been the
bathing-place of a chief, and therefore taboo to the common people. In
one of our gallops along the beach my stirrup-strap broke, and we
stopped in front of a solitary hut to ask for a stout string. A squid
was drying on a pole and scenting the air with its fishy odors. In
answer to our call an old man in a calico shirt came out of the hut,
and, taking some strips of _hou_-bark, twisted them into a strong string
and fastened the stirrup. I gave him a real, and he exclaimed "Aloha!"
with apparently as much surprise and delight as if we had enriched him
for life.

We rode through a little village at the mouth of a beautiful green
valley, forded a river that ran through it, and passing under more high
cliffs came about four in the afternoon to Kahana, our stopping-place
for the night. It was a little cluster of houses at the head of a bay or
inlet of the sea, where the lovely transparent water was green as grass,
and stood in the opening of a valley enclosed by high, steep
mountain-walls, with sharp ridges down their sides clothed with rich
forests. All around us grew delicate, luxuriant ferns, of which there
are one hundred and fifty varieties in the islands. Along the shores of
the bay some women were wading, their dresses held above their knees,
picking shellfish and green sea-moss off the rocks for supper. We rode
up to the cottage of Kekoa, a native minister who had studied under Miss
P----'s father. His half-Chinese, half-native wife was in a grass hut at
the back of the house, and she came immediately to take our horses,
saying that her husband was at the church, but would be at home soon.
Then opening the door, she told us to go inside and rest ourselves. It
was a pretty cottage, with floors and walls of wood and a grass roof.
Braided mats of palm and pandanus-leaves were on the floor, and on the
walls hung portraits of the Hawaiian royal family and Generals Lee and
Grant. It had two rooms--a sitting-room and a bedroom--the first
furnished with a table and chairs, the latter with a huge high-posted
bedstead with a canopy over it. Altogether, it was much above the common
native houses, and was evidently not used every day, but kept for the
reception of guests--travelling ministers and the like.

When Kekoa came he welcomed us warmly on account of the attachment he
had for Miss P----'s father, and told us to consider the house ours as
long as it pleased us to stay. He sent his wife to catch a chicken, and
soon set before us on the table in the sitting-room a supper consisting
of boiled chicken, rice, baked taro, coarse salt from the bay, and
bananas. We overlooked the absence of bread, which the natives know not
of, and shared the use of the one knife and fork between us. Our host
waited on us, his wife bringing the food to the door and handing it to
him. After supper other natives came in, and Miss P---- conversed with
them in Hawaiian. Being tired and stiff from my long ride, I went into
the next room and lay down on the bed. Mrs. Kekoa came in presently and
began to lomi-lomi me. She kneaded me with her hands from head to foot,
just as a cook kneads dough, continuing the process for nearly an hour,
although I begged her several times to stop lest she should be tired. At
the end of that time all sensation of fatigue and stiffness was gone and
I felt fresh and well. Kekoa and his wife slept in a grass hut several
rods farther up the valley, and Miss P---- and I had the house to
ourselves. In the middle of the night we were awakened by the sound of a
man talking in through the open window of our room. We both thought for
a moment that it was our persecutor of the morning who had followed us
as he had threatened, but it proved to be a native from the head of the
valley who wanted to see Kekoa. Miss P---- directed him to the grass hut
where our host slept, and he went away, and we were not disturbed again.
Next morning we had breakfast like the supper, and asked for our horses.
Kekoa and his wife begged us to stay longer, but we could not, and
parted from them with much regret. We afterward sent them some large
photographs of scenes in Honolulu, and received an affectionate message
from them in return. I look back to Kahana as a sort of Happy Valley,
and dream sometimes of going back and seeing again its beautiful
pale-green bay, its glittering blue sea, its grand mountain-walls
clothed in richest verdure, and renewing my acquaintance with its
kind-hearted people. Several natives gathered to say good-bye, and two
of them rode with us out of the valley and saw us fairly on our way.

We rode past cane-plantations fenced with palm-tree trunks or hedged
with huge prickly pear; past thickets of wild indigo and castor bean;
through guava-jungles, where we pulled and ate the ripe fruit, yellow
outside and pink within; past large fish-ponds that had been constructed
for the chiefs in former days; past rice-fields where Chinese were
scaring away the birds; past threshing-floors where Chinese were
threshing rice; past _kamani_ trees (from Tahiti) that looked like
umbrellas slanting upward; past a flock of mina-birds brought from
Australia; past aloe-plants and vast thickets of red and yellow lantana
in blossom, reaching as high as our horses' necks.

We dismounted in front of a little grass hut where we heard the sound of
a tappa-pounder, and went to the door. An old native woman, with her
arms tattooed with India-ink, was sitting on a mat spread on the ground,
with a sheet of moist red tappa lying over a beam placed on the ground
in front of her, and a four-sided mallet in her hand. Beside her sat a
young half-white girl with a large tortoise-shell comb in her hair and a
fat little dog in her arms. We asked if we could come in and see the
tappa. The old woman said "Yes," and displayed it with some pride. She
was making it to give to Queen Emma, hence the pains she was taking with
the coloring and the pattern. The bark of a shrub resembling our pawpaw
tree is steeped in water until it becomes a mass of pulp. Then it is
laid on the heavy beam and beaten with the tappa-pounder, and pulled and
stretched until it becomes a square sheet with firm edges, about as
thick as calico and six or eight feet square. The juice of berries or
dye from the bark of trees furnishes the coloring, and the pattern is
determined by the figures cut in the tappa-pounder. Some fine mats
rolled-up in one corner and some braided baskets on the wall were also
the work of this tappa-maker.

We passed through several villages as we neared our journey's end, and
the scenery grew more interesting. The palm trees on the beach framed
views of little islands bathed in sea-mist which lay half a mile or more
from the shore. Narrow green valleys with high steep walls, down whose
sides flashed bright waterfalls, opened to view one after another on the
mouka or inland side. At the mouth of one we saw a twig of _ohia_, or
native apple tree, placed carefully between two stones. Some
superstitious native had put it there as an offering, that the goddess
of that valley might not roll down rocks on him and kill him. The Pali,
a stupendous perpendicular cliff four thousand feet high, faces the sea
a few miles from Honolulu. We came in sight of it early in the
afternoon, and stopped on a grassy knoll near a clear stream to eat our
lunch and allow our horses to graze. The hardest part of the whole
journey lay immediately before us. A zigzag path has been cut up the
face of the cliff, but it is so steep and narrow that carriages cannot
pass over it, and it is with much exertion and heavy panting that it can
be climbed by man or beast. The face of the cliff is hung with vines and
ferns, and at its base grow palms and the rich vegetation of the
tropics. It is the grandest bit of scenery on Oahu. We rode our horses
to the foot of the Pali: then, out of compassion for them, dismounted
and led them up the long steep path, stopping several times to rest. On
the way some natives passed us on horseback, racing up the Pali! At the
top we stood a while in silence, gazing at the magnificent prospect
spread out below us. We could see miles of the road we had
come--silvery-green cane-plantations, little villages with white
church-spires, rich groves of palm, kukui and koa, and the sea rising
like a dark blue wall all around the horizon. Then we mounted and turned
our faces toward Honolulu. On either side were lofty mountain-walls,
with perpendicular sides clothed with vivid green and hung with silvery
waterfalls. We were entering the city by Nuannu ("Cold Spring") Valley,
the most delightful and fashionable suburb. Here were Queen Emma's
residence, set in the midst of extensive and beautiful grounds, the
Botanical Gardens, the residence of the American minister, the royal
mausoleum and the house and gardens once occupied by Kalumma, a former
queen. Crowds of gayly-dressed natives galloped past us as we neared the
city, wearing wreaths of fern and flowers. One man carried a half-grown
pig in a rope net attached to his stirrup: it looked tired of life. So,
under the arching algaroba and monkey-pod trees that shade Nuannu
Avenue, and past the royal palms that grace the yards, we rode into
beautiful Honolulu.

                          LOUISE COFFIN JONES.




FINDELKIND OF MARTINSWAND: A CHILD'S STORY.


There was a little boy a year or two since who lived under the shadow of
Martinswand. Most people know, I should suppose, that the Martinswand is
that mountain in the Oberinnthal where, several centuries ago, brave
Kaiser Max lost his footing as he stalked the chamois and fell upon a
ledge of rock, and stayed there, in mortal peril, for thirty hours, till
he was rescued by the strength and agility of a Tyrol hunter--an angel
in the guise of a hunter, as the chronicles of the time prefer to say.
The Martinswand is a grand mountain, being one of the spurs of the
greater Sonnstein, and rises precipitously, looming, massive and lofty,
like a very fortress for giants, where it stands right across that road
which, if you follow it long enough, takes you on through Zirl to
Landeck--old, picturesque, poetic Landeck, where Frederic of the Empty
Pockets rhymed his sorrows in ballads to his people--and so on, by
Bludenz, into Switzerland itself, by as noble a highway as any traveller
can ever desire to traverse on a summer's day. The Martinswand is within
a mile of the little burg of Zirl, where the people, in the time of
their kaiser's peril, came out with torches and bells, and the Host
lifted up by their priest, and all prayed on their knees underneath the
gaunt pile of limestone, which is the same to-day as it was then, whilst
Kaiser Max is dust. The Martinswand soars up very steep and very
majestic, bare stone at its base and all along its summit crowned with
pine woods; and on the other side of the road that runs onward to Zirl
are a little stone church, quaint and low, and gray with age, and a
stone farm-house and cattle-sheds and timber-sheds of wood that is
darkly brown from time; and beyond these are some of the most beautiful
meadows in the world, full of tall grass and countless flowers, with
pools and little estuaries made by the brimming Inn River that flows by
them, and beyond the river the glaciers of the Sonnstein and the Selrain
and the wild Arlberg region, and the golden glow of sunset in the west,
most often seen from here through a veil of falling rain.

At this farm-house, with Martinswand towering above it and Zirl a mile
beyond, there lived, and lives still, a little boy who bears the old
historical name of Findelkind. His father, Otto Korner, was the last of
a sturdy race of yeomen who had fought with Hofer and Haspinger, and had
been free men always.

Findelkind came in the middle of seven other children, and was a pretty
boy of nine years old, with slenderer limbs and paler cheeks than his
rosy brethren, and tender, dreamy, dark-blue eyes that had the look, his
mother told him, of seeking stars in midday--_de chercher midi à
quatorze heures_, as the French have it. He was a good little lad, and
seldom gave any trouble from disobedience, though he often gave it from
forgetfulness. His father angrily complained that he was always in the
clouds--that is, he was always dreaming--and so very often would spill
the milk out of the pails, chop his own fingers instead of the wood, and
stay watching the swallows when he was sent to draw water. His brothers
and sisters were always making fun of him: they were sturdier, ruddier
and merrier children than he was, loved romping and climbing and
nutting, thrashing the walnut trees and sliding down snow-drifts, and
got into mischief of a more common and childish sort than Findelkind's
freaks of fancy. For indeed he was a very fanciful little boy:
everything around had tongues for him, and he would sit for hours among
the long rushes on the river's edge, trying to imagine what the wild
green-gray water had found in its wanderings, and asking the water-rats
and the ducks to tell him about it; but both rats and ducks were too
busy to attend to an idle little boy, and never spoke, which vexed him.

Findelkind, however, was very fond of his books: he would study day and
night in his little ignorant, primitive fashion. He loved his missal and
his primer, and could spell them both out very fairly, and was learning
to write of a good priest in Zirl, where he trotted three times a week
with his two little brothers. When not at school he was chiefly set to
guard the sheep and the cows, which occupation left him very much to
himself, so that he had many hours in the summer-time to stare up to
the skies and wonder, wonder, wonder about all sorts of things; while in
the winter--the long, white, silent winter, when the post-wagons ceased
to run, and the road into Switzerland was blocked, and the whole world
seemed asleep except for the roaring of the winds--Findelkind, who still
trotted over the snow to school in Zirl, would dream still, sitting on
the wooden settle by the fire when he came home again under Martinswand.
For the worst--or the best--of it all was that he was Findelkind also.

This was what was always haunting him. He was Findelkind, and to bear
this name seemed to him to mark him out from all other children and
dedicate him to Heaven. One day three years before, when he had been
only six years old, the priest in Zirl, who was a very kindly and
cheerful man, and amused the children as much as he taught them, had not
allowed Findelkind to leave the school to go home because the storm of
snow and wind was so violent, but had kept him until the worst should
pass, with one or two other little lads who lived some way off, and had
let the boys roast apples and chestnuts by the stove in his little room,
and while the wind howled and the blinding snow fell without had told
the children the story of another Findelkind, an earlier Findelkind, who
had lived in the flesh as far back as 1381, and had been a little
shepherd-lad--"just like you," said the good man, looking at the little
boys munching their roast crabs--"over there, above Stuben, where Danube
and Rhine meet and part." The pass of Arlberg is even still so bleak and
bitter that few care to climb there: the mountains around are drear and
barren, and snow lies till midsummer, and even longer sometimes. "But in
the early ages," said the priest--and this is quite a true tale, which
the children heard with open eyes, and mouths only not open because they
were full of crabs and chestnuts,--"in the early ages," said the priest
to them, "the Arlberg was far more dreary than it is now. There was only
a mule-track over it, and no refuge for man or beast; so that wanderers
and peddlers, and those whose need for work or desire for battle
brought them over that frightful pass, perished in great numbers and
were eaten by the bears and the wolves. The little shepherd-boy,
Findelkind--who was a little boy five hundred years ago, remember,"
added the priest--"was sorely disturbed and distressed to see those poor
dead souls in the snow winter after winter, and to see the blanched
bones lie on the bare earth unburied when summer melted the snow. It
made him unhappy, very unhappy; and what could he do, he a little boy
keeping sheep? He had as his wage two florins a year--that was all--but
his heart rose high and he had faith in God. Little as he was, he said
to himself he would try and do something, so that year after year those
poor lost travellers and beasts should not perish so. He said nothing to
anybody, but he took the few florins he had saved up, bade his master
farewell and went on his way begging--a little fourteenth-century boy,
with long, straight hair and a girdled tunic, as you see them,"
continued the priest, "in the miniatures in the black-letter missal that
lies upon my desk. No doubt Heaven favored him very strongly, and the
saints watched over him; still, without the boldness of his own courage
and the faith in his own heart they would not have done so. I suppose,
too, that when knights in their armor and soldiers in their camps saw
such a little fellow all alone they helped him, and perhaps struck some
blows for him, and so sped him on his way and protected him from robbers
and from wild beasts. Still, be sure that the real shield and the real
reward that served Findelkind of Arlberg was the pure and noble purpose
that armed him night and day. Now, history does not tell us where
Findelkind went, nor how he fared, nor how long he was about it, but
history _does_ tell us that the little barefooted, long-haired boy,
knocking so boldly at castle-gates and city-walls in the name of Christ
and Christ's poor brethren, did so well succeed in his quest that before
long he had returned to his mountain-home with means to have a church
and a rude dwelling built, where he lived with six other brave and
charitable souls, dedicating themselves to St. Christopher, and going
out night and day, to the sound of the Angelus, seeking the lost and
weary. This is really what Findelkind of Arlberg did five centuries ago,
and did so well that his fraternity of St. Christopher twenty years
after numbered amongst its members archdukes, prelates and knights
without number, and lasted as a great order down to the days of Joseph
II. This is what Findelkind in the fourteenth century did, I tell you.
Bear like faith in your hearts, my children, and, though your generation
is a harder one than his, because it is without faith, yet you shall
move mountains, because Christ and St. Christopher will be with you."

Then the good man, having said that, blessed them and left them alone to
their chestnuts and crabs and went into his own oratory to prayer. The
other boys laughed and chattered, but Findelkind sat very quietly
thinking of his namesake all the day after, and for many days and weeks
and months this story haunted him. A little boy had done all that, and
this little boy had been called Findelkind--Findelkind, just like
himself.

It was a beautiful story, and yet it tortured him. If the good man had
known how the history would root itself in the child's mind perhaps he
would never have told it, for night and day it vexed Findelkind, and yet
seemed beckoning to him and crying, "Go, thou, and do likewise!"

But what could he do?

There was the snow, indeed, and there were the mountains, as in the
fourteenth century, but there were no travellers lost. The diligence did
not go into Switzerland after autumn, and the country-people who went by
on their mules and in their sledges to Innspruck knew their way very
well, and were never likely to be adrift on a winter's night or eaten by
a wolf or a bear.

When spring came Findelkind sat by the edge of the bright pure water
amongst the flowering grasses and felt his head heavy. Findelkind of
Arlberg, who was in heaven now, must look down, he fancied, and think
him so stupid and so selfish sitting there. The first Findelkind a few
centuries before had trotted down on his bare feet from his
mountain-pass, and taken his little crook and gone out boldly over all
the land on his pilgrimage, and knocked at castle-gates and city-walls
in Christ's name and for love of the poor. That was to do something
indeed!

This poor little living Findelkind would look at the miniatures in the
priest's missal, in one of which there was the fourteenth-century boy
with long hanging hair and a wallet and bare feet, and he never doubted
that it was the portrait of the blessed Findelkind who was in heaven;
and he wondered if he looked like a little boy there or if he were
changed to the likeness of an angel.

"He was a boy just like me," thought the poor little fellow; and he felt
so ashamed of himself, so much ashamed; and the priest had told him to
try and do the same. He brooded over it so much, and it made him so
anxious and so vexed, that his brothers ate his porridge and he did not
notice it, his sisters pulled his curls and he did not feel it, his
father brought a stick down on his back and he only started and stared,
and his mother cried because he was losing his mind and would grow daft,
and even his mother's tears he scarcely saw. He was always thinking of
Findelkind in heaven.

When he went for water he spilt one half; when he did his lessons, he
forgot the chief part; when he drove out the cow, he let her munch the
cabbages; and when he was set to watch the oven, he let the loaves burn,
like great Alfred. He was always busied thinking, "Little Findelkind
that is in heaven did so great a thing: why may not I? I ought! I
ought!" What was the use of being named after Findelkind that was in
heaven unless one did something great too?

Next to the church there is a little stone sort of shed with two arched
openings, and from it you look into the tiny church with its crucifixes
and relics, or out to great, bold, sombre Martinswand, as you like best;
and in this spot Findelkind would sit hour after hour while his brothers
and sisters were playing, and look up at the mountains or on to the
altar, and wish and pray and vex his little soul most woefully; and his
ewes and his lambs would crop the grass about the entrance, and bleat to
make him notice them and lead them farther afield, but all in vain. Even
the dear sheep he hardly heeded, and his pet ewes Katte and Greta and
the big ram Zips rubbed their soft noses in his hand unnoticed. So the
summer passed away--the summer that is so short in the mountains, and
yet so green and so radiant, with the torrents tumbling through the
flowers, and the hay tossing in the meadows, and the lads and lasses
climbing to cut the rich sweet grass of the alps. The short summer
passed as fast as a dragon-fly flashes by, all green and gold, in the
sun; and it was near autumn once more, and still Findelkind was always
dreaming and wondering what he could do for the good of St. Christopher;
and the longing to do it all came more and more into his little heart,
and he puzzled his brain till his head ached.

One autumn morning, whilst yet it was dark, Findelkind made up his mind,
and rose before his brothers and stole down stairs and out into the air,
as it was easy to do, because the house-door never was bolted. He had
nothing with him, he was barefooted, and his school-satchel was slung
behind him, as Findelkind of Arlberg's wallet had been five centuries
before. He took a little staff from the piles of wood lying about, and
went out on to the highroad, on his way to do Heaven's will. He was not
very sure--but that was because he was only nine years old and not very
wise--but Findelkind that was in heaven had begged for the poor: so
would he.

His parents were very poor, but he did not think of them as in want at
any time, because he always had his bowlful of porridge and as much
bread as he wanted to eat. This morning he had had nothing to eat: he
wished to be away before any one could question him.

It was still dusk in the fresh autumn morning; the sun had not risen
behind the glaciers of the Stubaythal, and the road was scarcely seen;
but he knew it very well, and he set out bravely, saying his prayers to
Christ and to St. Christopher and to Findelkind that was in heaven. He
was not in any way clear as to what he would do, but he thought he would
find some great thing to do somewhere lying like a jewel in the dust;
and he went on his way in faith, as Findelkind of Arlberg had done. His
heart beat high, and his head lost its aching pains, and his feet felt
light--as light as if there were wings to his ankles. He would not go to
Zirl, because Zirl he knew so well, and there could be nothing very
wonderful waiting there; and he ran fast the other way. When he was
fairly out from under the shadow of Martinswand he slackened his pace,
and saw the sun come up on his path and begin to redden the gray-green
water; and the early Eilwagen from Landeck, that had been lumbering
along all the night, overtook him. He would have run after it and called
out to the travellers for alms, but he felt ashamed: his father had
never let him beg, and he did not know how to begin. The Eilwagen rolled
on through the autumn mud, and that was one chance lost. He was sure
that the first Findelkind had not felt ashamed when he had knocked at
the first castle-gate.

By and by, when he could not see Martinswand by turning his head back
ever so, he came to an inn that used to be a post-house in the old days
when men travelled only by road. A woman was feeding chickens in the
bright clear red of the cold daybreak. Findelkind timidly held out his
hand. "For the poor," he murmured, and doffed his cap.

The old woman looked at him sharply: "Oh, is it you, little Findelkind?
Have you run off from school? Be off with you home! I have mouths enough
to feed here."

Findelkind went away, and began to learn that it is not easy to be a
prophet or a hero in one's own country. He trotted a mile farther and
met nothing. At last he came to some cows by the wayside, and a man
tending them. "Would you give me something to help make a monastery?" he
said timidly, and once more took off his cap.

The man gave a great laugh: "A fine monk you! And who wants more of
those lazy drones? Not I."

Findelkind never answered: he remembered the priest had said that the
years he lived in were very hard ones, and men in them had no faith. Ere
long he came to a big walled house, with turrets and grated
casements--very big it looked to him--like one of the first Findelkind's
own castles. His heart beat loud against his side, but he plucked up his
courage and knocked as loud as his heart was beating. He knocked and
knocked, but no answer came. The house was empty. But he did not know
that: he thought it was that the people within were cruel, and he went
sadly onward with the road winding before him, and on his right the
beautiful, impetuous gray river, and on his left the green Mittelgebirge
and the mountains that rose behind it. By this time the sun was high:
its rays were glowing on the red of the cranberry-shrubs and the blue of
the bilberry-boughs; he was hungry and thirsty and tired. But he did not
give in for that: he held on steadily. He knew that there was near,
somewhere near, a great city that the people called Sprugg, and thither
he had resolved to go. By noontide he had walked eight miles, and come
to a green place where men were shooting at targets, the tall thick
grass all around them; and a little way farther off was a train of
people chanting and bearing crosses and dressed in long flowing robes.

The place was the Höttinger Au, and the day was Saturday, and the
village was making ready to perform a miracle-play on the morrow.
Findelkind ran to the robed singing-folk, quite sure that he saw the
people of God. "Oh, take me! take me!" he cried to them--"do take me
with you to do Heaven's work!"

But they pushed him aside for a crazy little boy that spoilt their
rehearsing.

"It was only for Hötting-folk," said a lad older than himself. "Get out
of the way with you, liebchen;" and the man who carried the cross
knocked him with force on the head by mere accident, but Findelkind
thought he had meant it.

Were people so much kinder five centuries before? he wondered, and felt
sad as the many-colored robes swept on through the grass and the crack
of the rifles sounded sharply through the music of the chanting voices.
He went on footsore and sorrowful, thinking of the castle-doors that had
opened and the city-gates that had unclosed at the summons of the little
long-haired boy painted on the missal.

He had come now to where the houses were much more numerous, though
under the shade of great trees--lovely old gray houses, some of wood,
some of stone, some with frescoes on them and gold and color and
mottoes, some with deep-barred casements and carved portals and
sculptured figures--houses of the poorer people now, but still memorials
of a grand and gracious time. For he had wandered into the quarter of
St. Nicholas of this fair mountain-city, which he, like his
country-folks, called Sprugg, though the government and the world called
it Innspruck.

He got out upon a long gray wooden bridge, and looked up and down the
reaches of the river, and thought to himself maybe this was not Sprugg
but Jerusalem, so beautiful it looked with its domes shining golden in
the sun, and the snow of the Patscher Kofl and the Brandjoch behind
them. For little Findelkind had never come so far before.

As he stood on the bridge so dreaming a hand clutched him and a voice
said, "A whole kreutzer, or you do not pass."

Findelkind started and trembled. A kreutzer? He had never owned such a
treasure in all his life. "I have no money," he murmured timidly: "I
came to see if I could get money for the poor."

The keeper of the bridge laughed: "You are a little beggar, you mean?
Oh, very well: then over my bridge you do not go."

"But it is the city on the other side."

"To be sure it is the city, but over nobody goes without a kreutzer."

"I never have such a thing of my own--never, never," said Findelkind,
ready to cry.

"Then you were a little fool to come away from your home, wherever that
may be," said the man at the bridge-head. "Well, I will let you go, for
you look a baby. But do not beg: that is bad."

"Findelkind did it."

"Then Findelkind was a rogue and a vagabond," said the taker of tolls.

"Oh, no, no, no!"

"Oh, yes, yes, yes, little saucebox! and take that," said the man,
giving him a box on the ear, being angry at contradiction.

Findelkind's head drooped, and he went slowly over the bridge,
forgetting that he ought to have thanked the toll-taker for a free
passage. The world seemed to him very difficult. How had Findelkind done
when he had come to bridges? and oh, how had Findelkind done when he had
been hungry? For this poor little Findelkind was getting very hungry,
and his stomach was as empty as was his wallet.

A few steps brought him to the Goldenes Dachl. He forgot his hunger and
his pain, seeing the sun shine on all that gold and the curious painted
galleries under it. He thought it was real, solid gold. Real gold laid
out on a house-roof, and the people all so poor! Findelkind began to
muse, and wonder why everybody did not climb up there and take a tile
off and be rich. But perhaps it would be wicked. Perhaps God put the
roof there with all that gold to prove people. Findelkind got
bewildered. If God did such a thing, was it kind?

His head seemed to swim, and the sunshine went round and round with him.
There went by him just then a very venerable-looking old man with silver
hair: he was wrapped in a long cloak.

Findelkind pulled at the cloak gently, and the old man looked down.
"What is it, my boy?" he asked.

Findelkind answered, "I came out to get gold: may I take it off that
roof?"

"It is not gold, child: it is gilding."

"What is gilding?"

"It is a thing made to look like gold: that is all."

"It is a lie, then!"

The old man smiled: "Well, nobody thinks so. If you like to put it so,
perhaps it is. What do you want gold for, you wee thing?"

"To build a monastery and house the poor."

The old man's face scowled and grew dark, for he was a Lutheran pastor
from Bavaria. "Who taught you such trash?" he said crossly.

"It is not trash: it is faith."

And Findelkind's face began to burn and his blue eyes to darken and
moisten. There was a little crowd beginning to gather, and the crowd was
beginning to laugh. There were some soldiers and rifle-shooters in the
throng, and they jeered and joked, and made fun of the old man in the
long cloak, who grew angry then with the child. "You are a little
idolater and a little impudent sinner," he said wrathfully, and shook
the boy by the shoulder and went away; and the throng that had gathered
round had only poor Findelkind left to tease.

He was a very poor little boy indeed to look at, with his sheepskin
tunic and his bare feet and legs, and his wallet that never was to get
filled.

"Where do you come from, and what do you want?" they asked.

And he answered with a sob in his voice, "I want to do like Findelkind
of Arlberg."

And then the crowd laughed, not knowing at all what he meant, but
laughing just because they did not know, as crowds always will do.

And only the big dogs, that are so very big in this country, and are all
loose and free and good-natured citizens, came up to him kindly and
rubbed against him and made friends; and at that tears came into his
eyes and his courage rose, and he lifted his head.

"You are cruel people to laugh," he said indignantly: "the dogs are
kinder. People did not laugh at Findelkind. He was a little boy just
like me, no better and no bigger, and as poor, and yet he had so much
faith, and the world then was so good, that he left his sheep and got
money enough to build a church and a hospice to Christ and St.
Christopher. And I want to do the same for the poor. Not for myself--no,
for the poor. I am Findelkind too, and Findelkind that is in heaven
speaks to me." Then he stopped, and a sob rose again in his throat.

"He is crazy," said the people, laughing, yet a little scared; for the
priest at Zirl had said rightly, This is not an age of faith. At that
moment there sounded, coming from the barracks, that used to be the
Schloss in the old days of Kaiser Max and Mary of Burgundy, the sound of
drums and trumpets and the tramp of marching feet. It was one of the
corps of jägers of Tyrol going down from the avenue to the Rudolf Platz,
with their band before them and their pennons streaming. It was a
familiar sight, but it drew the street-throngs to it like magic: the age
is not fond of dreamers, but it is very fond of drums. In almost a
moment the old dark arcades and the river-side and the passages near
were all empty, except for the old women sitting at their stalls of
fruit or cakes or toys. They are wonderful arched arcades, like the
cloisters of a cathedral more than anything else, and the shops under
them are all homely and simple--shops of leather, of furs, of clothes,
of wooden playthings, of sweet, wholesome bread. They are very quaint,
and kept by poor folks for poor folks, but to the dazed eyes of
Findelkind they looked like a forbidden Paradise, for he was so hungry
and so heartbroken, and he had never seen any bigger place than little
Zirl.

He stood and looked wistfully, but no one offered him anything. Close by
was a stall of splendid purple grapes, but the old woman that kept it
was busy knitting. She only called to him to stand out of her light.

"You look a poor brat: have you a home?" said another woman, who sold
bridles and whips and horses' bells and the like.

"Oh yes, I have a home--by Martinswand," said Findelkind with a sigh.

The woman looked at him sharply: "Your parents have sent you on an
errand here?"

"No, I have run away."

"Run away? Oh, you bad boy! Unless, indeed--are they cruel to you?"

"No--very good."

"Are you a little rogue then, or a thief?"

"You are a bad woman to think such things," said Findelkind hotly,
knowing himself on how innocent and sacred a quest he was.

"Bad? I? Oh ho," said the old dame, cracking one of her new whips in the
air, "I should like to make you jump about with this, you thankless
little vagabond! Be off!"

Findelkind sighed again, his momentary anger passing, for he had been
born with a gentle temper, and thought himself to blame much more
readily than he thought other people were--as, indeed, every wise child
does, only there are so few children--or men--that are wise.

He turned his head away from the temptation of the bread- and
fruit-stalls, for in truth hunger gnawed him terribly, and wandered a
little to the left. From where he stood he could see the long beautiful
street of Theresa with its oriels and arches, painted windows and gilded
signs, and the steep, gray, dark mountains closing it in at the
distance; but the street frightened him, it looked so grand, and he knew
it would tempt him; so he went where he saw the green tops of some high
elms and beeches. The trees, like the dogs, seemed like friends: it was
the human creatures that were cruel.

At that moment there came out of the barrack-gates, with great noise of
trumpets and trampling of horses, a group of riders in gorgeous
uniforms, with sabres and chains glancing and plumes tossing. It looked
to Findelkind like a group of knights--those knights who had helped and
defended his namesake with their steel and their gold in the old days of
the Arlberg quest. His heart gave a leap, and he jumped on the dust for
joy, and he ran forward and fell on his knees and waved his cap like a
little mad thing, and cried out, "Oh, dear knights! oh, great soldiers!
help me, fight for me, for the love of the saints! I have come all the
way from Martinswand, and I am Findelkind, and I am trying to serve St.
Christopher like Findelkind of Arlberg."

But his little swaying body and pleading hands and shouting voice and
blowing curls frightened the horses: one of them swerved, and very
nearly settled the woes of Findelkind for ever and aye by a kick. The
soldier who rode the horse reined him in with difficulty: he was at the
head of the little staff, being indeed no less or more than the general
commanding the garrison, which in this city is some fifteen thousand
strong. An orderly sprang from his saddle and seized the child, and
shook him and swore at him. Findelkind was frightened, but he shut his
eyes and set his teeth, and said to himself that the martyrs must have
had very much worse than these things to suffer in their pilgrimage. He
had fancied these riders were knights--such knights as the priest had
shown him the likeness of in old picture-books--whose mission it had
been to ride through the world succoring the weak and weary and always
defending the right.

"What are your swords for if you are not knights?" he cried, desperately
struggling in his captor's grip, and seeing through his half-closed lids
the sunshine shining on steel scabbards.

"What does he want?" asked the officer in command of the garrison, whose
staff all this bright and martial array was. He was riding out from the
barracks to an inspection on the Rudolf Platz. He was a young man, and
had little children himself, and was half amused, half touched, to see
the tiny figure of the dusty little boy.

"I want to build a monastery like Findelkind of Arlberg, and to help the
poor," said our Findelkind valorously, though his heart was beating like
that of a little mouse caught in a trap, for the horses were trampling
up the dust around him and the orderly's grip was hard.

The officers laughed aloud; and indeed he looked a poor little scrap of
a figure, very ill able to help even himself.

"Why do you laugh?" cried Findelkind, losing his terror in his
indignation, and inspired with the courage which a great earnestness
always gives. "You should not laugh. If you were true knights you would
not laugh: you would fight for me. I am little, I know. I am very
little, but he was no bigger than I, and see what great things he did.
But the soldiers were good in those days: they did not laugh and use bad
words." And Findelkind, on whose shoulder the orderly's hold was still
fast, faced the horses which looked to him as huge as Martinswand, and
the swords which he little doubted were to be sheathed in his heart.

The officers stared, laughed again, then whispered together, and
Findelkind heard them mutter the word "toll." Findelkind, whose quick
little ears were both strained like a mountain-leveret's, understood
that the great men were saying amongst themselves that it was not safe
for him to be about alone, and that it would be kinder to him to catch
and cage him--the general view with which the world regards enthusiasts.

He heard, he understood: he knew that they did not mean to help him,
these men with the steel weapons and the huge steeds, but that they
meant to shut him up in a prison--him, little free-born, forest-fed
Findelkind. He wrenched himself out of the soldier's grip as the rabbit
wrenches itself out of the jaws of the trap, even at the cost of leaving
a limb behind, shot between the horses' legs, doubled like a hunted
thing, and spied a refuge. Opposite the avenue of gigantic poplars and
pleasant stretches of grass shaded by other bigger trees there stands a
very famous church--famous alike in the annals of history and of
art--the church of the Franciscans that holds the tomb of Kaiser Max,
though, alas! it holds not his ashes, as his dying desire was that it
should. The church stands here, a noble sombre place, with the Silver
Chapel of Philippina Wessler adjoining it, and in front the fresh cool
avenues that lead to the river and the broad water-meadows, and the
grand road bordered with the painted stations of the Cross.

There were some peasants coming in from the country driving cows; some
burghers in their carts with fat, slow horses; some little children were
at play under the poplars and the elms; great dogs were lying about on
the grass: everything was happy and at peace except the poor throbbing
heart of little Findelkind, who thought the soldiers were coming after
him to lock him up as mad, and ran and ran as fast as his trembling legs
would carry him, making for sanctuary, as in the old bygone days that he
loved many a soul less innocent than his had done. The wide doors of the
Hof Kirche stood open, and on the steps lay a black and tan hound,
watching no doubt for its master and mistress, who had gone within to
pray. Findelkind in his terror vaulted over the dog, and into the church
tumbled headlong.

It seemed quite dark, after the brilliant sunshine on the river and the
grass: his forehead touched the stone floor as he fell, and as he raised
himself and stumbled forward, reverent and bareheaded, looking for the
altar to cling to when the soldiers should enter to seize him, his
uplifted eyes fell on the great tomb.

The tomb seems entirely to fill the church as, with its twenty-four
guardian figures round it, it towers up in the twilight that reigns here
even at midday. There is a stern majesty and grandeur in it which dwarfs
every other monument and mausoleum. It is grim, it is rude, it is
savage, with the spirit of the rough ages that created it; but it is
great with their greatness, it is heroic with their heroism, it is
simple with their simplicity.

As the awestricken eyes of the terrified child fell on the mass of stone
and bronze the sight smote him breathless. The mailed warriors standing
around it, so motionless, so solemn, filled him with a frozen, nameless
fear. He had never a doubt but that they were the dead arisen. The
foremost that met his eyes were Theodoric and Arthur--the next, grim
Rodolf, father of a dynasty of emperors. There, leaning on their swords,
the three gazed down on him, armored, armed, majestic, serious, guarding
the empty grave, which to the child, who knew nothing of its history,
seemed a bier; and at the feet of Theodoric, who alone of them all
looked young and merciful, poor little desperate Findelkind fell with a
piteous sob, and cried, "I am not mad! Indeed, indeed, I am not mad!"

He did not know that these six figures were but statues of bronze. He
was quite sure they were the dead arisen, and meeting there around that
tomb on which the solitary kneeling knight watched and prayed,
encircled, as by a wall of steel, by these his comrades. He was not
frightened; he was rather comforted and stilled, as with a sudden sense
of some deep calm and certain help.

Findelkind, without knowing that he was like so many dissatisfied poets
and artists much bigger than himself, dimly felt in his little tired
mind how beautiful and how gorgeous and how grand the world must have
been when heroes and knights like these had gone by in its daily
sunshine and its twilight storms. No wonder Findelkind in heaven had
found his pilgrimage so fair when, if he had needed any help, he had
only had to kneel and clasp these firm mailed limbs, these strong
cross-hilted swords, in the name of Christ and of the poor!

Theodoric seemed to look down on him with benignant eyes from under the
raised visor, and Findelkind, weeping, threw his small arms closer and
closer round the bronzed knees of the heroic figure and sobbed aloud,
"Help me! help me! Oh, turn the hearts of the people to me, and help me
to do good!"

But Theodoric answered nothing.

There was no sound in the dark, hushed church; the gloom grew darker
over Findelkind's eyes; the mighty forms of monarchs and of heroes grew
dim before his sight. He lost consciousness and fell prone upon the
stones at Theodoric's feet, for he had fainted from hunger and emotion.

When he awoke it was quite evening: there was a lantern held over his
head; voices were muttering curiously and angrily; bending over him were
two priests, a sacristan of the church and his own father. His little
wallet lay by him on the stones, always empty.

"Liebchen, were you mad?" cried his father, half in rage, half in
tenderness. "The chase you have led me! and your mother thinking you
were drowned! and all the working day lost, running after old women's
tales of where they had seen you! Oh, little fool! little fool! what
was amiss with Martinswand that you must leave it?"

Findelkind slowly and feebly rose and sat up on the pavement, and looked
up, not at his father, but at the knight Theodoric. "I thought they
would help me to keep the poor," he muttered feebly as he glanced at his
own wallet. "And it is empty, empty!"

"Are we not poor enough?" cried his father with paternal impatience,
ready to tear his hair with vexation at having such a little idiot for
son. "Must you rove afield to find poverty to help, when it sits cold
enough, the Lord knows, at our own hearth? Oh, little ass! little dolt!
little maniac! fit only for a madhouse! talking to iron figures and
taking them for real men!--What have I done, O Heaven, that I should be
afflicted thus?"

And the poor man wept, being a good, affectionate soul, but not very
wise, and believing that his boy was mad. Then, seized with sudden rage
once more at thought of his day all wasted and its hours harassed and
miserable through searching for the lost child, he plucked up the light,
slight figure of Findelkind in his own arms, and with muttered thanks
and excuses to the sacristan of the church, bore the boy out with him
into the evening air, and lifted him into a cart which stood there with
a horse harnessed to one side of the pole, as the country-people love to
do, to the risk of their own lives and their neighbors'. Findelkind said
never a word: he was as dumb as Theodoric had been to him; he felt
stupid, heavy, half blind; his father pushed him some bread, and he ate
it by sheer instinct, as a lost animal will do. The cart jogged on, the
stars shone, the great church vanished in the gloom of night.

As they went through the city toward the river-side and the homeward way
not a single word did his father, who was a silent man at all times,
address to him. Only once as they passed the bridge, "Son," he asked,
"did you run away truly thinking to please God and help the poor?"

"Truly I did," answered Findelkind with a sob in his throat.

"Then thou wert an ass," said his father. "Didst never think of thy
mother's love and of my toil? Look at home."

Findelkind was mute. The drive was very long, backward by the same way,
with the river shining in the moonlight and the mountains half covered
with the clouds.

It was ten by the bells of Zirl when they came once more under the
solemn shadow of grave Martinswand. There were lights moving about the
house, his brothers and sisters were still up, his mother ran out into
the road, weeping and laughing with fear and joy.

Findelkind himself said nothing. He hung his head. They were too fond of
him to scold him or to jeer at him: they made him go quickly to his bed,
and his mother made him a warm milk-posset and kissed him. "We will
punish thee to-morrow, naughty and cruel one," said his parent. "But
thou art punished enough already, for in thy place little Stefan had the
sheep, and he has lost Katte's lambs, the beautiful twin lambs! I dare
not tell thy father to-night. Dost hear the poor thing mourn? Do not go
afield for thy duty again."

A pang went through the heart of Findelkind, as if a knife had pierced
it. He loved Katte better than almost any other living thing, and she
was bleating under his window motherless and alone. They were such
beautiful lambs too!--lambs that his father had promised should never be
killed, but be reared to swell the flock.

Findelkind cowered down in his bed and felt wretched beyond all
wretchedness. He had been brought back, his wallet was empty, and
Katte's lambs were lost. He could not sleep. His pulses were beating
like so many steam-hammers: he felt as if his body were all one great
throbbing heart. His brothers, who lay in the same chamber with him,
were sound asleep: very soon his father and mother also, on the other
side of the wall. Findelkind was alone, wide awake, watching the big
white moon sail past his little casement and hearing Katte bleat. Where
were her poor twin lambs? The night was bitterly cold, for it was
already far on in autumn; the river had swollen and flooded many fields;
the snow for the last week had fallen quite low down on the
mountain-sides. Even if still living the little lambs would die, out on
such a night without the mother or food and shelter of any sort.
Findelkind, whose vivid brain always saw everything that he imagined as
if it were being acted before his eyes, in fancy saw his two dear lambs
floating dead down the swollen tide, entangled in rushes on the flooded
shore, or fallen with broken limbs upon a crest of rocks. He saw them so
plainly that scarcely could he hold back his breath from screaming aloud
in the still night and arousing the mourning wail of the desolate
mother.

At last he could bear it no longer: his head burned, and his brain
seemed whirling round. At a bound he leaped out of bed quite
noiselessly, slid into his sheepskins, and stole out as he had done the
night before, hardly knowing what he did. Poor Katte was mourning in the
wooden shed with the other sheep, and the wail of her sorrow sounded
sadly across the loud roar of the rushing river. The moon was still
high. Above, against the sky, black and awful with clouds floating over
its summit, was the great Martinswand.

Findelkind this time called the big dog Waldmar to him, and with the dog
beside him went once more out into the cold and the gloom, whilst his
father and mother, his brothers and sisters, were sleeping, and poor
childless Katte alone was awake. He looked up at the mountain, and then
across the water-swept meadows to the river. He was in doubt which way
to take. Then he thought that in all likelihood the lambs would have
been seen if they had wandered the river-way, and even little Stefan
would have had too much sense to let them go there. So he crossed the
road and began to climb Martinswand. With the instinct of the born
mountaineer he had brought out his crampons with him, and had now
fastened them on his feet: he knew every part and ridge of the
mountains, and had more than once climbed over to that very spot where
Kaiser Max had hung in peril of his life.

On second thoughts he bade Waldmar go back to the house. The dog was a
clever mountaineer too, but Findelkind did not wish to lead him into
danger. "I have done the wrong, and I will bear the brunt," he said to
himself; for he felt as if he had killed Katte's children, and the
weight of the sin was like lead on his heart, and he would not kill good
Waldmar too.

His little lantern did not show much light, and as he went higher upward
he lost sight of the moon. The cold was nothing to him, because the
clear still air was one in which he had been reared; and the darkness he
did not mind, because he was used to that also; but the weight of sorrow
upon him he scarcely knew how to bear, and how to find two tiny lambs in
this vast waste of silence and shadow would have puzzled and wearied
older minds than his. Garibaldi and all his household, old soldiers
tried and true, sought all night once upon Caprera on such a quest in
vain. If he could only have awakened his brother Stefan to ask him which
way they had gone! But then, to be sure, he remembered, Stefan must have
told that to all those who had been looking for the lambs from sunset to
nightfall. All alone he began the ascent.

Time and again, in the glad spring-time and the fresh summer weather, he
had driven his flock upward to eat the grass that grew in the clefts of
the rocks and on the broad green alps. The sheep could not climb to the
highest points, but the goats did, and he with them. Time and again he
had lain on his back in these uppermost heights, with the lower clouds
behind him and the black wings of the birds and the crows almost
touching his forehead, as he lay gazing up into the blue depth of the
sky and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming.

He would never dream any more now, he thought to himself. His dreams had
cost Katte her lambs, and the world of the dead Findelkind was gone for
ever: gone all the heroes and knights; gone all the faith and the
force; gone every one who cared for the dear Christ and the poor in
pain.

The bells of Zirl were ringing midnight. Findelkind heard, and wondered
that only two hours had gone by since his mother had kissed him in his
bed. It seemed to him as if long, long nights had rolled away and he had
lived a hundred years. He did not feel any fear of the dark calm night,
lit now and then by silvery gleams of moon and stars. The mountain was
his old familiar friend, and the ways of it had no more terror for him
than these hills here used to have for the bold heart of Kaiser Max.
Indeed, all he thought of was Katte--Katte and the lambs. He knew the
way that the sheep-tracks ran--the sheep could not climb so high as the
goats--and he knew too that little Stefan could not climb so high as he.
So he began his search low down upon Martinswand.

After midnight the cold increased: there were snow-clouds hanging near,
and they opened over his head, and the soft snow came flying along. For
himself he did not mind it, but alas for the lambs! If it covered them,
how would he find them? And if they slept in it they were dead.

It was bleak and bare on the mountain-side, though there were still
patches of grass, such as the flocks liked, that had grown since the hay
was cut. The frost of the night made the stone slippery, and even the
irons gripped it with difficulty, and there was a strong wind rising
like a giant's breath, and blowing his small horn lantern to and fro.
Now and then he quaked a little with fear--not fear of the night or the
mountains, but of strange spirits and dwarfs and goblins of ill repute,
said to haunt Martinswand after nightfall. Old women had told him of
such things, though the priest always said that they were only foolish
tales, there being nothing on God's earth wicked save men and women who
had not clean hearts and hands. Findelkind believed the priest; still,
all alone on the side of the mountain, with the snowflakes flying round
him, he felt a nervous thrill that made him tremble and almost turn
backward. Almost, but not quite, for he thought of Katte and the poor
little lambs lost--and perhaps dead--through his fault.

The path went zigzag and was very steep; the Siberian pines swayed their
boughs in his face; stones that lay in his path, unseen in the gloom,
made him stumble. Now and then a large bird of the night flew by with a
rushing sound: the air grew so cold that all Martinswand might have been
turning to one huge glacier. All at once he heard through the
stillness--for there is nothing so still as a mountain-side in snow--a
little pitiful bleat. All his terrors vanished, all his memories of
ghost-tales passed away; his heart gave a leap of joy; he was sure it
was the cry of the lambs. He stopped to listen more surely. He was now
many score of feet above the level of his home and of Zirl: he was, as
nearly as he could judge, halfway as high as where the cross in the
cavern marks the spot of the kaiser's peril. The little bleat sounded
above him, and it was very feeble and faint.

Findelkind set his lantern down, braced himself up by drawing tighter
his old leathern girdle, set his sheepskin cap firm on his forehead, and
went toward the sound as far as he could judge that it might be. He was
out of the woods now: there were only a few straggling pines rooted here
and there in a mass of loose-lying rock and slate. So much he could tell
by the light of the lantern, and the lambs, by the bleating, seemed
still above him.

It does not perhaps seem very hard labor to hunt about by a dusky light
upon a desolate mountain-side, but when the snow is falling fast, when
the light is only a small circle, wavering yellowish on the white, when
around is a wilderness of loose stones and yawning clefts, when the air
is ice and the hour is past midnight, the task is not a light one for a
man; and Findelkind was a child, like that Findelkind that was in
heaven.

Long, very long, was his search: he grew hot and forgot all fear, except
a spasm of terror lest his light should burn low and die out. The
bleating had quite ceased now, and there was not even a sigh to guide
him; but he knew that near him the lambs must be, and he did not waver
nor despair.

He did not pray--praying in the morning had been no use--but he trusted
in God, and he labored hard, toiling to and fro, seeking in every nook
and behind each stone, and straining every muscle and nerve, till the
sweat rolled in a briny dew off his forehead and his curls dripped with
wet. At last, with a scream of joy, he touched some soft, close wool
that gleamed white as the white snow. He knelt down on the ground and
peered behind the stone by the full light of his lantern: there lay the
little lambs--two little brothers, twin brothers, huddled close
together, asleep. Asleep? He was sure they were asleep, for they were so
silent and still.

He bowed over them and kissed them, and laughed and cried, and kissed
them again. Then a sudden horror smote him: they were so very still.
There they lay, cuddled close, one on another, one little white head on
each little white body, drawn closer than ever together to try and get
warm. He called to them; he touched them; then he caught them up in his
arms, and kissed them again and again and again. Alas! they were frozen
and dead. Never again would they leap in the long green grass, and frisk
with one another, and lie happy by Katte's side: they had died calling
for their mother, and in the long, cold, cruel night only Death had
answered.

Findelkind did not weep nor scream nor tremble: his heart seemed frozen,
like the dead lambs. It was he who had killed them. He rose up and
gathered them in his arms, and cuddled them in the skirts of his
sheepskin tunic, and cast his staff away that he might carry them; and
so, thus burdened with their weight, set his face to the snow and the
wind once more and began his downward way. Once a great sob shook him:
that was all. Now he had no fear. The night might have been noonday, the
snowstorm might have been summer, for aught that he knew or cared.

Long and weary was the way, and often he stumbled and had to rest;
often the terrible sleep of the snow lay heavy on his eyelids, and he
longed to lie down and be at rest, as the little brothers were; often it
seemed to him that he would never reach home again. But he shook the
lethargy off him and resisted the longing, and held on his way: he knew
that his mother would mourn for him as Katte mourned for the lambs. At
length, through all difficulty and danger, when his light had spent
itself, and his strength had wellnigh spent itself too, his feet touched
the old highroad. There were flickering torches and many people and loud
cries around the church, as there had been four hundred years before,
when the last sacrament had been said in the valley for the hunter-king
doomed to perish above. His mother, being sleepless and anxious, had
risen long before it was dawn, and had gone to the children's chamber,
and had found the bed of Findelkind empty once more.

He came into the midst of the people with the two little lambs in his
arms, and he heeded neither the outcries of neighbors nor the frenzied
joy of his mother: his eyes looked straight before him and his face was
white like the snow. "I killed them," he said; and then two great tears
rolled down his cheeks and fell on the little cold bodies of the two
little dead twin brothers.

Findelkind was very ill for many nights and many days after that.
Whenever he spoke in his fever he always said, "I killed them." Never
anything else. So the dreary winter months went by, while the deep snow
filled up valleys and meadows and covered the great mountains from
summit to base, and all around Martinswand was quite still, save that
now and then the post went by to Zirl, and on the holy days the bells
tolled: that was all. His mother sat between the stove and his bed with
a sore heart; and his father, as he went to and fro between the walls of
beaten snow from the wood-shed to the cattle-byre, was sorrowful,
thinking to himself the child would die and join that earlier Findelkind
whose home was with the saints.

But the child did not die. He lay weak and wasted and almost motionless
a long time, but slowly, as the spring-time drew near, and the snows on
the lower hills loosened, and the abounding waters coursed green and
crystal-clear down all the sides of the hills, Findelkind revived as the
earth did, and by the time the new grass was springing and the first
blue of the gentian gleamed on the Alps he was well.

But to this day he seldom plays, and scarcely ever laughs. His face is
sad and his eyes have a look of trouble. Sometimes the priest of Zirl
says of him to others, "He will be a great poet or a great hero some
day." Who knows?

Meanwhile, in the heart of the child there remains always a weary pain
that lies on his childish life as a stone may lie on a flower. "I killed
them," he says often to himself, thinking of the two little white
brothers frozen to death on Martinswand that cruel night; and he does
the things that are told him, and is obedient, and tries to be content
with the humble daily duties that are his lot, and when he says his
prayers at bedtime always ends them so: "Dear God, do let the little
lambs play with Findelkind that is in heaven."

                          OUIDA.




HORSE-RACING IN FRANCE.

CONCLUDING PAPER.


By the end of July the dispersion of the racing fraternity has become
general. Some have gone into the provinces to lead the pleasant life of
the château; some are in the Pyrenees, eating trout and _cotelettes
d'izard_ at Luchon; while those whom the Paris season has quite worn
out, or put in what they would call too "high" a condition, are
refitting at Mont Dore or else at Vichy, which is the Saratoga of
France--with this difference, that nobody goes to Vichy unless he is
really ill, and that very few were ever known to get married there. But
if our friend the sportsman should happen to have nothing the matter
with him, and should know of nothing better to do during the summer than
to go where his equine instincts would lead him, he may spend the month
of July at least in following what is called "the Norman circuit." This
consists of a series of meetings at different places, either on the
coast or very near the Channel, in that green land of Normandy which is
to France what the blue-grass region of Kentucky is to America--the
great horse-raising province of the country. Here the circuit begins
with the Beauvais meeting, always largely attended by reason of its
proximity to Paris and to the numerous châteaux, all occupied at this
season of the year, and in one of which, at Mouchy-le-Chastel, the duc
de Mouchy entertains a large and distinguished company. Sunday and
Tuesday are the days for races at Beauvais, Monday being given up to
pigeon-shooting. Then follow in quick succession the _courses_ of
Amiens, Abbeville, Rouen, Havre and Caen; and in all these places the
daily programme will be found to be a very varied one--too much so,
indeed, to suit the taste of the English, whose notions of the fitness
of things are offended by the sight of a steeple-chase and a flat-race
on the same track. The Normans, on the contrary, finding even this
double attraction insufficient, add to it the excitement of a
trotting-match in harness and under the saddle. And such trotting!
"Allais! marchais!" shouts the starter in good Norman, and away go the
horses, dragging their lumbering, rattling Norman carts, guided by
equally ponderous Norman peasants, over a track that is sure to be heavy
or else too hard--conditions sufficient of themselves to account for the
fact that the time made by these provincial trotters has not by any
means been reduced to figures like the 2.18 of Dexter or the phenomenal
2.14 of Goldsmith Maid. It is possible, however, that this somewhat
primitive condition of things may be gradually bettered by time, and
that when American institutions and customs shall have come to be the
_mode_ in France trotting-races, and perhaps walking-matches and
base-ball, will be developed with the rest; but up to the present time,
it must be confessed, these various amusements have been regarded by the
French public with profound indifference.

I cannot help feeling the most lively regret that trotting-contests
should have taken no hold upon the fancy of my countrymen, who would
find in their magnificent roads an opportunity for the demonstration of
the practical, every-day value of a good trotter far more favorable than
any possessed by America. But it seems that no considerations of utility
or convenience can prevail against popular prejudices and, above all,
the _mode_; and we find even the baron d'Étreilles, official handicapper
and starter to the Jockey Club--and therefore an authority--writing this
singular paragraph in _Le Sport_: "Trotting-races deserve but little
encouragement. The so-called trotting-horse does not, in fact, trot at
all. His pace is forced to such a degree of exaggeration as to lose all
regularity, at the same time that it is rendered valueless for any
practical purpose. The trotter can no more be put to his speed upon an
ordinary road than can the racer himself. By breaking up the natural
gait of a horse he is made to attain an exceptional speed, it is true,
but in doing so he has contracted an abnormal sort of movement for which
it is impossible to find a name. It is something between a trot and a
racking pace, and with it a first-rate trotter can make four kilomètres
(two miles and a half) in seven minutes and a half, and not much less,
whatever may be said to the contrary. I know that certain time-keepers
have marked this distance as having been done in seven minutes, but this
I consider disputable, to say the least." M. d'Étreilles cites, however,
as an exception to his rules, a horse called Rochester, belonging to the
Prince E. de Beauvan, which trotted nineteen miles in one hour without
breaking or pacing, but when a return bet was proposed, with the
distance increased to twenty miles, the owner of Rochester refused.

These assertions of the French authority will appear strange enough to
Americans. But we must add that the views of M. d'Étreilles on this
subject are by no means universally shared in France. A writer whose
practical experience and long observation entitle his opinions to much
weight--M. Gayot--goes so far as to say that the American trotters
really form a distinct race. "The Northern States of the Union," he
writes, "have accomplished for the trotter what England has done for the
thoroughbred: by selecting the best--that is to say, the swiftest and
the most enduring--and by breeding from these, there has been fixed in
the very nature of their progeny that wonderful aptitude for speed
which," in direct contradiction to the opinion of M. d'Étreilles, he
declares to be "of the greatest practical utility."

The administration of the Haras and the Society for the Encouragement of
the Raising of Horses of Half-blood have established special meetings at
which trotting-prizes are given. That these are by no means to be
despised has been proved by M. Jouben's Norman trotter Tentateur, who
last year earned for his owner twenty thousand francs without the bets.
There is a special journal, _La France Chevaline_, which represents the
interests of the "trot," and its development has been further encouraged
by an appropriation of sixty thousand francs voted this year by the
Chamber. A former officer of the Haras has also set up an establishment
at Vire for the training of trotters. In 1878 a track was laid out at
Maison Lafitte, near Paris, for the trial of trotting-horses, and the
government, in the hope that animals trained to this gait would be sent
to Paris from other countries during the great Exhibition if sufficient
inducement were offered, awarded a sum of sixty-two thousand francs to
be given in premiums. Six races took place on the principal day of the
trials. These were in harness to two- and four-wheeled wagons, and two
of the matches were won by Normans, two by English horses and two by
horses from Russia of the Orloff breed. America was, unfortunately, not
represented. As to the public, it took little interest in the event,
notwithstanding its novelty: the few persons who had come to look on
soon grew tired of it, and after the fourth race not a single spectator
was left upon the stands.

The marquis de MacMahon, brother of the marshal, used to say that the
gallop was the gait of happy people, the natural movement of women and
of fools. "The three prettiest things in the world," wrote Balzac, "are
a frigate under sail, a woman dancing and a horse at full run." I leave
these opinions, so essentially French, to the judgment of Americans, and
turn to another point of difference in the racing customs of the two
countries.

In France the practice of recording the _time_ of a race is looked upon
as childish. The reason given is, that horses that have run or trotted
separately against time will often show quite contrary results when
matched against each other, and that the one that has made the shortest
time on the separate trial will frequently be easily beaten on the same
track by the one that showed less speed when tried alone. However this
may be, it appears that the average speed of running races in France has
increased since 1872. At that time it was one minute and two to three
seconds for one thousand mètres (five furlongs); for two thousand
mètres (a mile and a quarter), 2m. 8 to 10s.; for three thousand mètres
(one mile seven furlongs), 3m. 34 to 35s.; for four thousand mètres (two
miles and a half), 4m. 30 to 35s. The distance of the Prix Gladiateur
(six thousand two hundred mètres or three and three-quarter miles one
furlong)--the longest in France--is generally accomplished in 8m. 5 to
6s., though Mon Étoile has done it in 7m. 25s. But the mean speed, as we
have said, has been raised since 1872, as it has been in America.

But let us come back to our Norman circuit, which this digression about
time and trotting interrupted at Rouen. The sleepy old mediæval town on
this occasion rouses itself from its dreams of the past and awakens to
welcome the crowd of Norman farmers who come flocking in, clad for the
most part in the national blue blouse, but still bearing about their
persons those unmistakable though quite indescribable marks by which the
turfman can recognize at a glance and under any costume the man whose
business is with horses. Every trade and calling in life perhaps may be
said to impart to its followers some distinguishing peculiarity by which
the brethren of the craft at least will instinctively know each other;
and amongst horse-fanciers these mysterious signs of recognition are as
infallible as the signals of Freemasonry. As one penetrates still
farther into Normandy on his way to the Caen races--which come off a few
days after those at Rouen--one becomes still more alive to the fact that
he is in a great horse-raising country. It is indeed to the departments
of Calvados and the Orne beyond all other places that we owe those fine
Norman stallions of which so many have been imported into America. In
the Pin stud, at the fairs of Guibray and of Montagne, one may see the
descendants of the colossal Roman-nosed horses of Merlerault and
Cotentin which used to bear the weight of riders clad in iron, and which
figure at a later day in the pictures of Van der Meulen. The infusion of
English blood within the present century, and particularly during the
Second Empire, has profoundly modified the character of the animal
known to our ancestors: the Norman, with the rest of the various races
once so numerous in France, is rapidly disappearing, and it will not be
very long before two uniform types only will prevail--the draught-horse
and the thoroughbred.

The race-course at Caen is one of the oldest in France, having been
established as long ago as 1837. The most important events of its
programme are the Prix de la Ville (handicap), with premium and stakes
amounting to twenty or twenty-five thousand francs, on which the
heaviest bets of the intermediate season are made, and the Grand St.
Léger of France, which before the war took place at Moulins, and which
is far from being of equal importance with the celebrated race at
Doncaster whose name it bears. The site of the track at Caen is a
beautiful meadow upon the banks of the Orne, very long and bordered with
fine trees, but unfortunately too narrow, and consequently awkward at
the turns.

By the rules of the Société colts of two years are not allowed to run
before the first of August, and as the Caen races take place during the
first week of this month, they have the first gathering of the season's
crop of two-year-olds--an event which naturally excites the curiosity of
followers of the turf. The wisdom and utility of subjecting animals of
this age to such a strain upon their powers have been much discussed,
and good judges have strongly condemned the precocious training
involved, as tending to check the natural development of the horse, and
sometimes putting a premature end to his career as a racer. In England
these races have been multiplied to abuse. There are signs of a
reaction, however, in France, where several owners of racing-stables,
following the example set by M. Lupin, have found their advantage in
refusing to take part in the pernicious practice. For, after all, these
first trials really prove nothing at all. They are found to furnish no
standard by which any accurate measure can be taken of the future
achievements of the horse. In fact, if one will take the trouble to
examine the lists of winners of these two-year-old criterions, as they
are called, he will find but very few names that have afterward become
illustrious in the annals of the turf.

The races of Caen over, their followers take themselves some few leagues
farther upon their circuit, to attend the meeting at Cabourg, one of
those pretty little towns, made up of about a hundred villas, four
hotels, a church and a casino, that lie scattered along the Norman coast
like beads of a broken necklace. Living is dear in these stylish little
out-of-the-way places, and this naturally keeps away the more plebeian
element that frequents the great centres. About the fifteenth of August
begins the week of races at Déauville, the principal event of the Norman
circuit, bringing together not unfrequently as many as a hundred and
sixty horses, and ranking, in fact, as third in importance in all
France, the meetings at Longchamps and Chantilly alone taking precedence
of it. It is to the duc de Morny that Déauville owes the existence of
its "hippodrome," but the choice of this bit of sandy beach, that seemed
to have been thrown up and abandoned by the sea like a waif, cannot be
called a happy one. It may be, however, that the duke's selection of the
site was determined by its proximity to the luxuriant valley of the
Auge, so famous for its excellent pasturage and for the number of its
stables. The Victor stud belonging to M. Aumont, that of Fervacques, the
property of M. de Montgomery, and the baron de Rothschild's
establishment at Meautry, are all in the immediate neighborhood of
Déauville; but even these advantages do not compensate for the
unfavorable character of the track, laid out, as we have said, upon land
from which the sea had receded, and which, as might have been expected,
was sure to be hard and cracked in a dry season. To remedy this most
serious defect, and to bring the ground to its present degree of
excellence, large sums had to be expended. The aspect of the race-course
to-day, however, is really charming. A rustic air has been given to the
stands, the ring, even to the stables that enclose the paddock, but it
is a rusticity quite compatible with elegance, like that of the pretty
Norman farm in the garden of Trianon. The purse for two-year-olds used
to be called, under the Empire, the Prix Morny, but this name was
withdrawn at the same time that the statue of the duke, which once stood
in Déauville, was pulled down.

Our Norman circuit comes to a close with the races at Dieppe, which
finished last year on the 26th of August. Dieppe was celebrated during
the Empire for its steeple-chases, which were run upon a somewhat hilly
ground left almost in its natural state--a very unusual thing in France.
The flat- and hurdle-races which have succeeded to these since the war
are not of sufficient importance to detain us.

Returning from this agreeable summer jaunt, in which the pleasures of
sea-bathing have added a zest to the enjoyment of the race-course, the
followers of the turf will seek, on coming back to Paris in the early
days of September, the autumn meetings at Fontainebleau and at
Longchamps. But they will not find the paddock of the latter at this
season of the year bustling with the life and fashion that gave it such
brilliancy in the spring, and the "return from the races" is made up of
little else than hired cabs drawn by broken-down steeds. It is just the
period when Paris, crowded with economical strangers, English or
German--the former on their return, perhaps, from Switzerland, the
latter enjoying their vacation after their manner--mourns the absence of
her own gay world. The _haute gomme_--the swells, the upper ten--are
still in the provinces. They have left the sea-side, it is true--it was
time for that--but the season in the Pyrenees is not over yet, and
Luchon and Bigone will be full until the middle of September, and not
before the month is ended will Biarritz give up her pleasure-seekers.
The opening of the shooting season on the first Sunday of September has
scattered the sportsmen throughout the twenty-five or thirty departments
in which there is still left a chance of finding game. But the best
shooting is in the neighborhood of Paris, in the departments of
Seine-et-Marne and Seine-et-Oise--at Grosbois with the prince de
Wagram; at St. Germain-les-Corbeil on the estate of M. Darblay; at
Bois-Boudran with the comte de Greffuhle; or at the château of the baron
de Rothschild at Ferrières; and the numerous guests of these gentlemen
may, if they are inclined, take a day to see the Omnium or the Prix
Royal Oak run between two _battues aux faisans_. The Omnium is the most
important of the handicaps: it is the French Cæsarewitch, though with a
difference. The distance of the latter is two miles and two furlongs,
that of the Omnium but a mile and a half. The value of the stakes is
generally from twenty-five to thirty thousand francs. As its name would
indicate, this race, by exception to the fundamental principle of the
Jockey Club, is open to horses of every kind, without regard to
pedigree, above the age of three years. A horse that has gained a prize
of two thousand francs after the publication of the weights is
handicapped with an overweight of two kilogrammes and a half (a trifle
over five pounds); if he has gained several such, with three kilos; if
he is the winner of an eight-thousand-franc purse, he has to carry an
overweight of four kilos, or one of five kilos if he has won more than
one race of the value last mentioned. The publication of the weights
takes place at the end of June, when the betting begins. Heavy and
numerous are the wagers on this important race, and as the prospects of
the various horses entered change from time to time according to the
prizes gained and the overweights incurred, the quotation naturally
undergoes the most unlooked-for variations. A lot of money is won and
lost before the real favorites have revealed themselves; that is to say,
before the last week preceding the race. The winner of the Omnium is
hardly ever a horse of the first rank, and the baron d'Étreilles
undertakes to tell us why. The object of the handicap, he says, being to
equalize the chances of several horses of different degrees of merit,
the handicapper is in a manner obliged to make it next to impossible for
the first-rate horses to win; otherwise, the owners of the inferior
animals, seeing that they had no chance, would prefer to pay forfeit,
and the harmony, as it were, of the contest--the even balancing of
chances, which is of the very essence of the handicap--would be lacking.
On the other hand, the handicapper cannot bring the chances of the
really bad horses up to the mean average, no matter how much he may
favor them in the weights, and thus it nearly always turns out that the
Omnium, like every other important handicap, is won by a horse of the
second class, generally a three-year-old, whose real merits have been
hidden from the handicapper. This concealment is not so difficult as it
might seem. There are certain owners who, when they have satisfied
themselves by trials made before the spring races that they have in
their stables a few horses not quite good enough to stand a chance in
the great contests, but still by no means without valuable qualities,
prefer to reserve them for an important affair like the Omnium, on which
they can bet heavily and to advantage, especially if they have a "dark
horse," or one that is as yet unknown. Otherwise, to what use could
these second-rate horses be put? If one should run them in the spring
they might get one or two of the smaller stakes, after which everybody
would have their measure. Their owners, therefore, show wisdom in
keeping them out of sight, or perhaps, as some of the shrewder ones do,
by running them when rather out of condition, and thus ensuring their
defeat by adversaries really inferior to themselves. In this way the
handicapper is deceived as to their true qualities, and is induced to
weight them advantageously for the Omnium.

Many readers but little conversant with turf matters will no doubt be
scandalized to hear of these tricks of the trade, and will be apt to
conclude that good faith is no more the fashion at Longchamps than at
the Bourse, and that cleverness in betting, as in stockjobbing, consists
in knowing when to depreciate values and when to inflate them, as one
happens to be a bull or a bear in the market. The truth is, that no
rules can be devised, either by Jockey Clubs or by imperial parliaments,
that can put a stop to these abuses: they will exist, in spite of
legislation, as long as the double character of owner and better can be
united in the same person. If this person should not act in perfect good
faith, all restraining laws will be illusory, because the betting owner
has the cards in his own hands, and can withdraw a horse or make him run
at his pleasure, or even make him lose a race in case of need. If the
thing is managed with skill, it is almost impossible to discover the
deception. In 1877, at Déauville, the comte de Clermont-Tonnere and his
jockey, Goddart, were expelled from the turf because the latter had
"pulled" his horse in such a clumsy and unmistakable way that the
spectators could not fail to see it. This circumstance was without
precedent in France, and yet how often has the trick, which in this case
was exposed, been practised without any one being the wiser for it! It
ought to be added that the betters make one claim that is altogether
unreasonable, and that is--at least this is the only inference from
their talk--that when they have once "taken" a horse, as they call it,
in a race, the owner thereby loses a part of his proprietorship in the
animal, and is bound to share his rights of ownership with them. But one
cannot thus limit the rights of property, and as long as the owner does
not purposely lose a race, and does not deceive the handicapper as to
the real value of his horse for the purpose of getting a reduction of
weights, he can surely do as he pleases with his own. There will remain,
of course, the question of morality and of delicacy, of which each one
must be the judge for himself. M. Lupin, for example, and Lord Falmouth,
when they have two horses engaged for the same purse, always let these
take their chances, and do nothing to prevent the better horse from
being the winner, while the comte de Lagrange, as we have had occasion
to observe before, has acquired the reputation of winning, if he can,
with his worst animal, or at least with the one upon whose success the
public has least counted. This is what took place when he gained the
Grand Prix de Paris in 1877 with an outsider, St. Christophe, whilst
all the betters had calculated upon the victory of his other horse,
Verneuil. So the duke of Hamilton in 1878 at Goodwood, where one of his
horses was the favorite, declared just at the start that he meant to win
with another, and by his orders the favorite was pulled double at the
finish. The same year, in America, Mr. Lorillard caused Parole, then a
two-year-old, to be beaten by one of his stable-companions and one
decidedly his inferior. When this sort of thing is done the ring makes a
great uproar about it, but without reason, for there can be no question
of an owner's right to save his best horse, if he can, from a future
overweight by winning with another not so good. Only he ought frankly to
declare his intention to do so before the race.

The autumn stakes that rank next in importance to the Omnium are known
as the Prix Royal Oak, open, like its counterpart, the St. Leger of
Doncaster, to colts and fillies of three years only, with an unloading
of three pounds for the latter. On this occasion one will have an
opportunity of seeing again in the Bois de Boulogne the contestants of
the great prizes of the spring. The Royal Oak is nearly always won by a
horse of the first class, and in the illustrious list may be found the
names of Gladiateur and of four winners of the French Derby--Patricien,
Boïard, Kilt and Jongleur.

In October, Longchamps is deserted for Chantilly, where the trials of
two-year-olds take place--the first criterion for horses, the second
criterion for fillies--the distance in these two races being eight
hundred mètres, or half a mile. The Grand Criterion, for colts and
fillies, has a distance of double this, or one mile (sixteen hundred
mètres). Since their débuts in August at Caen and Déauville the young
horses have had time to harden and to show better what they are made of;
and it is in the Grand Criterion that one looks for the most certain
indications of their future career. The names of the winners will be
found to include many that have afterward become celebrated, such as Mon
Étoile, Stradella, Le Béarnais, Mongoubert, Sornette, Révigny and
others.

Chantilly is the birthplace of racing in France. In the winter of
1833--the same year which also witnessed the foundation of the Jockey
Club--Prince Labanoff, who was then living at Chantilly, and who had
secured the privilege of hunting in the forest, invited several
well-known lovers of the chase to join him in the sport. Tempted by the
elasticity of the turf, it occurred to the hunters to get up a race, and
meeting at the Constable's Table--a spot where once stood the stump of a
large tree on which, as the story goes, the constable of France used to
dine--they improvised a race-course which has proved the prolific mother
of the tracks to be found to-day all over the country. In this first
trial M. de Normandie was the winner. The fate of Chantilly was decided.
Since the suicide--or the assassination--of the last of the Condés the
castle had been abandoned, the duc d'Aumale, its inheritor, being then a
minor. The little town itself seemed dying of exhaustion. It was
resolved to infuse into it a new life by taking advantage of the
exceptional quality of its turf. The soil is a rather hard sand,
resisting pressure, elastic, and covered with a fine thick sward, and of
a natural drainage so excellent that even the longest rains have no
visible effect upon it. On this ground--as good as, if not better than,
that at Newmarket--there is to-day a track of two thousand mètres, or a
mile and a quarter--the distance generally adopted in France--with good
turns, excepting the one known as the "Réservoirs," which is rather
awkward, and which has the additional disadvantage of skirting the road
to the training-stables--a temptation to bolt that is sometimes too
strong for horses of a doubtful character. For this reason there is
sometimes a little confusion in the field at this point. Before coming
to the last turn there is a descent, followed by a rise--both of them
pretty stiff--and this undoubtedly has its effect on the result, for the
lazier horses fall away a little on the ascent. Just at this point too a
clump of trees happens to hide the track from the spectators on the
stands, and all the lorgnettes are turned on the summit of the rise to
watch for the reappearance of the horses, who are pretty sure to turn up
in a different order from that in which they were last seen. This crisis
of the race is sometimes very exciting. A magnificent forest of beech
borders and forms a background to the race-course in the rear of the
stands; in front rise the splendid and imposing stables of the duc
d'Aumale, built by Mansard for the Great Condé; on the right is the
pretty Renaissance château of His Royal Highness; while the view loses
itself in a vast horizon of distant forest and hills of misty blue. The
stands are the first that were erected in France, and in 1833 they
seemed no doubt the height of comfort and elegance, but to-day they are
quite too small to accommodate the ever-increasing crowd. The stands as
well as the stables, and the race-course itself, all belong to the duc
d'Aumale, who gave a splendid house-warming and brilliant fête last
October to celebrate the completion of the restorations of his ancestral
château. Under the Empire, the property of the Orleans princes having
been confiscated, a nominal transfer of Chantilly was made to a friend
of the family. The emperor, having one day signified his wish to witness
the Derby, had the mortification on his arrival to find the reserved
stand closed against him by the prince's orders. It was necessary to
force the gate. The emperor took the hint, however, and never went to
Chantilly again.

The soil of the Forest of Fontainebleau being of the same nature as that
of the turf in the open, the alleys of the park furnish an invaluable
resource to the trainer. For this reason, since racing has come in
vogue, most of the stables have found their way to Chantilly or to its
immediate neighborhood, where one of the largest and finest alleys of
the forest, running parallel to the railway and known as the Alley of
the Lions, has been given up to their use. Thus, Chantilly, with its
Derby Day and its training-grounds, may be called at once the Epsom and
the Newmarket of France. There is hardly a horse, with the exception of
those of the comte de Lagrange and of M. Lupin, and those of Henry
Jennings, the public trainer, that is not "worked" in the Alley of the
Lions. The Société d'Encouragement has control of the training-ground as
well as of the track, and also claims the right to keep spectators away
from the trial-gallops, so that the duc d'Aumale, whose proprietary
privileges are thus usurped, is often at war with the society. He has
stag-hunts twice a week during the winter, on Mondays and Thursdays, and
now and then on Sundays too--as he did with the grand duke of Austria on
his late visit to Chantilly--and he naturally objects to having the hunt
cut in two by the gallops over his principal avenue. He worries the
trainers to such a degree that they begin to talk of quitting Chantilly
for some more hospitable quarters. When things get to this pass the
duke, who, in his character of councillor-general, is bound to look
after the interests of his constituents, relents, and putting aside his
personal wrongs calls a parley with the stewards of the races, offers a
new prize--an object of art perhaps--or talks of enlarging the stands,
and the gage of reconciliation being accepted, peace is made to last
until some new _casus belli_ shall occur. His Royal Highness is not
forgetful of the duties of his position. When he is at Chantilly on a
race-day he gracefully does the honors of his reserved stand to all the
little Orleanist court. Since the reconciliation that took place between
the comte de Paris and the comte de Chambord in 1873 this miniature
court has been enlarged by the addition of several personages of the
Legitimist circle, and the "ring" at Chantilly is often graced with a
most distinguished and aristocratic assemblage. Amongst the beauties of
this brilliant company may be especially noticed Madame de Viel-Castel,
the young princesse Amédé de Broglie, the duchesse de Chaulnes with her
strange, unconventional type of beauty, Madame Ferdinand Bischoffsheim,
the comtesse Beugnot, the comtesse Tanneguy-Duchâtel and the princesse
de Sagan. And when all this gay party has dispersed, and the duke is
left to his cigar--as constant a companion as the historical weed in
the mouth of General Grant--he might almost fancy, as he walks the great
street of his good town, that he is back again at Twickenham in the days
of his exile. There is something to remind him on every side of the
country that once sheltered him. To right and left are English
farrieries, English saddleries, and English bars and taverns too.
English is the language that reaches his ears, and English of the most
"horsey" sort that one can hear this side of Newmarket. Everybody has
the peculiar gait and costume that belong to the English horseman: the
low-crowned hat, the short jacket, those tight trousers and big, strong
boots, are not to be mistaken. It is a little world in itself, in which
no Frenchman could long exist, but its peculiar inhabitants have not,
for all that, neglected anything that may attract the young folk of the
country. They have even offered the bribe of a race in which only French
jockeys are permitted to ride, but these, with only an exception here
and there, have very promptly given up the business, disgusted either by
the severe regimen required in the matter of diet or by the rigorous
discipline indispensable in a training-stable. The few exceptions to
which I have referred have not sufficed to prevent this race from
falling into disrepute; but it may be worth mentioning that on the last
occasion on which it was run, the 19th October last, when but three or
four horses were engaged, the baron de Bizé, with what has been called a
veritable inspiration of genius, threw an unlooked-for interest into the
event by mounting in person M. Camille Blanc's horse Nonancourt, and
winning the race with him. It is to be borne in mind that the riders
must not only have been born in France, but must be of French parentage
on the side of both father and mother.

The best-known jockeys are nearly all the children of English parents,
and have first seen the light in the little colony at Chantilly or else
have been brought very young into France. I give some of their names,
classed according to the number of victories gained by them respectively
in 1878: Hunter, who generally rides for M. Fould, 47 victories;
Wheeler, head-jockey and trainer for M. Ed. Blanc, 45 victories; Hislop,
39; Hudson, ex-jockey to M. Lupin, who gained last year the Grand Prix
de Paris, 36 victories; Rolf, 35; Carratt, 32; Goater, who rides for the
comte de Lagrange, and who is well known in England; and Edwards, whose
"mount" was at one time quite the mode, and whose tragical death on the
3d of October last created a painful sensation. When Lamplugh was
training for the duke of Hamilton he made Edwards "first stable-boy,"
and this and his subsequent successes excited a violent jealousy in one
of his stable-companions named Page. The two jockeys separated, but
instead of fighting a duel, as Frenchmen might have done, they simply
rode against each other one day at Auteuil--Page on Leona, and Edwards
on Peau-d'Âne. The struggle was a desperate one: both riders got bad
falls from their exhausted mares, and from that time poor Edwards never
regained his _aplomb_. He frequently came to grief afterward, and met
his death in consequence of a fall from Slowmatch at Maison Lafitte.

One of the oldest celebrities of Chantilly is Charles Pratt, formerly
trainer and jockey for the baron Nivière and for the late Charles
Lafitte, and at present in the service of the prince d'Aremberg. His
system of training approached very nearly that of Henry Jennings, under
whose orders and instructions he had worked for a long time. His horses
were always just in the right condition on the day they were wanted, and
as he never allowed them to be overridden, their legs remained uninjured
for many years--a thing that has become too rare in France as well as in
England. As a jockey Pratt possessed, better than any other, that
knowledge of pace without which a rider is sure to commit irreparable
mistakes. At the Grand Prix de Paris of 1870, when he rode Sornette, he
undertook the daring feat of keeping the head of the field from the
start to the finish. Such an enterprise in a race so important and so
trying as this demanded the nicest instinct for pace and the most
thorough knowledge, which as trainer he already possessed, of the
impressionable nature and high qualities of his mare.

The autumn meetings at Chantilly close the legitimate season in France.
The affairs at Tours are of little interest except to the foreign
colony--which at this season of the year is pretty numerous in
Touraine--and to the people of the surrounding country. On these
occasions the cavalry officers in garrison at Tours get up paper hunts,
a species of sport which is rapidly growing in favor and promises to
become a national pastime. Whatever interest attaches to the November
races at Bordeaux is purely local. Turfmen who cannot get through the
winter without the sight of the jockeys' silk jackets and the
bookmakers' mackintoshes must betake themselves to Pau in December. The
first of the four winter meetings takes place during this month upon a
heath at a distance of four kilomètres--say about two miles and a
half--from the town. The exceptional climate and situation of Pau, where
the frozen-out fox-hunters of England come to hunt, and where there is a
populous American colony, will no doubt before long give a certain
importance to these races, but just now the local committee is short of
funds and the stakes have been insufficient to offer an attraction to
good horses. Last winter in one of the steeple-chases _all_ the horses
tumbled pell-mell into the river, which was the very first obstacle they
encountered, and although the public was quite used to seeing riders
come to grief, it found the incident somewhat extraordinary.

The meetings at Nice, the queen of all winter residences in Europe, are
much finer and more worthy of attention. They begin in January, and the
programme has to be arranged almost exclusively for steeple-chases and
hurdle-races, as flat-racers are not in condition for running at the
time when the season at Nice is at its height. The greater number, and
particularly the best, of the racers have important engagements for the
spring meetings at Paris and at Chantilly, and even in view of really
valuable prizes they could not afford at this time of year to undergo a
complete preparation, which would advance them too rapidly in their
training and would make it impossible to have them in prime condition in
the spring. The race-course at Nice is charmingly situated in the valley
of the Var. The perfume of flowers from numerous beds reaches the
stands, where one may enjoy a magnificent view of mountain and sea,
whilst a good band discourses music in the intervals of the races. Some
of the prizes are important. The Grand Prix de Monaco, for instance,
popularly known as "The Cup", consists of an object of art given by the
prince of Monaco and a purse of twenty thousand francs, without counting
the entrance-stakes. On the second day is run the great hurdle handicap
for seventy-five hundred francs called the Prix de Monte Carlo, and on
the third and last day of the meeting the Grand Prix de Nice, a free
handicap steeple-chase for a purse of ten thousand francs.

The international pigeon-shooting matches at Monaco, which occur at the
same time, contribute, with the races, to give an extraordinary
animation to this period of the season at Nice. The betting-ring feels
the influence of the proximity of the gaming-tables, where everybody
goes; and yet one could so easily exchange this feverish life of play
for the calmer enjoyments of the capital _cuisine_ of London House and
an after-dinner stroll on the English Promenade or the terraces of Monte
Carlo, in dreamy contemplation of the mountains with their misty grays
and a sea and sky of such heavenly blue. But no: this charming programme
is wantonly rejected: not the finest orchestras, not the prettiest
fêtes, not the newest chansonettes sung by Judie and Jeanne Granier
themselves, can turn the players for a moment from the pursuit of their
one absorbing passion. Play goes on at the Casino of Monte Carlo the
livelong day, the only relaxation from the _couleur gagnante_ or _tiers
et tout_ being when the gamblers step across the way to take a shot at
the pigeons or a bet on the birds; for they must bet on something, if it
is but on the number of the box from which the next victim will fly. And
when in the evening the players have returned to Nice it is only to
indulge the fierce passion again in playing baccarat--the terrible
Parisian baccarat--at the Massena Club or at the Mediterranean, where
the betting is even higher than at Monaco. Hundreds of thousands of
francs change hands every hour from noon to six o'clock in the morning
in this gambling-hell--a hell disguised in the colors of Paradise.

But let us fly from the perilous neighborhood and reach the nearest
race-course by the fastest train we can find. The passion for the turf
is healthier than the other, and its ends not so much in need of
concealment. Unluckily, we shall not find just at this season--that
is to say, in February--anything going on excepting a few
steeple-chases--some "jumping business," as the English say rather
contemptuously. In England there are certain owners, such as Lord
Lonsdale, Captain Machell, Mr. Brayley and others, who, though well
known in flat-races, have also good hunters in their stables, while the
proprietors of the latter in France confine themselves exclusively to
this specialty. Perhaps the best known amongst them are the baron Jules
Finot and the marquis de St. Sauveur. Most of the members of the Jockey
Club affect to look down upon the "illegitimate" sport, as they call it.
It would seem, however, that this disdain is hardly justifiable, for as
a spectacle at least a steeple-chase is certainly more dramatic and more
interesting than a flat-race. What can be finer than the sight of a
dozen gentlemen or jockeys, as the case may be, charging a brook and
taking it clear in one unbroken line? And yet, despite the attractions
and excitement of the sport, and all the efforts made from time to time
by the Society of Steeple-chases to popularize it in France, it cannot
as yet be called a success. Complaint is made, as in England, of too
short distances, of the insufficiency of the obstacles, of an
overstraining of the pace. The whole thing is coming to partake more and
more of the nature of a race, an essentially different thing. Field
sports are not races--at least they never ought to be. A steeple-chase
can never answer the true purpose of the flat-race, which is to prove
which is the best horse, to the end that he may ultimately reproduce his
like. But nobody ever heard of "a sire calculated to get
steeple-chasers". The cleverness and the special qualities that make a
good steeple-chaser are not transmitted. The best have been horses of
poor appearance, often small and unsightly, that have been given up by
the trainer as incapable of winning in flat-races. In England the
winners of the "Grand National" have had no pedigree to speak of, and
have failed upon the track. Cassetête had run in nineteen races without
gaining a single one before he began his remarkable career as a hunter;
Alcibiade had been employed at Newmarket as a lad's horse; Salamander
was taken out of a cart to win the great steeple-chases at Liverpool and
Warwick.

In France there is no Liverpool or Croydon or Sandown for
steeple-chases: there is only an Auteuil. The other meetings in the
neighborhood of Paris--Maisons, Le Vésinet, La Marche--are in the hands
of shameless speculators like Dennetier, Oller and the rest. Poor
horses, bought in the selling races and hardly trained at all to their
new business, compete at these places for slender purses, and often with
the help of dishonest tricks. Accidents, as might be expected, are
frequent, although the obstacles, with the exception of the river at La
Marche, are insignificant. But the pace is pushed to such excess that
the smallest fence becomes dangerous. This last objection, however, may
be made even to the running at Auteuil, where the course is under the
judicious and honorable direction of the Society of Steeple-chases. The
pace is quite too severe for such a long stretch, strewn as it is with
no less than twenty-four obstacles, and some of them pretty serious. The
weather, too, is nearly always bad at Auteuil, even at the summer
meetings, and the ill-luck of the Steeple-chase Society in this respect
has become as proverbial as the good-fortune and favoring skies that
smile upon the Société d'Encouragement, its neighbor at Longchamps. It
is not to be wondered at, then, that the English do not feel at home
upon this dangerous track. They have gained but twice the great
international steeple-chase founded in 1874--the first time with Miss
Hungerford in the year just mentioned, and again with Congress in 1877.
This prize, the most important of the steeple-chase purses in France,
amounts to twelve hundred sovereigns, added to a sweepstakes of twenty
sovereigns each, with twelve sovereigns forfeit--or only two sovereigns
if declared by the published time--and is open to horses of four years
old and upward. It is run in the early part of June. Last year, whilst
Wild Monarch, belonging to the marquis de St. Sauveur and ridden by
D'Anson, was winning the race, the splendid stands took fire and were
burned, without the loss of a single life, and even without a serious
accident, thanks to the ample width of the staircases and of the exits.
These stands were the newest and the most comfortable in the country. It
is to be hoped that the society will not allow itself to be discouraged
by such a persistent run of ill-luck, but that it will continue to
pursue its work, the object of which it has declared to be "to
encourage, as far as its resources will permit, the breeding and raising
of horses for service and for the army." As the Encouragement Society
rests upon the Jockey Club, so the Society of Steeple-chases finds its
support in the Cercle of the Rue Royale, commonly called the Little Club
or the Moutard. This club was reorganized after the war under the
direction of the prince de Sagan, and has made great sacrifices to bring
Auteuil into fashion.

The regular racing-season in France begins on the 15th of March, and no
horse that has appeared upon any public track before this date is
permitted to enter. The first event of the series is the spring meeting
at Rheims--the French Lincoln. Of the six flat-races run here, one,
known as the Derby of the East, is for two-year-olds of the previous
year, with a purse of five thousand francs. In the "Champagne" races the
winner gets, besides his prize, a basket of a hundred bottles of the
sparkling wine instead of the empty "cup" that gives its name to other
famous contests. After Rheims the next meeting in course is at
Longchamps, in the beginning of April, opening with the Prix du Cadran,
twenty-five thousand francs, distance forty-two hundred mètres, for
four-year-olds. Then comes the essay of horses of the year in the Trial
Sweepstakes and the Prix Daru, corresponding with the Two Thousand
Guineas and the Thousand Guineas at Newmarket. The quotation begins to
take shape as the favorites for the great events of May and June stand
out more clearly. Of all the prizes--not excepting even the Grand Prix
de Paris--the one most desired by French turfmen is the French Derby,
or, to call it by its official name, the Prix du Jockey Club, the
crowning event of the May meeting at Chantilly. The conditions of the
Derby are as follows: For colts and fillies of three years, distance
twenty-four hundred mètres, or a mile and a half, fifty thousand francs,
or two thousand pounds sterling, with stakes added of forty pounds for
each horse--twenty-four pounds forfeit, or twenty pounds if declared out
at a fixed date; colts to carry one hundred and twenty-three pounds, and
fillies one hundred and twenty pounds. The purse last year amounted to
£3863 (96,575 francs). Like the English Derby, its French namesake is
regarded as the test and gauge of the quality of the year's production.
In the year of the foundation of this important race (1836), and for the
two succeeding years, it was gained by Lord Henry Seymour's stable,
whose trainer, Th. Carter, and whose stallion, Royal Oak, both brought
from England, were respectively the best trainer and the best stallion
of that time. In 1839, however, the duc d'Orléans's Romulus, foaled at
the Meudon stud, put an end to these victories of the foreigner. In 1840
the winner was Tontine, belonging to M. Eugène Aumont, but Lord Seymour,
whose horse had come in second, asserted that another horse had been
substituted for Tontine, and that under this name M. Aumont had really
entered the English filly Hérodiade, while the race was open only to
colts foaled and raised in France. A lawsuit was the result, and while
the courts refused to admit Lord Seymour's claim, the racing committee
declared the mare disqualified, and M. Aumont sold his stable. In 1841,
Lord Seymour again gained the Derby with Poetess (by Royal Oak), who
afterward became mother of Heroine and of Monarque and grandmother of
Gladiateur. In 1843 there was a dead heat between M. de Pontalbra's
Renonce and Prospero, belonging to the trainer Th. Carter, and, as often
happens, the worse horse--in this case it was Renonce--won the second
heat. In 1848, the name of "Chantilly" being just then too odious, the
Derby was run at Versailles, and was gained by M. Lupin's Gambetti. This
same year is remarkable in the annals of the French turf for the
excellence of its production. From this period until 1853--the year of
Jouvence--M. Lupin enjoyed a series of almost uninterrupted successes.
In 1855 the Derby was won by the illustrious Monarque, and the following
year witnessed the first appearance upon the turf of the now famous red
and blue of Lagrange. It was Beauvais, belonging to Madame Latache de
Fay, who in 1860 carried off the coveted prize, which was won the next
year by Gabrielle d'Estrées, from the stable of the comte de Lagrange.
Then for a period of nine years the count's stable had a run of
ill-luck, its horses always starting as prime favorites and being as
invariably beaten. This was Trocadéro's fate in 1867. He was a great
favorite, and had, moreover, on this occasion the assistance of his
stable-companion Mongoubert, a horse of first-rate qualities. This time,
at least, the count's backers were sure of success, but the victory that
seemed within their grasp was wrested from their hands by the unexpected
prowess developed upon the field of battle by a newcomer, M. Delamarre's
Patricien. At a distance of two hundred mètres from the goal the three
horses named were alone in the race, and the struggle between them was a
desperate one. It looked almost as if it might turn out a dead heat,
when Patricien, with a tremendous effort, reached the winning-post a
head in advance, after one of the finest and best-contested races ever
seen at Chantilly. In 1869, however, Consul succeeded in turning the
tide of adverse fortune that had set in against the comte de Lagrange,
but it was only for the moment, and it was not until 1878 that he was
again the victor, when he won with Insulaire. He repeated the success
last year with Zut, whom Goater brought in to the winning-post a length
and a half ahead of the field.

Unfortunately, the winner of the French Derby can hardly ever be in good
condition to contest the great race at Epsom. These two important events
are too near in point of time, and the fatigue of the journey, moreover,
puts the horse that has to make it at a disadvantage. Were it not for
this drawback it is probable that the comte de Lagrange would beat the
English oftener than he does. In May, 1878, his horse Insulaire, having
just come in second in the Two Thousand Guineas at Newmarket, left that
place for home, won the French Derby on Sunday, and returned to England
in time for the Epsom Derby on Wednesday, where he came in second. He
recrossed the Channel, and the following Sunday was second again in the
Grand Prix de Paris, Thurio passing him only by a head. Making the
passage again--and this was his fourth voyage within fifteen days--he
gained the Ascot Derby. It is not unlikely that if this remarkable horse
had remained permanently in the one country or the other he would have
carried off the principal prizes of the turf.

For the last three or four years the racing men have been in the habit
of meeting, after the Grand Prix de Paris, in the pretty park of La
Marche, between St. Cloud and St. Germain. It is quite a private
gathering, and as elegant as a dashing turnout of some fifteen or twenty
four-in-hands and a pretty luncheon and charming flirtation can make it,
and if dancing has not yet been introduced it soon will be. Prizes in
the shape of groups in bronze and paintings and valuable weapons are
awarded to the gentlemen present who may take part in the hunting
steeple-chase or the race with polo ponies or with hacks.

In 1878 a new race-course was started at Enghien, to the north of
Paris. The prizes are sufficiently large, the stands comfortable and the
track is good; and these attractions, with the advantage of the
neighborhood of the Chantilly and Morlaye stables, will no doubt make
Enghien a success. Steeple-chases and hurdle-races predominate.

We can hardly close this review of turf matters in France without at
least a reference to the so-called sporting journals, but what we have
to say of them can be told in two words. They exist only in name. Any
one who buys _Le Sport_, _Le Turf_, _Le Jockey_, _Le Derby_, the _Revue
des Sports,_ etc., on the faith of their titles--nearly all English, be
it observed--will be greatly disappointed if he expects to find in them
anything beyond the mere programmes of the races: they contain no
criticism worthy of the name, no accurate appreciation of the subject
they profess to treat of, and are even devoid of all interesting details
relating to it. Far from following the example of their fellows of
London and New York, these sheets concern themselves neither with
hunting, shooting or fishing, nor with horse-breeding or cattle-raising,
but give us instead the valuable results of their lucubrations upon the
names of the winning horses of the future, and with such sagacity that a
subscriber to one of them has made the calculation that if he had bet
but one louis upon each of the favorites recommended by his paper he
would have lost five hundred louis in the one year of his subscription.

Let us add, however, that, the press excepted, the English have nothing
more to teach their neighbors in turf matters. The _Pall Mall Gazette_
has well said that the organization of racing in France has taken a
great deal of what is good from the English turf, and has excluded most
of what is bad. The liberality of the French Jockey Club is declared by
_Vanity Fair_ to be in striking contrast with the starveling policy of
its English namesake. The _Daily Telegraph_ has recently eulogized the
French club for having found out how to rid the turf of the pest of
publicans and speculators and clerks of courses, and of all the riffraff
that encumber and disgrace it in England, and that make parliamentary
intervention necessary. The French turf, in fine, may be said to be
inferior to the English in the number of horses, but its equal in
respect of their quality, while it must be admitted to be superior to it
in the average morality of their owners.

                          L. LEJEUNE.




FROM FAR.


    Oh, Love, come back, across the weary way
    Thou didst go yesterday--
          Dear Love, come back!

    "I am too far upon my way to turn:
    Be silent, hearts that yearn
          Upon my track."

    Oh, Love! Love! Love! sweet Love! we are undone
    If thou indeed be gone
          Where lost things are.

    "Beyond the extremest sea's waste light and noise,
    As from Ghostland, thy voice
          Is borne afar."

    Oh, Love, what was our sin that we should be
    Forsaken thus by thee?
          So hard a lot!

    "Upon your hearts my hands and lips were set--
    My lips of fire--and yet
          Ye knew me not."

    Nay, surely, Love! We knew thee well, sweet Love!
    Did we not breathe and move
          Within thy light?

    "Ye did reject my thorns who wore my roses:
    Now darkness closes
          Upon your sight."

    Oh, Love! stern Love! be not implacable:
    We loved thee, Love, so well!
          Come back to us!

    "To whom, and where, and by what weary way
    That I went yesterday,
          Shall I come thus?"

    Oh weep, weep, weep! for Love, who tarried long
    With many a kiss and song,
          Has taken wing.

    No more he lightens in our eyes like fire:
    He heeds not our desire,
          Or songs we sing.

                    PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.




AMERICANS ABROAD.


Five-and-twenty years ago Americans had no cause to be particularly
proud of the manner in which, from a social point of view, their
travelling compatriots were looked upon in Europe. At that epoch we were
still the object of what Mr. Lowell calls a "certain condescension in
foreigners." We were still the recipients at their hands of that certain
half-curious, half-amused and wholly patronizing inspection which, from
the height of their civilization, they might be expected to bestow upon
a novel species of humanity, with manners different from their own, but
recently sprung into existence and notice and disporting itself in their
midst.

But this sort of thing has had its day. By dint of having been able to
produce, here and there, for the edification of foreigners, a few types
of American manhood and womanhood which came up to the standard of
high-breeding entertained in the Old World, and of having occasionally
dispensed hospitality, both at home and abroad, in a manner which was
unexceptionable, besides having shown other evidences in social
life--not to speak of political life--of being able to hold our own
quite creditably, the "condescension" has gradually diminished in a very
satisfactory manner. It is now no longer kept alive by even the typical
American traveller such as he was when five-and-twenty years ago a
familiar sight at every railway-station, in every steamer and in every
picture-gallery, museum and ruin of every town in Europe. Now-a-days
everybody in America who lays any claim to the right of being called
"somebody," however small a "somebody" it may be, has been to Europe at
least once in his or her life--on a three months' Cook-excursion tour,
if in no other way. And those who have not been have had a father,
mother, brother, sister, or in any case a cousin in some degree, who
has; so that there is always a European trip in the family, so to speak.
The result of all this has naturally been a certain amount of experience
concerning Europe which has tended to wellnigh exterminate the race of
the typically-verdant American traveller. Occasional specimens, with all
their characteristics in full and vigorous development, may still be
met, but these are merely isolated survivors of a once widespread
family. The Americans that one meets to-day in Europe, both those who
travel and those who reside there, are of a different conformation and
belong to a different type. The crudeness which so shocked Europeans in
their predecessors they have, with characteristic adaptability, readily
and gracefully outgrown. But whether they have improved in other
respects, and whether, on other grounds, we have cause to be
particularly proud of our countrymen abroad at the present day, is
another question.

That Americans are constantly apologizing to foreigners for America, for
its institutions, for its social life, and for themselves as belonging
to it, is a fact which no one ever thinks of disputing. In this faculty
for disparaging our own country we may flatter ourselves that we have no
equals. The Chinese may come near us in their obsequious assurances as
to the utter unworthiness of everything pertaining to them, but with the
difference that they, probably, are inwardly profoundly convinced of the
perfection of all that their idea of courtesy obliges them to abuse, and
mean nothing of what they say; whereas we _do_ mean everything we say.

The prejudice of the English, and their attempts to transport a
miniature England about with them wherever they go, furnish a frequent
subject of jest to Americans on the Continent. If the total immunity
from any such feeling which characterizes the Americans themselves were
the result of breadth of ideas--if they spoke as they do because they
measured the faults and follies, the merits and advantages, of their
own institutions with as impartial an eye as they would measure those of
other nations, and judged them without either malice or extenuation--we
might then have the privilege of condemning narrow-mindedness
and prejudice. But we have no such breadth of ideas. On the
contrary, we have ourselves--none more so--the strongest sort of
prejudices--prejudices which prevent us as a nation from taking wide,
cosmopolitan views of things. The only difference is that with us the
prejudice, instead of being in favor of everything belonging to our own
country, is, in far too many cases, against it, consequently the most
objectionable, the least excusable, of prejudices.

It is but rarely that we find a German, a Frenchman, a Spaniard, an
Italian, or a Russian, who even having expatriated himself completely
for one reason or another, and after years of absence, will not have
retained some affection for his native country, some longing for it,
some feeling that it is the best place on earth after all. But among any
number of Americans who have been on European soil for any period of
time, from twenty days to twenty years, those who are burdened with any
such affection, any such longing, any such feeling, might be counted
with ease. Indeed, if through some inconceivable arrangement of human
affairs the Americans abroad were to be prevented from ever returning to
their own country, I imagine the majority would bear the catastrophe
with great equanimity, and, aside from the natural ties of family and
pecuniary interests that might bind them to their home, would think the
permanent life in Europe thus enforced the happiest that Fate could have
bestowed upon them. For my part, I never met but one American who was
anxious to return home--a lady, strange to say--and her chief reason
seemed to be that she missed her pancakes, hot breads, etc. for
breakfast. All the others, men and women, had but one voice to express
how immeasurably more to their taste was everything in Europe--the
climate, the life, the people, the country, the food, the manners, the
institutions, the customs--than anything in America.

However, all Americans in Europe are not of this class, although it
includes the majority. There is a comparatively small number who are as
much impressed with the perfection of everything American as the most
ardent patriotism could desire. These people go to Europe cased in a
triple armor of self-assertion, prepared to poohpooh everything and
everybody that may come under their notice, and above all to vindicate
under all circumstances their independence as free-born American
citizens by giving the world around them the benefit of their opinions
upon all topics both in and out of season. They stand before a
_chef-d'oeuvre_ of some old master and declare in a loud, aggressive
voice that they see nothing whatever to admire in it, that the
bystanders may know that the judgment of centuries will not weigh with
_them_. They inquire with grim facetiousness, and terrific emphasis on
the pronominal adjectives, "Is _this_ what the people in this part of
the world call a steamboat?" "Do they call that duckpond a lake?" "Is
that stream what they call a river?" And so on, in a perpetual attitude
of protest against everything not so large as their steamboats, their
lakes, their rivers. When this genus of Americans abroad comes together
with the other genus--with the people who think the most wretched daub
that hangs in the most obscure corner of a European gallery, labelled
with prudent indefiniteness "of the school of ----," better far than the
most conscientious work by the most gifted of American artists--and a
discussion arises, as it is sure to do, on the relative merits of Europe
and America, then indeed does Greek meet Greek, and, both starting from
equally false premises and with equally false views, the cross-purposes,
the rabid comparing of things between which no comparison is possible,
the amount of absurd nonsense spoken on either side, and the profound
disdain of one for the other, furnish a great deal of amusement to
Europeans, but make an American who has any self-respect suffer no small
amount of mortification.

There is but one ground upon which these two classes of Americans meet
in common, and that is in their respect for titles, coronets and
coats-of-arms. It is useless to deny the immense impressiveness which
this sort of thing has for the average American. Of course, if he be of
the aggressive sort he will scout the very idea of any such imputation,
one of the favorite jokes of his tasteful stock in trade being precisely
to express sovereign contempt for anything and everything smacking of
nobility, and to weigh its advantages against the chink of his own
dollars and find it wanting. But this does not in the least alter the
matter. The people who inveigh the most fiercely against the pretensions
of blue blood are generally, the world over, the ones who are devoured
by the most ardent retrospective ambitions for grandfathers and
grandmothers; and the Americans who cry out loudest against the hollow
vanity of the European aristocracy are generally those who have
genealogical trees and coats-of-arms of authenticity more or less
questionable hanging in their back parlor, and think themselves a step
removed from those among their neighbors who boast of no such property.

It may not be pleasant for us to acknowledge to ourselves that our
countrymen abroad are cankered with toadyism and are frightful snobs;
but so it is, nevertheless. The fact is very visible, veil it as we may.
The American who has not had it forced upon his attention in innumerable
ways--by the undisguised _empressement_ of those among his compatriots
who frankly spend their whole time running after persons with titles,
entertaining them and fawning upon them in every possible manner, no
more than by the intensely American Americans who profess supreme
disregard for all precedence and distinctions established by society,
and yet never fail to let you know, quite accidentally, that Count This,
Baron That and Marquis the Other are their very particular friends--has
had an exceptional experience indeed.

This manner of disposing of all Americans abroad by putting them into
one of these two categories may seem somewhat sweeping, and it will be
objected that there are hundreds of our countrymen in Europe who could
never come under the head of either. Granted. These hundreds undoubtedly
exist: they are made up of people of superior mind and intelligence, of
people of superior culture, of people who occupy that exceptional social
position which, either through associations of hereditary ease,
refinement, wealth and elegance, or by contact with "the best" of
everything from childhood up, confers on those who belong to it very
much the same outward gloss the world over. But it is never among such
exceptions that the distinctive characteristics of a nation are to be
sought. These are to be looked for in the great mass of the people. Now,
the great mass of Americans who go abroad are people of average minds,
average education, average positions; and that, thus taken as a mass,
they are lamentably lacking both in good taste and dignity, every one
must admit who is in any degree familiar with the American colonies in
the cities of Europe where our countrymen congregate.

I should perhaps say, to express myself more accurately, "where our
countrywomen congregate;" for, after all, the true representatives of
America in Europe are the American women. Nine-tenths of all the
American colonies consist of mothers who, having left their liege lords
to their stocks and merchandise, have come abroad "for the education of
their children"--an exceedingly elastic as well as convenient formula,
which somehow always makes one think of charity that "covereth a
multitude of sins." Occasionally--once in three or four years
perhaps--the husband leaves his stocks or merchandise for a brief space
of time, crosses the Atlantic and remains with his family a month or
two. Occasionally also he fails to appear altogether. I am not very sure
but that this last course is the one that foreigners expect him to
pursue, and that when he deviates from it it is not rather a surprise to
them. Europeans, I fancy, are somewhat apt to look upon the American
husband as a myth. At all events, it seems to take the experience of
Thomas in many instances to convince them of his material existence.
The American who is content to have his wife and children leave him for
an indefinite period ranging anywhere from one year to ten years, and
during that time enjoy the advantages of life and travel in Europe,
while he himself remains at home absorbed in his business, is a species
of the genus _Homo_ that Europeans are at a loss to comprehend. Being so
rarely seen in the flesh, he necessarily occupies but a secondary
position in their estimation: indeed, I think all American men, those of
the class named no more than those that are more frequently seen abroad,
such as doctors, clergymen, consuls, etc., may be said--some exception
being made for the "leisure class" possessed of four-in-hands and so on,
and an unlimited supply of the world's goods--to be considered by
Europeans of no great significance, socially speaking. It is madame and
mesdemoiselles who are all-important. Monsieur is thought a worthy
person, with some excellent qualities, such as freedom from
uncomfortable jealousies and suspicions, and both capacity and
willingness for furnishing remittances, but a person rather destitute of
polish--invaluable from a domestic point of view, from any other
somewhat uninteresting. But madame and mesdemoiselles have every
possible tribute paid to their charms: their beauty, their wit, their
dash and sparkle, their independence, receive as large a share of
admiration as the most insatiable among them could desire.

It must be owned that the American spirit, tempered by European
education or influences, makes a very delightful compound. And it is
astonishing to mark how soon the toning process does its work--how soon
the most objectionable American girl of the sort known as "fast," or
even "loud," softens into a very charming creature who makes the
admiration bestowed upon her by European men quite comprehensible.

That this admiration is returned is perhaps not less comprehensible.
American women, as a mass, are better educated than American men, and
are particularly their superiors so far as outward grace and polish and
the general amenities of life are concerned. These qualities, in which
their countrymen are deficient, and the blander manners which accompany
them, they are apt to find well developed in European men, whatever
other virtues or faults may be theirs; and when to this fact is added
the spice of novelty, the strong liking that American girls manifest for
foreigners, and which has been the cause of putting so many American
youths in anything but a benedictory frame of mind, is easily accounted
for, and the marriages which so frequently take place between our girls
and European men may be explained, even on other grounds than the common
exchange of money on one side and title on the other.

Be the motive of these marriages either mutual interest or mutual
inclination, in neither case does the generally-accepted theory that
they are never happy bear the test of application. So far as my
knowledge goes, the common experience is quite the reverse. The number
of matches between American girls and Europeans that turn out badly is
small compared to the number of those that are perfectly satisfactory.
It is astonishing to see how many of our girls, who have been brought up
in the belief of the American woman's prerogative of absolute supremacy
in the domestic circle, when they are thus married change and seem quite
content to relinquish not a few of their ideas of perfectly untrammelled
independence, and to take that more subordinate position in matrimony
which European life and customs allot to women. It is still more
astonishing to see how contentedly and cheerfully they do so when
marrying men, as they often do, whose equals in every point, were they
their own countrymen, they would consider decidedly bad _partis_--men
with no advantages of any description, without either position, career
or any visible means of livelihood, often passably destitute of
education and character as well. How they contrive to be satisfied with
their bargain in this case is a puzzle, but satisfied they are.

Marriages of this sort, where the man has absolutely nothing to offer
beyond the charms of his more or less blandly persuasive person, excite
no surprise abroad. That a penniless male fortune-hunter should marry a
girl with wealth is considered in Europe at the present day not only
just, proper and quite as it should be, but rather _comme il faut_ than
otherwise. Let the case be reversed, and a man of fortune permit himself
the caprice of marrying a portionless girl, and society cries out in
horror against the mésalliance.

American women in Europe have two chief aims and occupations. The first
is to obtain an _entrée_ into the society of the country in which they
are residing, and to identify themselves with that society: the second
is to revile one another.

So far as the first aim is concerned, it is certainly most laudable,
taken in one sense: the persons who can live in the midst of a people
without endeavoring to gain an insight into its character and its
customs must be possessed of an exceptionally oyster-like organization
indeed. But the majority of American women seek foreign society on other
grounds than this--chiefly from that tendency to ape everything European
and to decry everything American to which I have already alluded as
being characteristic of us as a nation. England and the English are the
principal models chosen for imitation. It is marvellous to notice the
fondness of American women abroad for the English accent and manner of
speech and way of thinking; how enthusiastically they attend all the
meets in Rome; how plaintively they tell one if one happens to have
arrived quite recently from home, "Really, there is no riding across
country in _your_ America, you know." In the cities of the Continent
that have large English and American colonies they attend the English
church in preference to their own. I believe it is considered more
exclusive to do so, and better form. In this mania for all things
English we are not alone. John Bull happens to be the fashion of the day
quite as much on the continent of Europe as in America, and has quite as
many devoted worshippers there as among us.

Naturally, one of the chief reasons why American women have so great a
liking for European society is to be found in the fact of the far more
important position that married ladies occupy in that society than they
do with us. For a woman who feels that she has still attractions which
should not be buried in obscurity, but who has found that since her
marriage she has, to all intents and purposes, been "laid upon the
shelf," it is a very delightful experience to see herself once more the
object of solicitous attention, considered as one of the brilliant
central ornaments of a ballroom, not as one of its indispensable
wall-decorations. The experience seems to be so particularly pleasant to
the majority of American women, indeed, that they show the greatest
disinclination to sharing it one with the other--a disinclination made
manifest by that habit of reviling each other which I mentioned as the
second great aim and occupation of our countrywomen abroad. That there
should be very little kindness and fellow-feeling, and a great deal of
envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness among their members, is
characteristic of all foreign colonies in every country; but none
certainly can, in this respect, surpass the American colonies in Europe,
at least in so far as their feminine representatives are concerned. The
extent to which these ladies carry their backbiting and slandering, and
the abnormal growth which their jealousy of one another attains, fill
the masculine mind with amazement.

A lady of a certain age who had lived in Europe twenty years, and who,
in addition to being a person of great clearness and robustness of
judgment, held a position, as a widow with a comfortable competency,
which made her verdict unassailable by any suspicion of its being an
interested one, spoke to me once on this subject. "In all my experience
of American life in Europe," she said, "I may safely state that I have
never met more than half a dozen American women who had anything but
ill-natured remarks to make of one another. No American woman need hope,
live as she may, do as she may, say what she may, to escape criticism
at the hands of her countrywomen. The mildest manner in which they will
treat her in conversation will be to say that she is 'nobody,' 'never
goes anywhere,' etc., and thus dismiss her. In every other case it is,
'Mrs. A----? Oh yes, such a charming person! Perhaps just a little bit
inclined to put on airs, but then--Oh, a very nice little woman. I don't
suppose she has ever really been accustomed to much, you know. They say
her mother was a dressmaker, but of course one never knows how true
these things may be. She does make frantic efforts to get into society
here: it is quite amusing. I think the Von Z----s have rather taken her
up. She has plenty of money to spend, oh yes. I can't see how her
husband can afford to let her live in the style she does abroad, but
then that is _his_ affair. She entertains all these people, and of
course they go to her house because she can give them some
amusement.'--'Mrs. B----? Do I know anything about her? Well, I think I
do. Nice? Oh, I do not know that there is anything to be said against
her. To be sure, in Paris people _did_ say some rather ugly things.
There was a Count L----. And I heard from a very reliable source that
she was not on exactly good terms with her husband. So, having
daughters, you know, I was obliged to be prudent and rather to shun her
than otherwise. Without wishing to be ill-natured I feel inclined to
advise you to do the same: I think you will find it quite as well to do
so.'--'Mrs. C----? Oh, my dear, such a coarse, common, vulgar creature!
She was never received in any sort of good society in New York. Her
husband made money one fine day, and she has come abroad and is trying
to impose upon people here. She is perfectly ignorant--no education
whatever. And the daughters are horribly _mauvais genre_.'--'Mrs. D----?
I should call her an undesirable acquaintance. Not but what she is a
very nice sort of person--in her way--but she does make up so
frightfully, and she looks so fast. Always has a crowd of officers
dangling about her. Her husband is a stick. They _do_ say that when his
relatives came abroad last winter they would not call upon him. They
were completely incensed at the way in which he permits his wife to
carry on.'--'Mrs. E----? Pray, who is Mrs. E----? and where does she get
the money to live as she does? I knew her a few years ago, when she had
a thousand a year to live on, she and both her children. And now, the
toilettes she makes! And, some people say, the debts! And, really, I
don't see how it can be otherwise, knowing, as I do, that all the
members of her family are as poor as church mice. Her husband committed
suicide, you know.--No! did you never hear that? Oh yes: he was mixed up
in some rather shady transactions in business, and put an end to himself
in that way.'--'Mrs. F----? Oh yes, I remember. An old thing, with a
grown-up son, who dresses as if she were fifteen. Dreadfully affected,
and _so_ silly! Moreover, Mrs. I---- lived in the same house with her in
Dresden--had the apartment above hers--and she told me the servants said
that Mrs. F---- was always in some difficulty with tradespeople.'--'Miss
G----? Is it possible you have never heard about her? Why, she ran away
with a footman, or something of the kind. Was brought back before she
had reached the station, I believe; but you can imagine the scandal! All
the girls in that family are rather queer, which, considering the stock
they come from, is really not very strange,' etc. etc. etc."

In view of these facts, and of many more of the same nature, when one
sees the people who come back from Europe after an absence of a year or
two unable to speak their own language fluently, because they have heard
and spoken nothing but German or French or Italian during that time, and
who cannot stand the climate because they are not used to it; when one
sees the young ladies who return home unable to take any interest in
American life, and who shut themselves away from its society, which to
them is most unpolished and vapid, because they have had a European
education; when one sees the hundred follies which a glimpse of Europe
will put into the heads of people whom before one had had every reason
to think sensible enough,--one feels inclined to ask one's self the
question, Are we to conclude that European life is demoralizing to
Americans? Are we to conclude that the innumerable advantages that such
a life confers--the wider view and broader knowledge of things, the
softening influences gained by contact with a riper civilization, the
æsthetic tastes developed by acquaintance with older and more perfect
art--are to count as nothing, are to be outweighed by the disadvantages
of the same life?

Certainly, out of a hundred Americans who go abroad ninety-nine return
with what they have lost in narrowness of experience completely offset
by what they have gained in pretentious affectation. So far from being
improved in any way are they that their well-wishers are inclined to
think it would have been far better had they never gone at all.

I do not wish to draw the ultimate conclusion from all this that it
would be better for Americans were their periodical exodus to Europe to
cease. Far from it. That cultivated Americans, and Americans
particularly of a more reflective than active mind, should find the
relative ease, culture and simplicity of European life more congenial to
them than the restless, high-pressure life of America, is quite natural.
And if there are no interests or ties to make their presence in their
own country imperatively necessary, it is certainly a matter of option
with them where they take up their abode. There is no law, human or
divine, to bind a person to live in one certain spot when the
surroundings are uncongenial to him, and when no private duty fetters
him to it, for the simple reason that he has chanced to be born there.
Every one is certainly at liberty to seek the centre that best suits him
and answers to his needs. Again, there are numbers of persons who with
moderate means can live according to their taste in Europe when it would
be impossible for them to do so in America on the same amount. There are
a thousand small gratifications that people can afford themselves on a
small income abroad, a thousand small pleasures in life from which in
our country they would be hopelessly debarred; and that they should be
debarred from them when escape is possible, and not only possible but
most simple and easy, would indeed be hard.

But why cannot Americans indulge this preference for life in Europe, why
can they not avail themselves of the choice if it is open to them, and
yet remember that they _are_ Americans, and that no circumstance can
absolve them from a sacred obligation to show respect for their native
country, and to stand as its citizens on their own dignity? Men and
women may be conscious of faults and weaknesses in their parents, but
they are not expected to expose these weaknesses on that account:
instinctive delicacy in any one but a churl would keep him from
acknowledging any such failings to his own heart. And a similar feeling
should teach us, even if our sympathies were not with our own country,
to treat it in word and deed with respect. Until we do learn to show
this respect before Europeans we must still resign ourselves to the
imputation, if they wish to make it, of crudeness, of being still sadly
in want of refining.

                          ALAIN GORE.




GLIMPSES OF PORTUGAL AND THE PORTUGUESE.


[Illustration: Sketch Map of NORTH SPAIN and PORTUGAL.]

The mere name of Spain calls up at once a string of flashing, barbaric
pictures--Moorish magnificence and Christian chivalry, bull-fights,
boleros, serenades, tattered pride and cruel pleasure. All these things
go to form that piquant whole, half Eastern, half European, which is the
Spain of our imaginations. Our associations with the western part of the
Peninsula are, on the other hand, vague and incomplete. Vasco da Gama,
the earthquake of Lisbon, port wine and Portuguese plums are the
Lusitanian products most readily called to mind. After them would come
perhaps the names of Magellan, of Prince Henry the Navigator and of the
ill-fated Don Sebastian. One poet of the country, Camoens, is as often
referred to as Tasso or Ariosto. Those whose memories go back to the
European events of 1830 and thereabouts may recall the Portuguese civil
wars, the woes of Dona Maria and the dark infamy of Don Miguel. And more
recently have we not heard of the Portuguese _Guide to English
Conversation_ and relished its delicious discoveries in our language?
All these items do not, however, present a very vivid or finished
picture of the country: like the words in a dictionary, they are a
trifle disconnected.

Portugal was the first station of Childe Harold's pilgrimage, but it
holds no place in the ordinary European tour of to-day. It does not
connect with any of the main lines of travel in such a manner as to
beguile the tourist insensibly over its border: a deliberate start must
be made by steamer from England in order to reach Lisbon from the north.
Another and probably stronger reason for our neglect of its scenery is
that it is not talked of. We go to Europe to see places and follow up
associations with which fame has already made us familiar, and, though
Portugal has had a great past of which the records are still extant, it
has not been brought to our notice by art.

The two nations living side by side on the Peninsula, though originally
of the same stock and subjected to the same influences, present more
points of difference than of likeness. Their early history is the same.
Hispania and Lusitania both fell successively under the dominion of the
Romans and of the Moors, and were modified to a considerable extent by
the civilization of each. Moorish influence was predominant in
Spain--Portugal retained more deeply the Roman stamp. This is easily
seen in the literature of the two countries. Spanish ballads and plays
show the Eastern delight in hyperbole, the Eastern fertility of
invention: Portuguese literature is completely classic in spirit,
avoiding all exaggeration, all offences against taste, and confining
itself to classic forms, such as the pastoral, the epic and the sonnet.
Many Moorish customs survive in Portugal to this day, but they have not
become so closely assimilated there as in Spain to the character of the
people. The cruelty which has always marked the Spanish race is no part
of the Portuguese national character, which is conspicuous rather for
the "gentler-sexed humanity." True, the bull-fight, that barbarous
legacy of the Moors, still lingers among the Portuguese, but the sport
is pursued with no such wanton intoxication of cruelty as in the country
with which its name is now associated. On the other hand, the Roman
tradition has been preserved in Portugal more perfectly than in Italy
itself: in the "fairest of Roman colonies," as it was once called, there
will be found manners and customs which bring up more vividly the life
portrayed by the classic poets than any existing among the peasants of
modern Italy.

[Illustration: ANCIENT HOUSE IN OPORTO.]

Both Rome and Arabia stood sponsors for the land they thus endowed. The
name _Portugal_ is compounded of the Latin _portus_, a "port," and the
Arabic _caläh_, a "castle" or "fortress." The first of these names was
originally given to the town which still retains it--Oporto--one of the
oldest of Portugal, and at one time its capital.

The history of Portugal, when it separates from that of Spain, is the
history of a single stupendous achievement. A small nation raising
itself in a short time to the power of a great empire, reaching a height
which to gain was incredible, to keep impossible, and at the first
relaxation of effort suddenly falling with a disastrous crash,--that is
the drama of Portugal's greatness. There was no gradual rise or decline:
it mounted and fell. There is a tradition that the first king of
Portugal, Affonso Henriquez, was crowned on the battlefield with a burst
of enthusiasm on the part of the soldiers whom he was leading against
the Saracens, and that on the same day he opened his reign by the
glorious victory of Ourique. Less than half a century previously the
country had been given as a fief to a young knight, Count Henry of
Burgundy, on his marriage with a daughter of the king of Castile. The
Moors were overrunning it on the one hand, Castile was eying it
jealously on the other, yet Affonso Henriquez made it an independent and
permanent kingdom. This prince slaughtered Saracens and carried off
honors on the field as fast as the Cid, but his deeds were not embalmed
in an epic destined to become a storehouse of poetry for all the world.
His chronicler did not come till about four centuries later, and then
nearer and vaster achievements than those of Affonso Henriquez lay
ready to his pen. At the birth of Camoens, in 1525, Portugal had gained
her greatest conquests, and, if the shadows were already falling across
her power, she had still great men who were making heroic efforts to
retain it. Vasco da Gama had died within the year. Albuquerque, the hero
of the _Lusiado_, the noblest and most far-sighted mind in an age of
great men, had been dead ten years. Camoens, like the Greek dramatists,
was soldier as well as poet: he was not alone the singer of past
adventures--he was the reporter of what took place under his own eyes.
His epic was already finished before the defeat of Don Sebastian in the
battle of Alcazar put an end to the glory it celebrated, and in dying
shortly after the poet is said to have breathed a prayer of thanksgiving
at being spared the pain of surviving his country.

[Illustration: CHAPEL NEAR GUIMARAENS.]

The period of Portuguese supremacy lasted then, altogether, less than a
century. There is an irresistible temptation to ponder over what results
were lost by its sudden downfall, and to seek therein some explanation
of the strange fact that Portugal alone among the southern nations of
Europe has never had a national art. There was a moment when the
foundations for it seemed to be laid: it was the period at which early
Spanish art was putting forth its first efforts, while that of Italy was
in its prime. Under Emanuel the Fortunate and his successor Portugal was
rich and powerful. Its intellect and ambition had been stimulated by the
achievements of its great navigators. There was an awakening of interest
in art and letters. A school of poets had arisen of which Camoens was to
be the crown. The court, mindful of the duties of patronage, was
building new churches and convents and decorating the old ones with
religious pictures, and in Portugal religious feeling has always been
peculiarly strong. Many of these pictures are still preserved. They are
not, however, of a high order of merit, and it is not even certain that
they are the work of native artists, some authorities inclining to the
belief that they were done by inferior Flemish painters visiting the
country, and are therefore the lees of the Flemish school, not the
flower of a national one. Universal belief among the Portuguese
attributes them to Gran Vasco, a master whose very existence is
mythical, and who if he had lived several lives could not have painted
all the works of various styles which are ascribed to him. That the
artistic sense was not lacking in the Portuguese people is abundantly
shown in their architecture, in their repoussé-work of the fifteenth
century and the carvings in wood and stone. The church and convent at
Belem, the work of this period, are ornamented by Gothic stone-work of
exquisite richness and fertility of invention. The church is unfinished,
like the epoch it commemorates. To an age of activity and conquest
succeeded one of gloom and depression. The last of the kings whom the
nation had leaned on, while it supported them so loyally, had fallen at
Alcazar, and in the struggle which ensued for the succession Portugal
fell an easy prey to the strongest claimant. Philip II. strengthened his
claim to the vacant throne by sending an army of twenty thousand men
into the country under the command of the duke of Alva, and the other
heirs were too weak or too divided to oppose him. The discoveries and
conquests made by Portugal had laid the foundations of riches and power
for other nations: her own immediate benefit from them was over. The
period of prosperous repose which may be expected to follow one of great
national activity was denied to her. When the house of Braganza
recovered its rights, the impulse to creative art was extinct.

[Illustration: CLOISTERS OF BELEM CONVENT.]

Though it was as a maritime power that Portugal rose to its greatest
height, it has been from time immemorial an agricultural nation, and the
mass of its people are engaged in tilling the soil. They are a cheerful,
industrious race, who, far from meriting Lord Byron's contemptuous
epithet of "Lusitanian boors," are gifted with a natural courtesy and
refinement of manner. A New-England farmer would be tempted to follow
the poet's example and regard them with contempt: weighed in his
balance, they would certainly be found wanting. There is no
public-school system in operation, and the Portuguese farmer is not
likely to be able to read or sign his name. But the want of literature
is not felt in a Southern country, where social intercourse is far more
cultivated than in our own rural districts. It is not by reading the
newspapers, but by talking matters over with his neighbor, that the
Portuguese farmer obtains his sound and intelligent views on the
politics of his country. He is a great talker, taking a keen interest in
all that goes on, enjoying a joke thoroughly and addressing his comrade
with all the ceremonies and distinctions of a language which contains
half a dozen different forms of address. The illiterate peasant is no
whit behind the man of culture in the purity of his Portuguese. In no
country in Europe is the language kept freer from dialect, and this
notwithstanding the fact that it is one of involved grammatical forms.
In France the use of the imperfect subjunctive is given up by the lower
classes and by foreigners, but in Portugal the peasant has still deeper
subtleties of speech at the end of his tongue. Add to this that he has a
vocabulary of abuse before which the Spaniard or the California
mule-driver would be silenced, and you have the extent of his linguistic
accomplishments. This profane eloquence was an art imparted no doubt by
the Moors. The refinements of syntax come from the Latin, to which
Portuguese bears more affinity in form than any other modern language.

From the Romans the Lusitanian received his first lessons in
agriculture--lessons which have never been entirely superseded. His
plough was given him by the Romans, and he has not yet seen fit to alter
the pattern. The ox-cart used in town and country for all purposes of
draught is another relic preserved intact. Its wheels of solid wood are
fastened to the axle, which revolves with them, this revolution being
accompanied by a chorus of inharmonious shrieks and creaks and wails
which to the foreign and prejudiced nerve is simply agonizing. Its
master hears it with a different ear: he finds it rather cheerful than
otherwise, good to enliven the oxen, to dispel the silence of lonely
places and to frighten away wolves and bogies, of which enemies he has a
childish awe. Instead, therefore, of pouring oil upon this discord, he
applies lemon-juice to aggravate the sound! The cart pleases the eye of
the stranger more than his ear. When in the vintage season the upright
poles forming its sides are bound together by a wickerwork of vine
branches with their large leaves, and the inside is heaped with purple
grapes, it is a goodly sight, and one which Alma-Tadema might paint as a
Roman vintage, for it is doubtless a counterfeit presentment of the
grape-laden wains which moved in the season of vintage over the
Campagna. The results in both cases were the same, for the _vinho
verde_, a harsh but refreshing wine, made and drunk by the
country-people, is made in the same way and is probably identical with
that wherewith the Latin farmer slaked his thirst. The recipe may have
descended through Lusus, the companion of Bacchus, whom tradition names
as the father of the Lusitanian. Be that as it may, the Portuguese is
still favored of the wine-god. Wine flows for him even more freely than
water, which gift of Nature has to be dug for and sought far and wide.
He drinks the ruby liquid at home and carries it afield: he even shares
it with his horse, who sinks his nose, nothing loth, in its inviting
depths, and neither man nor beast shows any ill effects from this
indulgence.

[Illustration: A MADEIRA FISHERMAN.]

It is in the north-western corner of the country, in the Minho
province, that the highest rural prosperity is to be met with. This
little province, scarcely as large as the State of Delaware, but with
more than four times its population, has successfully solved the problem
of affording labor and sustenance in nearly equal shares to a large
number of inhabitants. Bonanza-farming is unheard of there. The high
perfection of its culture, which gives the whole province the trim,
thriving air of a well-kept garden, comes from individual labor minutely
bestowed on small surfaces. No mowing-, threshing- or other machines are
used. Instead of labor-saving, there is labor cheerfully expended--in
the place of the patent mower, a patient toiler (often of the fair sex),
armed with a short, curved reaping-hook. The very water, which flows
plentifully in fountains and channels, comes not direct from heaven
without the aid of man. It is coaxed down from the hills in tedious
miles of aqueduct or forced up from a great depth by a rustic
water-wheel worked by oxen, and is then distributed over the land.
Except for its aridity, the climate is kind to the small farmer: there
is no long inactivity forced upon him by a cold winter. A constant
succession of crops may be raised, and all through the year he works
cheerfully and industriously, finding his ten acres enough and his
curious broad hoe dexterously wielded the equivalent of shovel and
pickaxe. If ignorant of our inventions, he is intimately acquainted with
some American products. If a Yankee were to walk into a Portuguese
farm-house and surprise the family at dinner, he would be sure to see on
the table two articles which, however oddly served, would be in their
essentials familiar to him--Indian meal and salt codfish. Indian corn
has long been cultivated as the principal grain: it is mixed with rye to
make the bread in every-day use. The Newfoundland cod, under the name of
_bacalhau_, has crept far into the affections of the nation, its lack of
succulence being atoned for by a rich infusion of olive oil, so that the
native beef, cheap and good as it is, has no chance in comparison.
Altogether, the Portuguese peasant with his wine, his oil and his
bacalhau fares better than most of his class. At Christmas-tide he
stakes his digestion on _rebanadas_, a Moorish invention--nothing less
than ambrosial flapjacks made by soaking huge slices of wheaten bread in
new milk, frying them in olive oil and then spreading them lavishly with
honey.

The Portuguese can be industrious, but all work and no play is a scheme
of life which would ill accord with his social, pleasure-loving
temperament. With a wisdom rare in his day and generation, and an energy
unparalleled among Southern races, he manages to combine the two. After
rising at dawn and working from twelve to fifteen hours, he does not sit
down and fall asleep, but slings a guitar over his shoulder and is off
to the nearest threshing-floor to dance a _bolero_. His dancing is not
the more graceful for coming after hours of field-labor, but it lacks
neither activity nor picturesqueness: above all, it is the outcome of
light-heartedness and enjoyment in capering. The night air, soft yet
cool, is refreshing after the intense heat of the day: the too sudden
lowering of temperature at sundown which makes the evenings unhealthy in
many Southern countries is not experienced in Portugal. Every peasant
has his guitar, for a love of music is widely diffused, and some of them
not only sing but improvise. In the province of the Minho it is not
uncommon at these gatherings for a match of improvisation to be held
between two rustic bards. One takes his guitar, and in a slow, drawling
recitative sings a simple quatrain, which the other at once caps with a
second in rhyme and rhythm matching the first. Verse follows verse in
steady succession, and the singer who hesitates is lost: his rival
rushes in with a tide of rhyme which carries all before it. In such
primitive pleasures the shepherds of the Virgilian eclogue indulged.

As the life of the peasant, so is that of his wife or sweetheart. She
shares in the work, guiding the oxen, cutting grass, even working on the
road with hoe and basket. "Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound."
Like Wordsworth's reaper, she sings as she works, and the day's labor
over is ready to join in the bolero. On fête-days she is arrayed in all
the magnificence of her peasant ornaments, worth, if her family is
well-to-do, a hundred dollars or more--gold pendants in her ears, large
gold chains of some antique Moorish design falling in a triple row over
her gay bodice. The men wear long hooded cloaks of brown homespun, which
they sometimes retain for convenience after the rest of the
peasant-dress has been thrown aside for the regulation coat and
trousers. There is no tendency to eccentricity in the national costume
of Portugal, but the Portuguese colony of Madeira have invented a
singular head-gear in a tiny skull-cap surmounted by a steeple of
tightly-wound cloth, which serves as a handle to lift it by. Like the
German student's cap, it requires practice to make it adhere at the
required angle. This is a bit of coxcombry which has no match in the
simple, unaffected vanity of the Portuguese.

[Illustration: COUNTRY-HOUSE IN PORTUGAL.]

The country is left during the greater part of the year to the exclusive
occupancy of the peasantry, the town atmosphere being more congenial in
the long run to the social gentry of Portugal. The wealthy class in
Lisbon have their villas at Cintra, in which paradise of Nature and art,
with its wonderful ensemble of precipices and palaces, forest and garden
scenes, they can enjoy mountains without forsaking society. Many Oporto
families own country-houses in the Minho, and rusticate there very
pleasantly for a month or two in early fall. The gentlemen have large
shooting-parties, conducted on widely-different principles from those so
unswervingly adhered to by Trollope's indefatigable sporting character,
Mr. Reginald Dobbs. In a Portuguese shooting the number of men and dogs
is often totally disproportionate to that of the game, and a single
partridge may find itself the centre of an alarming volley from a dozen
or more guns. The enjoyment is not measured, however, by the success.
There is a great deal of talking and laughing, and no discontent with
the day's sport is exhibited even if there be little to show for the
skill and patience expended. There is further occupation in
superintending vintage and harvest, while the orange-groves and
luxuriant gardens offer plenty of resources for exercise or idleness.
Plant-life in Portugal is singularly varied even for so warm a country.
To the native orange, olive and other trees of Southern Europe have been
added many exotics. The large magnolia of our Southern States, the
Japanese camellia and the Australian gum tree have made themselves at
home there, and grow as if their roots were in their native soil.
Geraniums and heliotrope, which we confine easily in flower-pots, assume
a different aspect in the public gardens of Lisbon, where the former is
seen in flaming trees and hedges twenty or thirty feet high, and the
latter distributes its fragrance while covering the high walls with its
spreading arms.

The grapes from which port-wine is made are all grown within the narrow
compass of a mountain-valley about twenty-seven miles long by five or
six wide, where the conditions of soil and climate most favorable to
wine-culture--including a large degree of both heat and cold--are found
in perfection. Owing to its elevation the frosts in this district are
tolerably severe, while in summer the sun looks steadily down with his
hot glance into the valley till its vine-clad sides are permeated by
heat. The grapes ripened there are of peculiar richness and strength.
The trade is all in the hands of a certain number of English merchants
at Oporto, who buy the grapes as they hang of the native farmers and
have the wine made under their own supervision. The wine-making is
conducted in much the same manner as in other countries, a certain
quantity of spirits being added to arrest decay and ensure its
preservation. All wine has passed through the first stage of decay,
fermentation, and is liable at any time to continue the course. It may
be made with little or no alcohol if it is to be drunk within the year:
to ensure a longer lease of life some antiseptic is necessary. Port is,
from its richness, peculiarly liable to decay, and will stand
fortification better than sherry, which being a light wine is less in
need of it and more apt to be over-fortified. The area in which port is
produced being so small, there can be no material difference in the
produce of different vineyards, but some slight superiorities of soil or
aspect have given the Vesuvio, the Raïda and a few other wines a special
reputation.

The history of port is a somewhat curious one. It is associated closely
with the old English gentleman of a bygone generation, a staunch and
bigoted being who despised French wines as he abhorred the French
nation, and agreed with Doctor Johnson that claret was for boys, port
for men. The vintage of 1820 was a remarkable one in Portugal. The port
made in that season was of a peculiar strength and sweetness, in color
nearly black. The old English gentleman would acknowledge no other as
genuine, and, as Nature positively refused to repeat the experiment, the
practice of dyeing port with dried elderberries and increasing the
infusion of brandy to impart strength and flavor was resorted to. It was
successful for some time, but after a while the secret oozed out, and
the public began to receive the garnet-hued liquid again into favor, and
to find, with Douglas Jerrold, that it preferred the old port to the
_elder_. The elderberry is not sufficiently common in Portugal to make
the continuation of this process popular with wine-makers. At present
port is tolerably free from adulteration, though its casks and those of
an inferior red wine of Spain after voyaging to England sometimes find
their contents a little mixed.

Oporto is the seat of the wine-trade, and its huge warehouses are filled
with stores of port ripening to a good old age, when the garnet will be
exchanged for a dark umber tint. A handsome, thriving city is Oporto,
mounting in terraces up the slope of a steep hill. A fine quay runs the
length of the town along the Douro, and here the active life of Oporto
is mainly concentrated. Any stranger watching this stir of movement and
color will be struck by the prominent position which women fill in the
busy crowd. The men do not absorb all branches of labor. Besides the
water-carriers, market-women and fruit-vendors there may be seen
straight, stalwart lasses acting as portresses to convey loads to and
from the boats which are fastened to the river-wall. Many of the
servants and other laborers through Portugal come from Galicia, the
inhabitants of that Spanish province enjoying a reputation for honesty
and faithful service combined with stupidity.

[Illustration: QUAY AT OPORTO--THE QUEEN'S STAIRS.]

A sad contrast to the fertility of the Minho is presented by the
country opposite Lisbon and the adjoining province of Alemtejo. This
Portuguese _campagna_ was in Roman days a fertile plain covered with
golden wheat-fields. Now it is a barren, melancholy waste, producing
only ruins. It is in and about this region that the most important Roman
remains in the country are to be found. The soil in the neighborhood of
Evora is rich in coins and other relics, and Evora has, besides its
great aqueduct, the massive pillars of a temple to Diana, which, sad to
say, was once put to ignoble use as a slaughter-house. The ruins of
Troia have escaped desecration, if they have not obtained the care and
study which they merit. Lying on a low tongue of land which projects
into the bay of Setubal, the city of Troia is buried, not in Pompeian
lava, but in deep mounds of sand, accumulated there by the winds and
waves. A tremendous storm in 1814 washed away a part of this sand and
revealed something of its treasure, but it was not till 1850 that the
hint was followed up by antiquaries and a regular digging made. A large
Roman house was uncovered, together with a vast débris of marble
columns, mosaic pavements, baths, urns, and other appurtenances of Roman
existence. The excavations have been far from thorough; the peninsular
Troy still awaits its Schliemann. The name Troia was probably bestowed
by Portuguese antiquaries of the Renaissance period, who mention it thus
in their writings. According to Roman records, the city flourished about
300 A.D. as Cetobriga.

[Illustration: Sketch Map of SETUBAL and RUINS OF TROIA.]

We must return to the Minho province--still the most representative
section of Portugal--for monuments of Portuguese antiquity. Guimaraens
is the oldest town of purely native growth, and is closely associated
with the life of Affonso Henriquez. The massive castle in which he was
born, and the church which witnessed the christening of the first king
of Portugal, are still standing: the old walls of the town date back to
the time of the hero; and not far off is the field where he fought the
battle which gained him his independence at eighteen. Within a few miles
of Guimaraens is Braga, celebrated for centuries as a stronghold of the
Church. Its Gothic cathedral is of grand proportions, containing a
triple nave, and belongs to the thirteenth century. The church treasures
shut up in its sanctuary are among the richest in the Peninsula.

Portugal presents the curious spectacle of a country in which the
customs of antiquity have lasted as long as its monuments. In a certain
way the former are the more impressive. As some little familiar trait
will sometimes give a fresher insight into a great man than the more
important facts of his biography, so the ploughing, harvesting and
singing of a Portuguese peasant, with their bucolic simplicity, bring
the life of the ancients a little nearer to us than the sight of their
great aqueducts and columns. But the nineteenth century is striking the
death-blow of the bucolic very fast, the world over, and Portugal is
awake and bestirring herself--not the less effectively that she is
making no noise about it. Nevertheless, she is becoming better known.
Mr. Oswald Crawfurd, the English consul at Oporto, who has lived in
Portugal for many years, is writing about it from the best point of
view, half within, half without. His book of travels published under the
pseudonym of Latouche, and a volume entitled _Portugal, Old and New_,
recently issued under his own name, throw a strong, clear light upon the
country and its inhabitants. Another sympathetic and entertaining
traveller is Lady Jackson, the author of _Fair Lusitania_.

[Illustration: CHURCH PLATE IN BRAGA CATHEDRAL.]

The Portugal of Mr. Crawfurd and Lady Jackson is a different land from
that which Southey, Byron and other English celebrities visited at the
beginning of this century: it is not the same which Wordsworth's
daughter, Mrs. Quillinan, travelled through on horseback in 1837, making
light of inconveniences and looking at everything with kind, frank eyes.
Lisbon is no longer a beautiful casket filled with dirt and filth, but a
clean, bright and active city, and Portugal is no longer a sleeping
land, but a well-governed country, which will probably be hindered by
its small natural proportions, but not by any sluggishness or incapacity
of its people, from taking a high place among European nations.




A GRAVEYARD IDYL.


In the summer of 187-, when young Doctor Putnam was recovering from an
attack of typhoid fever, he used to take short walks in the suburbs of
the little provincial town where he lived. He was still weak enough to
need a cane, and had to sit down now and then to rest. His favorite
haunt was an old-fashioned cemetery lying at the western edge of the
alluvial terrace on which the town is built. The steep hillside abuts
boldly on the salt marsh. One of the cemetery-paths runs along the brink
of the hill; and here, on a wooden bench under a clump of red cedars,
Putnam would sit for hours enjoying the listless mood of convalescence.
Where the will remains passive, the mind, like an idle weathercock,
turns to every puff of suggestion, and the senses, born new from
sickness, have the freshness and delicacy of a child's. It soothed his
eye to follow lazily the undulations of the creek, lying like the folds
of a blue silk ribbon on the flat ground of the marsh below. He watched
the ebbing tide suck down the water from the even lines of trenches that
sluiced the meadows till the black mud at their bottom glistened in the
sun. The opposite hills were dark with the heavy foliage of July. In the
distance a sail or two speckled the flashing waters of the bay, and the
lighthouse beyond bounded the southern horizon.

It was a quiet, shady old cemetery, not much disturbed by funerals. Only
at rare intervals a fresh heap of earth and a slab of clean marble
intruded with their tale of a new and clamorous grief among the sunken
mounds and weatherstained tombstones of the ancient sleepers for whom
the tears had long been dried. Now and then a mourner came to put
flowers on a grave; now and then one of the two or three laborers who
kept the walks and shrubberies in order would come along the path by
Putnam's bench, trundling a squeaking wheelbarrow; sometimes a nurse
with a baby-carriage found her way in. But generally the only sounds to
break the quiet were the songs of birds, the rumble of a wagon over the
spile bridge across the creek and the whetting of scythes in the
water-meadows, where the mowers, in boots up to their waists, went
shearing the oozy plain and stacking up the salt hay.

One afternoon Putnam was in his accustomed seat, whistling softly to
himself and cutting his initials into the edge of the bench. The air was
breathless, and the sunshine lay so hot on the marshes that it seemed to
draw up in a visible steam a briny incense which mingled with the spicy
smell of the red cedars. Absorbed in reverie, he failed to notice how
the scattered clouds that had been passing across the sky all the
afternoon were being gradually reinforced by big fluffy cumuli rolling
up from the north, until a rumble overhead and the rustle of a shower in
the trees aroused him.

In the centre of the grounds was an ancient summer-house standing amidst
a maze of flower-beds intersected by gravel-walks. This was the nearest
shelter, and, as the rain began to patter smartly, Putnam pocketed his
knife, turned up his coat-collar and ran for it. Arrived at the
garden-house, he found there a group of three persons, driven to harbor
from different parts of the cemetery. The shower increased to a storm,
the lattices were lashed by the rain and a steady stream poured from the
eaves. The althæa and snowberry bushes in the flower-pots, and even the
stunted box-edges along the paths, swayed in the wind. It grew quite
dark in the summer-house, shaded by two or three old hemlocks, and it
was only by the lightning-flashes that Putnam could make out the
features of the little company of refugees. They stood in the middle of
the building, to avoid the sheets of rain blown in at the doors in
gusts, huddling around a pump that was raised on a narrow stone
platform--not unlike the daughters of Priam clustered about the great
altar in the penetralia: Præcipites atra ceu tempestate columbæ.

They consisted of a young girl, an elderly woman with a trowel and
watering-pot, and a workman in overalls, who carried a spade and had
perhaps been interrupted in digging a grave. The platform around the
pump hardly gave standing room for a fourth. Putnam accordingly took his
seat on a tool-chest near one of the entrances, and, while the soft
spray blew through the lattices over his face and clothes, he watched
the effect of the lightning-flashes on the tossing, dripping trees of
the cemetery-grounds.

Soon a shout was heard and down one of the gravel-walks, now a miniature
river, rushed a Newfoundland dog, followed by a second man in overalls.
Both reached shelter soaked and lively. The dog distributed the contents
of his fur over our party by the pump, nosed inquiringly about, and then
subsided into a corner. Second laborer exchanged a few words with first
laborer, and melted into the general silence. The slight flurry caused
by their arrival was only momentary, while outside the storm rose higher
and inside it grew still darker. Now and then some one said something in
a low tone, addressed rather to himself than to the others, and lost in
the noise of the thunder and rain.

But in spite of the silence there seemed to grow up out of the situation
a feeling of intimacy between the members of the little community in the
summer-house. The need of shelter--one of the primitive needs of
humanity--had brought them naturally together and shut them up "in a
tumultuous privacy of storm." In a few minutes, when the shower should
leave off, their paths would again diverge, but for the time being they
were inmates and held a household relation to one another.

And so it came to pass that when it began to grow lighter and the rain
stopped, and the sun glanced out again on the reeking earth and
saturated foliage, conversation grew general.

"Gracious sakes!" said the woman with the trowel and watering-pot as
she glanced along the winding canals that led out from the
summer-house--"jest see the water in them walks!"

"Gol! 'tis awful!" murmured the Irishman with the spade. "There'll be a
fut of water in the grave, and the ould mon to be buried the morning!"

"Ah, they had a right to put off the funeral," said the other workman,
"and not be giving the poor corp his death of cold."

"'Tis warrum enough there where the ould mon's gone, but 'tis cold
working for a poor lad like mesilf in the bottom of a wet grave. Gol!
'tis like a dreen." With that he shouldered his spade and waded
reluctantly away.

Second laborer paused to light his dhudeen, and then disappeared in the
opposite direction, his Newfoundland taking quite naturally to the
deepest puddles in their course.

"Hath this fellow no feeling of his business?" asked Putnam, rising and
sauntering up to the pump. The question was meant more for the younger
than the elder of the two women, but the former paid no heed to it, and
the latter, by way of answer, merely glanced at him suspiciously and
said "H'm!" She was unlocking the tool-chest on which he had been
sitting, and now raised the lid, stowed away her trowel and
watering-pot, locked the chest again and put the key in her pocket, with
the remark, "I guess I hain't got any more use for a sprinkle-pot
to-day."

"It is rather _de trop_," said Putnam.

The old woman looked at him still more distrustfully, and then, drawing
up her skirts, showed to his great astonishment a pair of india-rubber
boots, in which she stumped away through the water and the mud, leaving
in the latter colossal tracks which speedily became as pond-holes in the
shallower bed of the stream. The younger woman stood at the door,
gathering her dress about her ankles and gazing irresolutely at these
frightful _vestigia_ which gauged all too accurately the depth of the
mud and the surface-water above it.

"They look like the fossil bird-tracks in the Connecticut Valley
sandstone," said Putnam, following the direction of her eyes.

These were very large and black. She turned them slowly on the speaker,
a tallish young fellow with a face expressive chiefly of a good-natured
audacity and an alertness for whatever in the way of amusement might
come within range. Her look rested on him indifferently, and then turned
back to the wet gravel.

Putnam studied for a moment the back of her head and her figure, which
was girlishly slender and clad in gray. "How extraordinary," he resumed,
"that she should happen to have rubber boots on!"

"She keeps them in the tool-chest. The cemetery-man gives her a key,"
she replied after a pause, and as if reluctantly. Her voice was very low
and she had the air of talking to herself.

"Isn't that a rather queer place for a wardrobe? I wonder if she keeps
anything else there besides the boots and the trowel and the
'sprinkle-pot'?"

"I believe she has an umbrella and some flower-seeds."

"Now, if she only had a Swedish cooking-box and a patent camp-lounge,"
said Putnam laughing, "she could keep house here in regular style."

"She spends a great deal of time here: her children are all here, she
told me."

"Well, it's an odd taste to live in a burying-ground, but one might do
worse perhaps. There's nothing like getting accustomed gradually to what
you've got to come to. And then if one must select a cemetery for a
residence, this isn't a bad choice. Have you noticed what quaint old
ways they have about it? At sunset the sexton rings a big bell that
hangs in the arch over the gateway: he told me he had done it every day
for twenty years. It's not done, I believe, on the principle of firing a
sunset gun, but to let people walking in the grounds know the gate is to
be shut. There's a high stone wall, you know, and somebody might get
shut in all night. Think of having to spend the night here!"

"I have spent the night here often," she answered, again in an absent
voice and as if murmuring to herself.

"_You_ have?" exclaimed Putnam. "Oh, you slept in the tool-chest, I
suppose, on the old lady's shake-down."

She was silent, and he began to have a weird suspicion that she had
spoken in earnest. "This is getting interesting," he said to himself;
and then aloud, "You must have seen queer sights. Of course, when the
clock struck twelve all the ghosts popped out and sat on their
respective tombstones. The ghosts in this cemetery must be awfully old
fellows. It doesn't look as if they had buried any one here for a
hundred and thirty-five years. I've often thought it would be a good
idea to inscribe _Complet_ over the gate, as they do on a Paris
omnibus."

"You speak very lightly of the dead," said the young girl in a tone of
displeasure and looking directly at him.

Putnam felt badly snubbed. He was about to attempt an explanation, but
her manner indicated that she considered the conversation at an end. She
gathered up her skirts and prepared to leave the summer-house. The water
had soaked away somewhat into the gravel.

"Excuse me," said Putnam, advancing desperately and touching his hat,
"but I notice that your shoes are thin and the ground is still very wet.
I'm going right over to High street, and if I can send you a carriage or
anything--"

"Thank you, no: I sha'n't need it;" and she stepped off hastily down the
walk.

Putnam looked after her till a winding of the path took her out of
sight, and then started slowly homeward. "What the deuce could she
mean," he pondered as he walked along, "about spending the night in the
cemetery? Can she--no she can't--be the gatekeeper's daughter and live
in the gate-house? Anyway, she's mighty pretty."

His mother and his maiden aunt, who with himself made up the entire
household, received him with small scoldings and twitterings of anxiety.
They felt his wet clothes, prophesied a return of his fever and forced
him to go immediately to bed, where they administered hot drinks and
toast soaked in scalded milk. He lay awake a long time, somewhat
fatigued and excited. In his feeble condition and in the monotony which
his life had assumed of late the trifling experience of the afternoon
took on the full proportions of an adventure. He thought it over again
and again, but finally fell asleep and slept soundly. He awoke once,
just at dawn, and lay looking through his window at a rosy cloud which
reposed upon an infinite depth of sky, motionless as if sculptured
against the blue. A light morning wind stirred the curtains and the
scent of mignonette floated in from the dewy garden. He had that
confused sense of anticipation so common in moments between waking and
sleeping, when some new, pleasant thing has happened, or is to happen on
the morrow, which the memory is too drowsy to present distinctly. Of
this pleasant, indistinct promise that auroral cloud seemed somehow the
omen or symbol, and watching it he fell asleep again. When he next awoke
the sunlight of mid-forenoon was flooding the chamber, and he heard his
mother's voice below stairs as she sat at her sewing.

In the afternoon he started on his customary walk, and his feet led him
involuntarily to the cemetery. As he traversed the path along the edge
of the hill he saw in one of the grave-lots the heroine of his
yesterday's encounter, and a sudden light broke in on him: she was a
mourner. And yet how happened it that she wore no black? There was a
wooden railing round the enclosure, and within it a single mound and a
tombstone of fresh marble. A few cut flowers lay on the grave. She was
sitting in a low wicker chair, her hands folded in her lap and her eyes
fixed vacantly on the western hills. Putnam now took closer note of her
face. It was of a brown paleness. The air of hauteur given it by the
purity of the profile and the almost insolent stare of the large black
eyes was contradicted by the sweet, irresolute curves of the mouth. At
present her look expressed only a profound apathy. As he approached her
eyes turned toward him, but seemingly without recognition. Diffidence
was not among Tom Putnam's failings: he felt drawn by an unconquerable
sympathy and attraction to speak to her, even at the risk of intruding
upon the sacredness of her grief.

"Excuse me, miss," he began, stopping in front of her, "but I want to
apologize for what I said yesterday about--about the cemetery. It must
have seemed very heartless to you, but I didn't know that you were in
mourning when I spoke as I did."

"I have forgotten what you said," she answered.

"I am glad you have," said Putnam, rather fatuously. There seemed really
nothing further to say, but as he lingered for a moment before turning
away a perverse recollection surprised him, and he laughed out loud.

She cast a look of strong indignation at him, and rose to her feet.

"Oh, I ask your pardon a thousand times," he exclaimed reddening
violently. "Please don't think that I was laughing at anything to do
with you. The fact is that last idiotic speech of mine reminded me of
something that happened day before yesterday. I've been sick, and I met
a friend on the street who said, 'I'm glad you're better;' and I
answered, 'I'm glad that you're glad that I'm better;' and then he said,
'I'm glad that you're glad that I'm glad that you're better'--like the
House that Jack Built, you know--and it came over me all of a sudden
that the only way to continue our conversation gracefully would be for
you to say, 'I'm glad that you're glad that I've forgotten what you said
yesterday.'"

She had listened impatiently to this naïve and somewhat incoherent
explanation, and she now said, "I wish you would go away. You see that I
am alone here and in trouble. I can't imagine what motive you can have
for annoying me in this way," her eyes filling with angry tears.

Putnam was too much pained by the vehemence of her language to attempt
any immediate reply. His first impulse was to bow and retire without
more words. But a pertinacity which formed one of his strongest though
perhaps least amiable traits countermanded his impulse, and he said
gravely, "Certainly, I will go at once, but in justice to myself I must
first assure you that I didn't mean to intrude upon you or annoy you in
any way."

She sank down into her chair and averted her face.

"You say," he continued, "that you are in trouble, and I beg you to
believe that I respect your affliction, and that when I spoke to you
just now it was simply to ask pardon for having hurt your feelings
yesterday, without meaning to, by my light mention of the dead. I've
been too near death's door myself lately to joke about it." He paused,
but she remained silent. "I'm going away now," he said softly. "Won't
you say that you excuse me, and that you haven't any hard feelings
toward me?"

"Yes, oh yes," she answered wearily: "I have no feelings. Please go
away."

Putnam raised his hat respectfully, and went off down the pathway. On
reaching the little gate-house he sat down to rest on a bench before the
door. The gatekeeper was standing on the threshold in his shirt-sleeves,
smoking a pipe. "A nice day after the rain, sir," he began.

"Yes, it is."

"Have you any folks here, sir?"

"No, no one. But I come here sometimes for a stroll."

"Yes, I've seen you about. Well, it's a nice, quiet place for a walk,
but the grounds ain't kep' up quite the shape they used to be: there
ain't so much occasion for it. Seems as though the buryin' business was
dull, like pretty much everything else now-a-days."

"Yes, that's so," replied Putnam absently.

The gatekeeper spat reflectively upon the centre of the doorstep, and
resumed: "There's some that comes here quite reg'lar, but they mostly
have folks here. There's old Mrs. Lyon comes very steady, and there's
young Miss Pinckney: she's one of the most reg'lar."

"Is that the young lady in gray, with black eyes?"

"That's she."

"Who is she in mourning for?"

"Well, she ain't exactly in mourning. I guess, from what they say, she
hain't got the money for black bunnets and dresses, poor gal! But it's
her brother that's buried here--last April. He was in the hospital
learning the doctor's business when he was took down."

"In the hospital? Was he from the South, do you know?"

"Well, that I can't say: like enough he was."

"Did you say that she is poor?"

"So they was telling me at the funeral. It was a mighty poor funeral
too--not more'n a couple of hacks. But you can't tell much from that,
with the fashions now-a-days: some of the richest folks buries private
like. You don't see no such funerals now as they had ten years back.
I've seen fifty kerridges to onst a-comin' in that gate," waving his
pipe impressively toward that piece of architecture, "and that was when
kerridge-hire was half again as high as it is now. She must have spent a
goodly sum in green-house flowers, though: fresh b[=o]quets 'most every
day she keeps a-fetchin'."

"Well, good-day," said Putnam, starting off.

"Good-day, sir."

Putnam had himself just completed his studies at the medical college
when attacked by fever, and he now recalled somewhat vaguely a student
of the name of Pinckney, and remembered to have heard that he was a
Southerner. The gatekeeper's story increased the interest which he was
beginning to feel in his new acquaintance, and he resolved to follow up
his inauspicious beginnings to a better issue. He knew that great
delicacy would be needed in making further approaches, and so decided to
keep out of her sight for a time. In the course of the next few days he
ascertained, by visits to the cemetery and talks with the keeper, that
she now seldom visited her brother's grave in the forenoon, although
during the first month after his death she had spent all her days and
some of her nights beside it.

"I hadn't the heart, sir, to turn her out at sundown, accordin' to the
regulations; so I'd leave the gate kinder half on the jar, and she'd
slip out when she had a mind to."

Putnam read the inscription on the tombstone, which ran as follows: "To
the Memory of Henry Pinckney. Born October 29th, 1852. Died April 27th,
187-;" and under this the text, "If thou have borne him hence, tell me
where thou hast laid him." He noticed with a sudden twinge of pity that
the flowers on the grave, though freshly picked every day, were
wild-flowers--mostly the common field varieties, with now and then a
rarer blossom from wood or swamp, and now and then a garden flower. He
gathered from this that the sister's purse was running low, and that she
spent her mornings in collecting flowers outside the city. His
imagination dwelt tenderly upon her slim, young figure and mourning face
passing through far-away fields and along the margins of lonely creeks
in search of some new bloom which grudging Nature might yield her for
her sorrowful needs. Meanwhile he determined that the shrine of her
devotion should not want richer offerings. There was a hot-house on the
way from his home to the cemetery, and he now stopped there occasionally
of a morning and bought a few roses to lay upon the mound. This
continued for a fortnight. He noticed that his offerings were left to
wither undisturbed, though the little bunches of field flowers were
daily renewed as before.

In spite of the funereal nature of his occupation his spirits in these
days were extraordinarily high. His life, so lately escaped from the
shadows of death, seemed to enjoy a rejuvenescence and to put forth
fresh blossoms in the summer air. As he sat under the cedars and
listened to the buzzing of the flies that frequented the shade, the
unending sound grew to be an assurance of earthly immortality. His new
lease of existence prolonged itself into a fee simple, and even in
presence of the monuments of decay his future, filled with bright hazy
dreams, melted softly into eternity. But one morning as he approached
the little grave-lot with his accustomed offerings he looked up and saw
the young girl standing before him. Her eyes were fixed on the flowers
in his hand. He colored guiltily and stood still, like a boy caught
robbing an orchard. She looked both surprised and embarrassed, but said
at once, "If you are the gentleman who has been putting flowers on my
brother's grave, I thank you for his sake, but--"

She paused, and he broke in: "I ought to explain, Miss Pinckney, that I
have a better right than you think, perhaps, to bring these flowers
here: I was a fellow-student with your brother in the medical school."

Her expression changed immediately. "Oh, did you know my brother?" she
asked eagerly.

He felt like a wretched hypocrite as he answered, "Yes, I knew him,
though not intimately exactly. But I took--I take--a very strong
interest in him."

"Every one loved Henry who knew him," she said, "but his class have all
been graduated and gone away, and he made few friends, because he was so
shy. No one comes near him now but me."

He was silent. She walked to the grave, and he followed, and they stood
there without speaking. It did not seem to occur to her to ask why he
had not mentioned her brother at their former interview. She was
evidently of an unsuspecting nature, or else all other impressions were
forgotten and absorbed in the one thought of her bereavement. After a
glance at her Putnam ventured to lay his roses reverently upon the
mound. She held in her hand a few wild-flowers just gathered. These she
kissed, and dropped them also on the grave. He understood the meaning of
her gesture and was deeply moved.

"Poor little, dull-colored things!" she said, looking down at them.

"They are a thousand times more beautiful than mine," he exclaimed
passionately. "I am ashamed of those heartless affairs: anybody can buy
them."

"Oh no: my brother was very fond of roses. Perhaps you remember his
taste for them?" she inquired innocently.

"I--I don't think he ever alluded to them. The atmosphere of the medical
college was not very æsthetic, you know."

"At first I used to bring green-house flowers," she continued, without
much heeding his answer, "but lately I haven't been able to afford them
except on Sundays. Sundays I bring white ones from the green-house."

She had seated herself in her wicker chair, and Putnam, after a moment's
hesitation, sat down on the low railing near her. He observed among the
wild plants that she had gathered the mottled leaves and waxy blossoms
of the pipsissewa and its cousin the shinleaf.

"You have been a long way to get some of those," he said: "that
pipsissewa grows in hemlock woods, and the nearest are several miles
from here."

"I don't know their names. I found them in a wood where I used to walk
sometimes with my brother. _He_ knew all their names. I went there very
early this morning, when the dew was on them."

"'Flowers that have on them the cold dews of the night are strewings
fittest for graves,'" said Putnam in an undertone.

Her face had assumed its usual absent expression, and she seemed busy
with some memory and unconscious of his presence. He recalled the latter
to her by rising and saying, "I will bid you good-morning now, but I
hope you will let me come and sit here sometimes if it doesn't disturb
you. I have been very sick myself lately: I was near dying of the
typhoid fever. I think it does me good to come here."

"Did you have the typhoid? My brother died of the typhoid."

"May I come sometimes?"

"You may come if you wish to visit Henry. But please don't bring any
more of those expensive flowers. I suppose it is selfish in me, but I
can't bear to have any of his friends do more for him than I can."

"I won't bring any more, of course, if it troubles you, and I thank you
very much for letting me come. Good-morning, Miss Pinckney." He bowed
and walked away.

Putnam availed himself discreetly of the permission given. He came
occasionally of an afternoon, and sat for an hour at a time. Usually she
said little. Her silence appeared to proceed not from reserve, but from
dejection. Sometimes she spoke of her brother. Putnam learned that he
had been her only near relative. Their parents had died in her
childhood, and she had come North with her brother when he entered the
medical school. From something that she once said Putnam inferred that
her brother had owned an annuity which died with him, and that she had
been left with little or nothing. They had few acquaintances in the
North, almost none in the city. An aunt in the South had offered her a
home, and she was going there in the fall. She looked forward with dread
to the time of her departure.

"It will be so cruel," she said, "to leave my poor boy all alone here
among strangers, and I never away from him before."

"Don't think of it now," he answered, "and when you are gone I will come
here often and see to everything."

Her bereavement had evidently benumbed all her faculties and left her
with a slight hold on life. She had no hopes or wishes for the future.
In alluding to her brother she confused her tenses, speaking of him
sometimes in the past, and sometimes in the present as of one still
alive. Putnam felt that in a girl of her age this mood was too unnatural
to last, and he reckoned not unreasonably on the reaction that must come
when her youth began again to assert its rights. He was now thoroughly
in love, and as he sat watching her beautiful abstracted face he found
it hard to keep back some expression of tenderness. Often, too, it was
difficult for him to tone down his spirits to the proper pitch of
respectful sympathy with her grief. His existence was golden with
new-found life and hope: into the shadow that covered hers he could not
enter. He could only endeavor to draw her out into the sunshine once
more.

One day the two were sitting, as usual, in silence or speaking but
rarely. It was a day in the very core of summer, and the life of Nature
was at its flood. The shadows of the trees rested so heavy and
motionless on the grass that they appeared to sink into it and weigh it
down like palpable substances.

"I feel," said Putnam suddenly, "as though I should live for ever."

"Did you ever doubt it?" she asked.

"Oh, I mean here--_ici bas_--in the body. I can't conceive of death or
of a spiritual existence on such a day as this."

"There is nothing here to live for," she said wearily. Presently she
added, "This hot glare makes me sick: I wish those men would stop
hammering on the bridge. I wish I could die and get away into the dark."

Putnam paused before replying. He had never heard her speak so
impatiently. Was the revulsion coming? Was she growing tired of sorrow?
After a minute he said, "Ah, you don't know what it is to be a
convalescent and lie for months in a darkened room listening to the
hand-organ man and the scissors-grinder, and the fellow that goes
through the street hallooing 'Cash paid for rags!' It's like having a
new body to get the use of your limbs again and come out into the
sunshine."

"Were you very sick?" she inquired with some show of interest.

He remembered with some mortification that he had told her so once or
twice before. She had apparently forgotten it. "Yes, I nearly died."

"Were you glad to recover?"

"Well, I can't remember that I had any feelings in particular when I
first struck the up-track. It was hard work fighting for life, and I
don't think I cared much one way or the other. But when I got well
enough to sit up it began to grow interesting. I used to sit at the
window in a very infantile frame of mind and watch everything that went
by. It wasn't a very rowdy life, as the prisoner in solitary confinement
said to Dickens. We live in a back street, where there's not much
passing. The advent of the baker's cart used to be the chief excitement.
It was painted red and yellow, and he baked very nice leaf-cookies. My
mother would hang a napkin in the door-knocker when she wanted him to
stop; and as I couldn't see the knocker from my window, I used to make
bets with Dummy as to whether the wagon would stop or not."

"Your mother is living, then?"

"Yes: my father died when I was a boy."

She asked no further questions, but a few minutes after rose and said,
"I think I will go now. Good-evening."

He had never before outstayed her. He looked at his watch and found that
it was only half-past four.

"I hope," he began anxiously, "that you are not feeling sick: you spoke
just now of being oppressed by the heat. Excuse me for staying so long."

"Oh no," she answered, "I'm not sick. I reckon I need a little rest.
Good-evening."

Putnam lingered after she was gone. He found his way to his old bench
under the cedars and sat there for a while. He had not occupied this
seat since his first meeting with Miss Pinckney in the summer-house, and
the initials which he had whittled on its edge impressed him as
belonging to some bygone stage of his history. This was the first time
that she had questioned him about himself. His sympathy had won her
confidence, but she had treated him hitherto in an impersonal way, as
something tributary to her brother's memory, like the tombstone or the
flowers on his grave. The suspicion that he was seeking her for her own
sake had not, so far as Putnam could discover, ever entered her
thoughts.

But in the course of their next few interviews there came a change in
her behavior. The simplicity and unconsciousness of her sorrow had
become complicated with some other feeling. He caught her looking at him
narrowly once or twice, and when he looked hard at her there was visible
in her manner a soft agitation--something which in a girl of more
sanguine complexion might have been interpreted as a blush. She
sometimes suffered herself to be coaxed a little way into talking of
things remote from the subject of her sorrow. Occasionally she
questioned Putnam shyly about himself, and he needed but slight
encouragement to wax confidential. She listened quietly to his
experiences, and even smiled now and then at something that he said. His
heart beat high with triumph: he fancied that he was leading her slowly
up out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

But the upward path was a steep one. She had many sudden relapses and
changes of mood. Putnam divined that she felt her grief loosening its
tight hold on her and slipping away, and that she clung to it as a
consecrated thing with a morbid fear of losing it altogether. There were
days when her demeanor betokened a passionate self-reproach, as though
she accused herself secretly of wronging her brother and profaning his
tomb in allowing more cheerful thoughts to blunt the edge of her
bereavement. He remarked also that her eyes were often red from weeping.
There sometimes mingled with her remorse a plain resentment toward
himself. At such times she would hardly speak to him, and the slightest
gayety or even cheerfulness on his part was received as downright
heartlessness. He made a practice, therefore, of withdrawing at once
whenever he found her in this frame of mind.

One day they had been sitting long together. She had appeared unusually
content, but had spoken little. The struggle in her heart had perhaps
worn itself out for the present, and she had yielded to the warm current
of life and hope which was bearing her back into the sunshine. Suddenly
the elderly woman who had formed one of the company in the summer-house
on the day of the thunderstorm passed along the walk with her trowel and
watering-pot. She nodded to Miss Pinckney, and then, pausing opposite
the pair, glanced sharply from one to the other, smiled significantly
and passed on. This trifling incident aroused Putnam's companion from
her reverie: she looked at him with a troubled expression and said, "Do
you think you ought to come here so much?"

"Why not?"

"I don't know. How well did you know my brother Henry?"

"If I didn't know him so very intimately when he was living, I feel that
I know him well now from all that you have told me about him. And, if
you will pardon my saying so, I feel that I know his sister a little
too, and have some title to her acquaintance."

"You have been very kind, and I am grateful for it, but perhaps you
ought not to come so much."

"I'm sorry if I have come too much," rejoined Putnam bitterly, "but I
shall not come much more. I am going away soon. The doctor says I am not
getting along fast enough and must have change of air. He has ordered me
to the mountains."

There was silence for a few minutes. He was looking moodily down at the
turf, pulling a blade of grass now and then, biting it and throwing it
away.

"I thank you very much for your sympathy and kindness," she said at
length, rising from her chair; "and I hope you will recover very fast in
the mountains. Good-bye."

She extended her hand, which Putnam took and held. It was trembling
perceptibly. "Wait a moment," he said. "Before I go I should like to
show some little mark of respect to your brother's memory. Won't you
meet me at the green-house to-morrow morning--say about nine
o'clock--and select a few flowers? They will be your flowers, you
know--your offering."

"Yes," she answered, "I will; and I thank you again for him."

The next morning at the appointed hour Putnam descended the steps into
the green-house. The gardener had just watered the plants. A rich steam
exhaled from the earth and clouded all the glass, and the moist air was
heavy with the breath of heliotropes and roses. A number of butterflies
were flying about, and at the end of a many-colored perspective of
leaves and blossoms Putnam saw Miss Pinckney hovering around a
collection of tropical orchids. The gardener had passed on into an
adjoining hot-house, and no sound broke the quiet but the dripping of
water in a tank of aquatic plants. The fans of the palms and the long
fronds of the tree-ferns hung as still as in some painting of an Indian
isle.

She greeted him with a smile and held out her hand to him. The beauty of
the morning and of the place had wrought in her a gentle intoxication,
and the mournful nature of her errand was for the moment forgotten.
"Isn't it delicious here?" she exclaimed: "I think I should like to live
in a green-house and grow like a plant."

"A little of that kind of thing would do you no end of good," he
replied--"a little concentrated sunshine and bright colors and the smell
of the fresh earth, you know. If you were my patient, I would make you
take a course of it. I'd say you wanted more vegetable tissue, and
prescribe a green-house for six months. I've no doubt this man here
would take you. A young-lady apprentice would be quite an attractive
feature. You could pull off dead leaves and strike graceful attitudes,
training up vines, like the gardener's daughter in Tennyson."

"What are those gorgeous things?" she asked, pointing to a row of
orchids hung on nails along the wall.

"Those are epiphytic orchids--air-plants, you know: they require no
earth for their roots: they live on the air."

"Like a chameleon?"

"Like a chameleon."

He took down from its nail one of the little wooden slabs, and showed
her the roots coiled about it, with the cluster of bulbs. The flower was
snow-white and shaped like a butterfly. The fringe of the lip was of a
delicate rose-pink, and at the base of it were two spots of rich maroon,
each with a central spot of the most vivid orange. Every color was as
pronounced as though it were the only one.

"What a daring combination!" she cried. "If a lady should dress in all
those colors she'd be thought vulgar, but somehow it doesn't seem vulgar
in a flower."

She turned the blossom over and looked at the under side of the petals.
"Those orange spots show right through the leaf," she went on, "as if
they were painted and the paint laid on thick."

"Do you know," said Putnam, "that what you've just said gives me a good
deal of encouragement?"

"Encouragement? How?"

"Well, it's the first really feminine thing--At least--no, I don't mean
that. But it makes me think that you are more like other girls."

His explanation was interrupted by the entrance of the gardener.

"Will you select some of those orchids, please--if you like them, that
is?" asked Putnam.

A shade passed over her face. "They are too gay for his--for Henry," she
answered.

"Try to tolerate a little brightness to-day," he pleaded in a low voice.
"You must dedicate this morning to me: it's the last, you know."

"I will take a few of them if you wish it, but not this one. I will take
that little white one and that large purple one."

The gardener reached down the varieties which she pointed out, and they
passed along the alley to select other flowers. She chose a number of
white roses, dark-shaded fuchsias and English violets, and then they
left the place. Her expression had grown thoughtful, though not
precisely sad. They walked slowly up the long shady street leading to
the cemetery.

"I am dropping some of the flowers," she said, stopping: "will you carry
these double fuchsias a minute, please, while I fasten the others?"

He took them and laughed. "Now, if this were in a novel," he said, "what
a neat opportunity for me to say, 'May I not _always_ carry your double
fuchsias?'"

She looked at him quickly, and her brown cheek blushed rosy red, but she
started on without making any reply and walked faster.

"She takes," he said to himself. But he saw the cemetery-gate at the end
of the street. "I must make this walk last longer," he thought.
Accordingly, he invented several cunning devices to prolong it, stopping
now and then to point out something worth noting in the handsome grounds
which lined the street. And so they sauntered along, she appearing to
have forgotten the speech which had embarrassed her, or at least she did
not resent it. They paused in front of a well-kept lawn, and he drew her
attention to the turf. "It's almost as dark as the evergreens," he said.

"Yes," she answered, "it's so green that it's almost blue."

"What do you suppose makes the bees gather round that croquet-stake so?"

"I reckon they take the bright colors on it for flowers," she answered,
with a certain quaintness of fancy which he had often remarked in her.

As they stood there leaning against the fence a party of school-girls
came along with their satchels and spelling-books. They giggled and
stared as they passed the fence, and one of them, a handsome,
long-legged, bold-faced thing, said aloud, "Oh my! Look at me and my
fancy beau a-takin' a walk!"

Putnam glanced at his companion, who colored nervously and looked away.
"Saucy little giglets!" he laughed. "Did you hear what she said?"

"Yes," almost inaudibly.

"I hope it didn't annoy you?"

"It was very rude," walking on.

"Well, I rather like naughty school-girls: they are amusing creatures.
When I was a very small boy I was sent to a girls' school, and I used to
study their ways. They always had crumbs in their apron-pockets; they
used to write on a slate, 'Tommy is a good boy,' and hold it up for me
to see when the teacher wasn't looking; they borrowed my geography at
recess and painted all the pictures vermilion and yellow." He paused,
but she said nothing, and he continued, talking against time, "There was
one piece of chewing-gum in that school which circulated from mouth to
mouth. It had been originally spruce gum, I believe, but it was
masticated beyond recognition: the parent tree wouldn't have known her
child. One day I found it hidden away on a window-sill behind the
shutter. It was flesh-colored and dented all over with the marks of
sharp little teeth. I kept that chewing-gum for a week, and the school
was like a cow that's lost her cud."

As Putnam completed these reminiscences they entered the cemetery-gate,
and the shadow of its arch seemed to fall across the young girl's soul.
The bashful color had faded from her cheek and the animation from her
eye. Her face wore a troubled expression: she walked slowly and looked
about at the gravestones.

Putnam stopped talking abruptly, but presently said, "You have not asked
me for your fuchsias."

She stood still and held out her hand for them.

"I thought you might be meaning to let me keep them," said Putnam. His
heart beat fast and his voice trembled as he continued: "Perhaps you
thought that what I said a while ago was said in joke, but I mean it in
real earnest."

"Mean what?" she asked faintly.

"Don't you know what I mean?" he said, coming nearer and taking her
hand. "Shall I tell you, darling?"

"Oh, please don't! Oh, I think I know. Not here--not now. Give me the
flowers," she said, disengaging her hand, "and I will put them on
Henry's grave."

He handed them to her and said, "I won't go on now if it troubles you;
but tell me first--I am going away to-morrow, and sha'n't be back till
October--shall I find you here then, and may I speak then?"

"I shall be here till winter."

"And may I speak then?"

"Yes."

"And will you listen?"

"Yes."

"Then I can wait."

They moved on again along the cemetery-walks. Putnam felt an exultation
that he could not suppress. In spite of her language, her face and the
tone of her voice had betrayed her. He knew that she cared for him. But
in the blindness of his joy he failed to notice an increasing agitation
in her manner, which foretold the approach of some painful crisis of
feeling. Her conflicting emotions, long pent up, were now in most
delicate equilibrium. The slightest shock might throw them out of
balance. Putnam's nature, though generous and at bottom sympathetic,
lacked the fineness of insight needed to interpret the situation. Like
many men of robust and heedless temperament, he was more used to bend
others' moods to his own than to enter fully into theirs. His way of
approaching the subject had been unfortunate, beginning as he had with a
jest. The sequel was destined to be still more unlucky.

They had reached a part of the cemetery which was not divided into lots,
but formed a sort of burial commons for the behoof of the poor. It was
used mainly by Germans, and the graves were principally those of
children. The headstones were wooden, painted white, with inscriptions
in black or gilt lettering. Humble edgings of white pebbles or shells,
partly embedded in the earth, bordered some of the graves: artificial
flowers, tinsel crosses, hearts and other such fantastic decorations lay
upon the mounds. Putnam's companion paused with an expression of pity
before one of these uncouth sepulchres, a little heap of turf which
covered the body of a "span-long babe."

"Now, isn't that _echt Deutsch_?" began Putnam, whom the gods had made
mad. "Is that glass affair let into the tombstone a looking-glass or a
portrait of the deceased--like that 'statoot of a deceased infant' that
Holmes tells about? Even our ancestral cherub and willow tree are better
than that, or even the inevitable sick lamb and broken lily."

"The people are poor," she murmured.

"They do the same sort of thing when they're rich. It's the national
_Geschmack_ to stick little tawdry fribbles all over the face of
Nature."

"Poor little baby!" she said gently.

"It's a rather old baby by this time," rejoined Putnam, pointing out the
date on the wooden slab--"Eighteen fifty-one: it would be older than I
now if it had kept on."

Her eyes fell upon the inscription, and she read it aloud. "Hier ruht in
Gott Heinrich Frantz, Geb. Mai 13, 1851. Gest. August 4, 1852. Wir
hoffen auf Wiedersehen." She repeated the last words softly over to
herself.

"Are those white things cobblestones, or what?" continued Putnam
perversely, indicating the border which quaintly encircled the little
mound. "As I live," he exclaimed, "they are door-knobs!" and he poked
one of them out of the ground with the end of his cane.

"Stop!" she cried vehemently: "how can you do that?"

He dropped his cane and looked at her in wonder. She burst into tears
and turned away. "You think I am a heartless brute?" he cried
remorsefully, hastening after her.

"Oh, go away, please--go away and leave me alone. I am going to my
brother: I want to be alone."

She hurried on, and he paused irresolute. "Miss Pinckney!" he called
after her, but she made no response. His instinct, now aroused too late,
told him that he had better leave her alone for the present. So he
picked up his walking-stick and turned reluctantly homeward. He cursed
himself mentally as he retraced the paths along which they had walked
together a few moments before. "I'm a fool," he said to himself: "I've
gone and upset it all. Couldn't I see that she was feeling badly? I
suppose I imagined that I was funny, and she thought I was an insensible
brute. This comes of giving way to my infernal high spirits." At the
same time a shade of resentment mingled with his self-reproaches. "Why
can't she be a little more cheerful and like other girls, and make some
allowance for a fellow?" he asked. "Her brother wasn't everybody else's
brother. It's downright morbid, this obstinate woe of hers. Other people
have lost friends and got over it."

On the morrow he was to start for the mountains. He visited the cemetery
in the morning, but Miss Pinckney was not there. He did not know her
address, nor could the gatekeeper inform him; and in the afternoon he
set out on his journey with many misgivings.

It was early October when Putnam returned to the city. He went at once
to the cemetery, but on reaching the grave his heart sank at the sight
of a bunch of withered flowers which must have lain many days upon the
mound. The blossoms were black and the stalks brittle and dry. "Can she
have changed her mind and gone South already?" he asked himself.

There was a new sexton in the gate-house, who could tell him nothing
about her. He wandered through the grounds, looking for the old woman
with the watering-pot, but the season had grown cold, and she had
probably ceased her gardening operations for the year. He continued his
walk beyond the marshes. The woods had grown rusty and the sandy
pastures outside the city were ringing with the incessant creak of
grasshoppers, which rose in clouds under his feet as he brushed through
the thin grass. The blue-curl and the life-everlasting distilled their
pungent aroma in the autumn sunshine. A feeling of change and
forlornness weighed upon his spirit. As with Thomas of Ercildoune, whom
the Queen of Faëry carried away into Eildon Hill, the short period of
his absence seemed seven years long. An old English song came into his
head:

    Winter wakeneth all my care,
    Now these leaves waxeth bare:
    Oft in cometh into my thought,
    Of this worldes joy how it goeth all to naught.

Soon after arriving at the hills he had written to Miss Pinckney a long
letter of explanations and avowals; but he did not know the number of
her lodgings, or, oddly enough, even her Christian name, and the letter
had been returned to him unopened. The next month was one of the
unhappiest in Putnam's life. On returning to the city, thoroughly
restored in health, he had opened an office, but he found it impossible
to devote himself quietly to the duties of his profession. He visited
the cemetery at all hours, but without success. He took to wandering
about in remote quarters and back streets of the town, and eyed sharply
every female figure that passed him in the twilight, especially if it
walked quickly or wore a veil. He slept little at night, and grew
restless and irritable. He had never confided this experience even to
his mother: it seemed to him something apart.

One afternoon toward the middle of November he was returning homeward
weary and dejected from a walk in the suburbs. His way led across an
unenclosed outskirt of the town which served as a common to the poor
people of the neighborhood. It was traversed by a score of footpaths,
and frequented by goats, and by ducks that dabbled in the puddles of
rain-water collected in the hollows. Halfway across this open tract
stood what had formerly been an old-fashioned country-house, now
converted into a soap-boiling establishment. Around this was a clump of
old pine trees, the remnant of a grove which had once flourished in the
sandy soil. There was something in the desolation of the place that
flattered Putnam's mood, and he stopped to take it in. The air was dusk,
but embers of an angry sunset burned low in the west. A cold wind made a
sound in the pine-tops like the beating of surf on a distant shore. A
flock of little winter birds flew suddenly up from the ground into one
of the trees, like a flight of gray leaves whirled up by a gust. As
Putnam turned to look at them he saw, against the strip of sunset along
the horizon, the slim figure of a girl walking rapidly toward the
opposite side of the common. His heart gave a great leap, and he started
after her on a run. At a corner of the open ground the figure vanished,
nor could Putnam decide into which of two or three small streets she had
turned. He ran down one and up another, but met no one except a few
laborers coming home from work, and finally gave up the quest. But this
momentary glimpse produced in him a new excitement. He felt sure that he
had not been mistaken: he knew the swift, graceful step, the slight form
bending in the wind. He fancied that he had even recognized the poise
and shape of the little head. He imagined, too, that he had not been
unobserved, and that she had some reason for avoiding him. For a week or
more he haunted the vicinity of the common, but without result. December
was already drawing to an end when he received the following note:

     "DEAR MR. PUTNAM: You must forgive me for running away from you
     the other evening: I am right--am I not?--in supposing that you
     saw and recognized me. It was rude in me not to wait for you,
     but I had not courage to talk with any one just then. Perhaps I
     should have seen you before at the cemetery--if you still walk
     there--but I have been sick and have not been there for a long
     time. I was only out for the first time when I saw you last
     Friday. My aunt has sent for me, and I am going South in a few
     days. I shall leave directions to have this posted to you as
     soon as I am gone.

     "I promised to be here when you came back, and I write this to
     thank you for your kind interest in me and to explain why I go
     away without seeing you again. I think that I know what you
     wanted to ask me that day that we went to the green-house, and
     perhaps under happier circumstances I could have given you the
     answer which you wished. But I have seen so much sorrow, and I
     am of such a gloomy disposition, that I am not fit for cheerful
     society, and I know you would regret your choice.

     "I shall think very often and very gratefully of you, and shall
     not forget the words on that little German baby's gravestone.
     Good-bye.

                          "IMOGEN PINCKNEY."

Putnam felt stunned and benumbed on first reading this letter. Then he
read it over mechanically two or three times. The date was a month old,
but the postmark showed that it had just been mailed. She must have
postponed her departure somewhat after writing it, or the person with
whom it had been left had neglected to post it till now. He felt a
sudden oppression and need of air, and taking his hat left the house. It
was evening, and the first snow of the season lay deep on the ground.
Anger and grief divided his heart. "It's too bad! too bad!" he murmured,
with tears in his eyes: "she might have given me one chance to speak.
She hasn't been fair to me. What's the matter with her, anyhow? She has
brooded and brooded till she is downright melancholy-mad;" and then,
with a revulsion of feeling, "My poor darling girl! Here she has been,
sick and all alone, sitting day after day in that cursed graveyard. I
ought never to have gone to the mountains: I ought to have stayed. I
might have known how it would turn out. Well, it's all over now, I
suppose."

He had taken, half unconsciously, the direction of the cemetery, and now
found himself at the entrance. The gate was locked, but he climbed over
the wall and waded through the snow to the spot where he had sat with
her so many summer afternoons. The wicker chair was buried out of sight
in a drift. A scarcely-visible undulation in the white level marked the
position of the mound, and the headstone had a snow-cap. The cedars
stood black in the dim moonlight, and the icy coating of their boughs
rattled like candelabra. He stood a few moments near the railing, and
then tore the letter into fragments and threw them on the snow. "There!
good-bye, good-bye!" he said bitterly as the wind carried them skating
away over the crust.

But what was that? The moon cast a shadow of Henry Pinckney's headstone
on the snow, but what was that other and similar shadow beyond it?
Putnam had been standing edgewise to the slab: he shifted his position
now and saw a second stone and a second mound side by side with the
first. An awful faintness and trembling seized him as he approached it
and bent his head close down to the marble. The jagged shadows of the
cedar-branches played across the surface, but by the uncertain light he
could read the name "Imogen Pinckney," and below it the inscription,
"Wir hoffen auf Wiedersehen."

                          HENRY A. BEERS.




STUDIES IN THE SLUMS.


VI.--JAN OF THE NORTH.

"You're wanted at 248, and they said go quick. It's Brita, I shouldn't
wonder. Lord pity her, but it's a wild night to go out! Seems like as if
the Lord would have hard work to find anybody, with the rain an' sleet
pourin' an' drivin' so't you can't see a foot before your face. But He
will."

"Yes, He will," the doctor's quiet voice answered. "Poor little Brita! I
am glad her trouble is almost over. Will you come? Remember how dreadful
the place is."

"More so for me than for you?"

"Surely, for I have been in the midst of such for twenty years, and
among them all have never known a worse den than that in which these
poor souls are stranded. If I could only see a way out for them!"

The doctor had not been idle as she spoke, and stood ready now in thick
gray waterproof and close bonnet, her face a shade graver than its
always steady, gentle calm. Jerry followed, his badge of deputy sheriff
hastily put on, for the alley was one of the worst in the Fourth Ward,
and, well as she was known through its length and breadth, here the
bravest might shrink from going unattended. Out into the night, the wild
wind and beating rain seeming best accompaniments to the brutal revelry
in the dance-houses and "bucket-shops" all about. Here, one heard the
cracked and discordant sounds from the squeaking fiddles or clarionets
of the dance-music, and there, were shouts and oaths and the crash of
glass as a drunken fight went on, undisturbed by policeman and watched
with only a languid interest by the crowd of heavy drinkers. Up Cherry
street, past staggering men, and women with the indescribable voice that
once heard is never forgotten, all, seemingly regardless of the storm,
laughing aloud or shrieking as a sudden gust whirled them on. Then the
alley, dark and noisome, the tall tenement-houses rising on either side,
a wall of pestilence and misery, shutting in only a little deeper
misery, a little surer pestilence, to be faced as it might be.

"It's hell on earth," said Jerry as we passed up the stairs, dark and
broken, pausing a moment as the sound of a scuffle and a woman's shrill
scream came from one of the rooms. "Do you wonder there's murder, an'
worse than murder, done in these holes? Oh, what would I give to tumble
them, the whole crop of the devil's own homes, straight into the river!"

"Hush," the doctor said. "Stay, Jerry, a few minutes. You may be wanted,
but there is not room for all in there."

As she spoke the door had opened, and a tall, gaunt woman in the
distinctive Swedish dress stood before us and mutely pointed us in. It
was hard to distinguish anything in the dim light of a flickering tallow
candle placed in a corner to screen it from the wind, which whistled
through cracks and forced the rain through the broken roof. On a pile of
rags lay three children, sleeping soundly. By the table sat a heavy
figure, the face bowed and hidden in the arms folded upon it, and on the
wretched bed lay the wasted figure of the girl whose life was passing in
the storm.

"Poor little Brita!" I said again, for as the doctor bent over her and
took her hand the eyes opened and a faint smile came to the sweet,
child-like face. Long braids of fair hair lay on the pillow, the eyes
were blue and clear, and the face, wearing now the strange gray shadow
of death, held a delicate beauty still, that with health and color would
have made one turn to look at it again wherever encountered. The mother
stood silent and despairing at the foot of the bed. The motionless
figure at the table did not stir. There was no fire or sign of comfort
in the naked room, and but the scantiest of covering on the bed.

The girl looked up faintly and put out her hand. "Pray," she said in a
whisper--"pray for the mother;" but even as she spoke she gasped, half
rose, then fell back, and was gone, the look of entreaty still in the
eyes. The doctor closed them gently, the poor eyes that would never need
to beg for help any more, and then the mother, still silent, came softly
and touched the girl's face, sinking down then by the side of the bed
and stroking the dead hands as if to bring back life.

The man had risen too and came slowly to her side. "I thank God she iss
gone away from all trouble," he said, "but oh, my doctor, it iss so
hard!"

"Hard!" the woman echoed and rose. "I will not hear of God: I hate God.
There iss no God, but only a deffil, who does all he vill. Brita iss
gone, and Lars and little Jan. Now it must be de oders, and den I know
vat you call God vill laugh. He vill say, 'Ah, now I haf dem all. De
fool fader and de fool moder, dey may live.'"

"Brita! poor Brita!" the man said softly, and added some words in his
own tongue. She pushed him away, then burst into wild weeping and sank
down on the floor.

"He will be her best comforter," the doctor said. "We will go now, and I
will see them all to-morrow. That money will get the coffin," she added
as she laid a bill on the table and then went softly out, "but the
coffin would not have been needed if help could have come three months
ago."

"I thought it was some drunken home," I said, "but that man can never
have gone very far wrong. He has a noble head."

"No, it is only hard times," she answered. "Go again, and you will learn
the whole story, unless you choose to hear it from me."

"No," I said as we stood under the shelter of the still unfinished
Franklin Square Station on the elevated road, "I will hear it for myself
if I can."

The time came sooner than I thought. A month later I went up the dark
stairs, whose treacherous places I had learned to know, and found the
room empty of all signs of occupation, though the bed and table still
stood there.

"They're gone," a voice called from below. "They've come into luck, Pat
says, but I don't know. Anyhow, they turned out o' here yesterday, an'
left the things there for whoever 'd be wantin' 'em."

"Bad 'cess to the furriner!" said another voice as I passed down.
"Comin' here wid his set-up ways, an' schornin' a bit of dhrink!"

"An' if ye'd take patthern of him yerself--" the woman's voice began,
and was silenced by a push back into her room and the loud slam of the
door.

"They have come to better times surely," the janitor said as I asked
their whereabouts at the mission, "an' here's their new number. It's a
quiet, decent place, an' he'll have a better soon."

After Cherry and Roosevelt and Water streets, Madison street seems
another Fifth Avenue. The old New Yorker knows it as the once stately
and decorous abode of old Dutch families, a few of whom still cling to
the ancient homes, but most of these are now cheap boarding-Pouses and
tenements, while here and there a new genuine tenement-house is
sandwiched between the tiled roofs and dormer-windows which still hold
suggestions of former better days. The more respectable class of
'longshoremen find quarters here, and some of the mission-people, who,
well-to-do enough to seek quieter homes, choose to be as near as
possible to the work waiting for them, and for more like them, in that
nest of evil and outrage and slime, the Fourth Ward.

Brita's head was bowed on the table as I went in, and Jan's face was
sorrowful as he looked toward her. "It iss not so alvay," he said. "She
hass made it all so good, and now she dinks of Brita, dat vill not see
it, and she say still, 'God iss hard to take her avay.'"

"How is it, Jan? Did work come all at once?"

"No, and yet yes. Shall I say it all, my lady?"

"Surely, Jan, if you have time."

"It iss de last day I vill be here in my home all day," he began,
drawing one of the children between his knees and holding its hands
fondly. "But see on de vall! It iss dat hass done some vork for me."

I looked to where he pointed. On the wall, near the small looking-glass,
hung a round cap with hanging fox's tail--such a cap as the half-bloods
of our north-western forests wear, and the peasants of the European
North as well.

Jan smiled as he saw my puzzled look. "It iss vy I say I vill tell it
all," he went on in his grave, steady voice. "Ven I see dat it iss to
see de North. For, see, it vas not alvays I am in de city. No. It iss
true I am many years in Stockholm, but I am not Swede: I am Finn--yes,
true Finn--and know my own tongue vell, and dat iss vat some Finns vill
nefer do. I haf learn to read Swedish, for I must. Our own tongue iss
not for us, but I learn it, and Brita dere, she know it too. Brita iss
of Helsingfors, and I am of de country far out, but I come dere vid fur,
for I hunt many months each year. Den I know Brita, and ve marry, and I
must stay in de city, and I am strong; and first I am porter, but soon
dey know I read and can be drusted, and it iss china dat I must put in
boxes all day, and I know soon how to touch it so as it nefer break.

"But dere is not money. My Brita iss born, and little Jan, and I dink
alvay, 'I must haf home vere dey may know more;' and all de days it iss
America dat dey say iss home for all, and much money--so much no man can
be hungry, and vork iss for all. Brita iss ready, and soon ve come, and
all de children glad. Yes, dere are six, and good children dat lofe us,
and I say efery day, 'Oh, my God, but you are so good! and my life lofes
you, for so much good I haf.' Brita too iss happy. She vork hard, but ve
do not care, and ve dink, 'Soon ve can rest a little, for it iss not so
hard dere as here;' and ve sail to America.

"But, my lady, how iss it it vas all so bad? For vork iss _not_. It iss
true I haf a little in de beginning. It iss three year ago. I know some
English I haf learn in sailing once to England, for de Finns go
eferyvere to sail. I am not helpless so, and I am large and strong, and
soon I go to de many, many china-stores--so many, I say, dat can nefer
be to vant vork--and in one dey take me. But it iss not much money,
dough I dink it so, for it iss alvay de rent--so much, and ve are
strange and dey cheat us. And ven I am troubled most, and dink to ask
for more, den quick it iss dat I haf none. De place iss failed--dat iss
vat iss tell me--and I go home to Brita to say vat shall to do? I could
dig, I vould go far off, but I haf not money; but I say, 'Ven I get
plenty it shall be ve go to vere earth shall gif us to eat, and not
starve us as here.' For soon it iss little to eat, and it iss dat ve
sell clothes and such as ve must. I get vork--a little on de docks. I
unload, and see men dat can steal all day from coffee-bags and much
sugar, and soon time iss come dat ve are hungry, and men say, 'Steal
too. It's hard times, and you _haf_ to steal.'

"Oh, dere iss one day! It iss here now. My little Jan iss dead, and Carl
so sick, and all dat he must be vidout enough to eat, and my Brita vill
get a dollar and a half a veek to sew--alvays sew and she is pale and
coughs. I pray, 'O God, you know I vill not do wrong, but vat shall I
do? Show me how, for I am afraid.' But it vas all dark. I cannot go
home, for I haf not money. I cannot vork but one, maybe two, times a
veek. And alvays I see my own _hungry_! I dink I could kill myself; but
dat helps not, and I go avay, oh, eferyvere about New York, and beg for
vork. And den eferyvere it iss said, 'He is a _tramp_,' and alvays dey
tell me, 'No, ve gif not to _tramps_. Go to vere you came from.' I say,
'I am not tramps. My children are hungry. Gif me vork: I vant to eat for
dem--not money, but to eat if you vill. Gif me a little vork.'

"I am dirty: Brita iss not dere to haf me clean. I vash as I can, in
vater anyvere, but I sleep on de ground. I eat not often. I am vild
truly, I know, and soon peoples are afraid. Den, my lady, I haf no more
faith. I say, 'God, you haf forgotten me: you haf forgotten vat you
promise. It may be God iss not anyvere.' So I come back, and I find dat
my little Brita iss sick--so sick she cannot vork--and Brita my vife;
she sew all she can, but it iss not enough. I go on de docks once more.
'No vork! no vork!' It iss de vord eferyvere. And one day, all de day
long, ve haf nothing--no fire, nothing to eat, and dere iss no more
anything to pawn, and I say, 'At last I vill steal, for vat else shall
be to do?' And I go out and down to de dock, for I know a boat going out
in de night, and I say, 'I too vill go.' But I go down Vater street. I
know it not much, for first my home iss on de odder side, but ve are so
poor at last ve are in Cherry street, and den vere you see us first. But
den I am just come, and I go by de mission and hear all sing, and I say,
'I vill stay a minute and listen, for soon nefer again shall I sit vid
any dat sing and pray and haf to do vid God.' So I go in, and listen not
much till soon one man stands up, an' he say, 'Friends, I came first
from prison, and I meant not efer to do more vat vould take me dere
again. But dere iss no vork, even ven I look all day, and I am hungry;
and den I dink to steal again. I vait, because perhaps vork come, but at
night I go out and say, "I know my old ground. Dere's plenty ready to
velcome me if I'm a mind to join 'em." And den, as I go, one says to me,
"Come in here;" and I come in and not care, till I hear many tell vat
dey vere, and I say, "I vill vait a leetle longer: I cannot steal now."
And now vork has come, and if God help me I shall never steal again.'

"I stood up den. I said loud, 'I haf nefer steal. I belief in God, but
now how shall I? My heart's dearest, dey starve, dey die before me. Dere
iss no vork, dere iss no help. If I steal not, how shall I do?' I vas
crying: I could not see. Then Jerry came. 'You shall nefer starve,' he
said. 'Stay honest, for God _vill_ care for you, and ve'll all pray Him
to keep you so.'

"And so, when meeting iss done, dey go vid me to see, and dere iss food
and all dey can. Dey are God's angels to me and to mine.

"But, my lady, you know: you haf seen my little Brita. And efery day I
look at her and see her going avay, so fast, so fast, and my heart
breaks, for she is first of all. And den she iss gone, and still vork is
not. You haf seen us. All de days dey say. 'Dere vill come vork soon,'
but it comes not efer. And one morning I look in de chest to see if one
thing may still be to pawn, and dere iss only my cap dat I keep--not to
vear, no, but only to remember. And I sit, and it iss on my hand, and I
hold de fox's tail, and again I am in Finland, and I see de foxes run on
de ice, and I know vell dis one dat I hold de tail. Den quick I haf a
thought. I look for a stick all about: dere iss but a little one for de
fire, and no knife, but I get a knife from a man dat iss at de odder
room, and I cut it and tie it. I vill not tell Brita vat I do, but soon
I haf de tail vid a handle, and I put it inside my coat, and go to a
store vere iss a man I haf seen dat vill make many things, and money
sometimes.

"'Ha, Jan,' he said ven I show it, 'dis _iss_ a notion! I'll gif you ten
dollar for dat notion.'

"'No,' I say. 'If you say ten dollar I know it vorth more, for I know
vat you can do. But let it be more, and I may sell it.'

"Den he talk. Dere is risk, he say, and he must spend much money, but he
say it vill _take_. Oh, I know dat vord, and ven he has talked so much
at last he say he vill write a paper and gif me one hundred dollar, and
make me a foreman ven he shall make dem. For he says, 'It iss vat all
ladies vill vant--so soft to make clean in de beautiful cabinets, and de
china on de vall so as dey hang it in great houses. Vid its handle for
stiffness, den de soft tail vill go eferyvere and nefer break. It iss a
duster, and best of all duster too, for nothing can efer break.'

"So now he hass rooms--dree rooms--and many people are to take dem, and
to-morrow I go to show how one must hold all de tails, and dere is vork,
all I can do; and ven money iss come I dink to go avay, but not soon,
for I must help some dat haf no help. But oh, I dink of de little ones,
and of Brita dat iss gone; and de moder she cannot haf rest, for all day
she say, 'Vy must it be dey are gone, ven now iss plenty?'--'My God, it
iss your vill. And not fery long, and you vill make us a home vid her.'
It iss all right, my lady."

Jan lingers still in his last quarters. The mission holds him fast, and
his grave, steady face is known to many a poor wretch just out of
prison--many a tramp who has returned despairing of work and been helped
to it by this man, himself a workman, but with a sympathy never failing
for any sad soul struggling toward a better life or lost in the despair
of waiting. Their name is legion, and their rescue must come from just
such workers--men who have suffered and know its meaning. Men of this
stamp hold the key to a regeneration of the masses, such as organized
charities are powerless to effect; and already some who believe in this
fact are seeking to make their work easier and to give the substantial
aid that it demands. The poor are the best missionaries to the poor, and
he who has gone hungry, suffered every pang of poverty and known
sharpest temptation to sin can best speak words that will save men and
women entering on the same path.

To this end Jan lives--as truly a priest to the people as if hands laid
upon him had consecrated him to the work, but all unconscious what power
it holds to the on-lookers, and only sure of the one word, the mission
watchword--"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these,
ye have done it unto Me."

                          HELEN CAMPBELL.




UNDER THE GRASSES.


    What do you hide, O grasses! say,
      Among your tangles green and high?
    "Warm-hearted violets for May,
      And rocking daisies for July."

    What burden do you keep beneath
      Your knotted green, that none may see?
    "The prophecy of life and death,
      A hint, a touch, a mystery."

    What hope and passion should I find
      If I should pierce your meshes through?
    "A clover blossoming in the wind,
      A wandering harebell budded blue."

                  DORA READ GOODALE.




"KITTY."


The Idler was hopelessly becalmed off Thomas's Point. Not a ripple could
be seen down the Chesapeake, and the locusts and pines along the shore
were shuddering uncomfortably with the heat of a July afternoon, hidden
halfway to their tops in the summer haze. What was to be done? Five
miles from home in a large sloop yacht filled with strangers from the
North, the crew left behind to be out of the way, and every one
thoroughly convinced that his neighbor was horribly bored!

Thornton gave the tiller a vicious shove, as if that would wake the
yacht up, and glared forward along the row of parasols protecting fair
faces from the sun and of hats cocked over noses that were screwed up
with feelings too deep for words, and more intense than those produced
by heat, he thought. By five o'clock we had sung every song that ever
was written, and flirtations were becoming desperate. Mollie Brogden,
comfortably lodged against the mast, was dropping her blue parasol lower
and lower over one of the New York men as their conversation grew more
and more intense with the heat, and Mrs. Brogden was becoming really
alarmed.

The situation was maddening! Nothing on board to eat; soft-shell crabs
and the best bill of fare of a Southern kitchen ordered at home for
seven o'clock; a couple of fiddlers coming from "the Swamp" at nine; and
Cousin Susan, the cook, even then promising little Stump Neal "all de
bonyclábá he cu'd stow ef he'd jest friz dis yar cream fo' de new
missis."

"It is too provoking for anything!" the new missis whispered to
Thornton, as he stopped by his wife's side for an instant and moved on
to consult with some of the married men who were smoking in luxuriant
carelessness forward. Very little consolation he got there. Ellis from
Annapolis said he had known calms last two days, and sundry forcible
remarks were made when it was discovered that the last cigars were then
in our mouths. This was the last straw. Thornton felt furious with every
one, and muttered dark wishes that ante-war power might be restored to
him over the person of Uncle Brian when we got home--if we ever did--as
he reflected that that ancient African had guaranteed a breeze.

Mollie Brogden smiled lazily at him as Donaldson fanned her slowly, and
waited until Thornton should pass, so that the talk which was leading up
to the inscription of a clever piece of poetry on her fan might be
continued.

"By the way, Donaldson," as a sudden inspiration seemed to strike
Thornton, "did you ever hear anything more of Kitty after I left you at
Christmas?"

The sweetness of that piece of poetry on the fan was never revealed. The
blue parasol went up with a jump, and a look assured Donaldson that
certain words had better have been left unsaid that afternoon if "Kitty"
should not be satisfactorily explained. I felt sorry for him, for every
one caught at the idea of something new, and the thought of an
explanation to the whole of that boatload, keen for all sorts of
badinage, would have tempted me overboard, I am sure. However, Donaldson
smiled very composedly, and said he believed the family were still in
Texas, although he had heard nothing more than Thornton already knew of
their history.

Well, that simply made matters worse: Texas and Kitty were suggestive
enough for anything, and I caught a whisper from Miss Brogden that
seemed to imply that she doubted whether he had really been so
inconsolable for last summer's diversions as he had tried to make her
believe. That settled him, for I knew he had come down to Thornton's
expressly to see her, and he assured us it was a very small story, but
if we cared to hear it perhaps the breeze would come meanwhile, and he
would try to give the facts exactly as they had come to his knowledge.

"We were a few hours out from Liverpool," he began, "and the
smoking-room of the Russia was pretty well filled with all sorts of men,
none of whom of course felt much at home yet, but who were gradually
being shaken together by the civilizing influence of tobacco and the
occasional lurches that the cross-chop of the Channel was favoring us
with. I was sitting near the door with a man from Boston whom I found on
board returning from a wedding-trip, and who, I discovered, had taken
orders since leaving Harvard, where I had known him slightly as a
bookish sort of fellow and not very agreeable; but as I was alone and
his wife was quite pretty, I was glad to meet him.

"Well, we were running over old times, without paying much attention to
the guide-book talk that was being poured out round us, when somebody
laid a hand on my shoulder and one of the most attractive voices I ever
heard asked 'if there was room for a stranger from Texas?' This formal
announcement of himself by a newcomer made a little lull in the
conversation, but my friend made room for him in our corner, and he
quietly enveloped himself in smoke for the rest of the evening.

"He was not inattentive, though, to the drift of our talk, for when
Hamilton mentioned having been at the Pan-Anglican, and spoke of the
effect such conventions should produce, the Texan's cigar came out of
his mouth and his blue eyes grew deeper in their sockets as he
interrupted us with the remark: 'The conventions of all the Bible-men in
the world would not have made La Junta any better if it had not been for
Kitty. You know what Junta was before she came?' he continued, seeing us
look a little surprised--'nothing but cards and drink, and--worse; and
now'--and he laid his hand on his hip as if from habit--'now we have no
trouble there any more.'

"The oddness of the expression 'Bible-men,' I remember, struck me at the
time, but Hamilton made some explanatory reply, for the quiet force of
the soft voice had a certain persuasiveness about it without the aid of
his gesture, although the smoke was so thick that we could not see
whether he carried the instruments of his country or not.

"Standing by the aft wheel-house, I found the Texan the next morning
throwing biscuits to the gulls and gazing wistfully seaward.

"'Your first visit to Europe?' I said, steadying myself by the rail.

"'Yes, but I would give all last year's herd if I had never come, for
Kitty is ill. I have travelled night and day since the telegram reached
me, but La Junta is so far away I am afraid I shall be too late.'

"I wish I could give you an idea of his manner: it was more like that of
a person who had just learned the language and was afraid of making
mistakes, so hesitated before each word, giving every syllable its full
value. He explained this simply enough afterward--that Kitty had broken
him of swearing by making him think before he spoke."

"But you haven't told us who Kitty was," interrupted the blue parasol.
"Was she light or dark?"--"his wife?"--"he wouldn't have dared!"--"a
Texan wife?" and Mrs. Brogden looked very grave at the possibilities the
flying questions aroused.

"No, she wasn't his wife; only the Yankee schoolmistress of La Junta. I
never saw her. She must have been an angel, though, from his
description; so I will leave the details for your acquaintance
hereafter, Miss Brogden;" which outrageous flattery was received with
contemptuous silence.

"She lived at Junta, and would canter over on Saturdays to Trocalara,
the Texan's ranch, to teach his herdsmen's families. His partner,
Parker, and he had a large cattle-ranch not far from the Mexican
frontier, and Kitty could not have lived on a bed of roses, I fancy.
Raids, stampedes and other border pleasantries were constantly
occurring. I remember we thought him too gentle at first to have really
hailed from the Plains; but one night, when Hamilton remonstrated with a
man who, I believe, had allowed himself to get in that state described
by the sailors as 'three sheets in the wind, and the fourth fluttering,'
and was met with rather an uncivil reply, the Texan shut the offender up
like a jack-knife with his heavy grip and the intimation that 'he
proposed to settle the Bible-man's scores.'

"He grew quite intimate with Hamilton and me, and proved a delightful
companion. He would quote readily from many of the later poets, and knew
whole pages of Milton and Shakespeare by heart. Kitty had taught him
these, he said, after she married Parker and came to live with him.

"'She made us read history-books first,' he said--'many, many
volumes--but we soon got to like them better than anything else. The
poetry _she_ read to us; and so we never went to the shows in Junta
after she came. Kitty has a good husband, as fine a fellow as ever
lassoed a steer, but she is too pure for Junta. Parker loves her, and I
love her too, but both of us do not make up for her Eastern comforts.
And so last year, as we made a good herd and there were no raids to
speak of, I came to New York to get a few luxuries for her. She wrote me
then to go to Paris and see the Exposition; so I went because I thought
she knew best, and that if I had seen the world a little I should be
nearer to her, and it would not be quite so hard for her out there. And
now she is ill, and--I am here!'

"He turned impatiently away to ask the quartermaster what we were doing
by the last log. The speed appeared to satisfy him, for he sat quietly
down again and told us how it was that Kitty had come to live with them.

"'For two years, you know'--assuming that we did know--'she spent
Saturdays at Trocalara, teaching our people how to read and write. They
were very rough at first--we all are out there--and did not care much;
but she interested them, and brought picture-books for the little ones,
and by and by she said she would come out on Sunday and we should have
church!' with a triumphant look at Hamilton and his Pan-Anglican
attendance. 'Yes, we had had a priest there before, but he was shot in a
row at Bowler's Paradise, and no one cared to apply for a new one.

"'Kitty came up to the ranch the first Sunday, and asked us to come with
her. We refused at first, but after a while, when we heard the singing,
we went down to the quarters, and found her sitting under one of the
trees with all the young ones clustered round her; and we waited there
and listened until we began to feel very sorry that we had played so
late at Bowler's the night before.

"'But Parker had been in luck, and he swore he would get her as fine a
piano as could be brought from the States (he was a half-Mexican by
birth) if she would sing like that for us at the ranch.

"'She stood up then, with all the young ones looking on in amazement,
the light and shade playing over her through the cool, dark leaves, and,
turning her large gray eyes full on Parker's face, said she would if we
would promise never to go to Bowler's again.

"'I think Parker expected her to refuse to come altogether, because we
had no women there, and we had heard the people in Junta talking of her
quiet, modest ways. But no, she never thought of herself: she only
thought of the nights at Bowler's, and wanted to save us from the end
she had seen often enough in two years in Junta. At any rate, the piano
came, and Parker had it sent as a sort of halfway measure to her house
in Junta, where she and her mother lived, and we were as welcome as the
light there always.

"'You have no idea of her music. They told me at concerts in Paris that
I was hearing the finest musicians in Europe, but they were not like
Kitty. They played for our money--Kitty played for our pleasure: it
makes so much difference,' he added as his fingers drummed an
accompaniment to the air he whistled.

"'One night Parker and I were sitting in a corner at Bowler's when we
heard a Greaser--a Mexican, you know--that Parker had refused to play
poker with the night before ask who the señorita was that had taken the
spirit out of Parker.

"'We both started forward instantly, but as the man was evidently
ignorant of our presence, Parker checked me with a fierce look in his
eyes that showed that the spirit of his former days would be very apt to
put a different ending on the conversation if it continued in that tone.

"'"Kitty," came the reply, as if that settled the matter.

"'"Kitty? Ah, your American names are so strange! Kitty! But she is
beautiful, is this Kitty! I met her in the Gulch road this afternoon
this side of Trocalara. Caramba! how she can ride! The Parker has good
taste: I drink to my future acquaintance with her."

"'As he raised the glass to his lips Parker stood behind his chair and
whispered, "If you drink that liquor, by God it will be the last drop
that shall ever pass your lips!"

"'The next morning they sold the Mexican's horse and traps to pay for
burying him and for the damage done, and Parker lay in bed at Kitty's
with that in his side you would not have cared to see.

"'Kitty never knew why he fought, and never even looked a reproach. It
was not much--I had seen him cut much worse in the stockyard at
home--but somehow he did not get well. The weeks slipped by, and each
time I called Kitty would say he was a little better, and a little
better, and oh yes, he would be back next week; but next week came so
often without Parker that at last, when the time came for changing
pastures, I went with the herd and left him still at Junta.

"'I would willingly have taken his place, look you, if I had known the
result, but perhaps the other way was the best, after all; for now Kitty
has two men to serve her,' he added meditatively.

"'When I got back to Junta in October, Parker was quite recovered, I
found out at the ranch, but was in town that evening, so I went quietly
into Kitty's house to surprise them. As I crossed the hall I heard
Parker's voice. Could I have mistaken the house? was it really his voice
I heard? Yes: he was telling Kitty how he had broken the three-year-old
colt to side-saddle, so when she came to Trocalara she must give up her
old pony. I knew then why Kitty had kept him there so long: he had lost
his reason and she wished to keep me from knowing it!

"'But no. I stood still and listened, and heard him tell her how he had
always loved her, apparently going over an old story to her. My God! I
would as soon have told the Virgin I loved her! And then I heard her
voice. "When I am your wife--" she began.

"'It all flashed on me in an instant then. I slipped noiselessly out,
and if they heard "Odd Trick's" gallop on the turf it was not because
his hoofs lingered too long there.

"'I can't remember how I passed that night. The revelation had been so
sudden that the words seemed to be written in my heart and to be carried
through every vein with each beat. "When I am your wife--" What would
the result be? _Our_ Kitty was to be his wife? Could I still stay at the
ranch? "When I am your wife--" and I loved her!

"'The next day I went into Junta and saw them both. I told Parker how
the herd stood, and how the shooting had been in the mountains, but I
never had the courage to look at her.

"'After a while she went to the piano and played "Home:" then she came
and sat down by me and said, "I have told Parker I will go home with
him: I will try to be a sister to you."

"'I believe I only stared at her, and then wrung Parker's hand and went
out.

"'He married her the next month, and--and--Trocalara has been heaven
ever since.

"'I never knew what a Christian was before she came: you know we have no
faith in Texas in things we can't draw a bead on. But when she read me
the story of the Scribes and Pharisees and Christ I felt ashamed to be
like those Flat-heads and Greasers in the New Testament who did not
believe in him; and now I feel sure of knowing some one in heaven, for
Kitty has promised to find me there.'

"I forget a great many of the incidents he told us," Donaldson went on
in the quiet that was almost equal to the calm around us; "and I dare
say it would bore you to listen. But he certainly was the most
extraordinary man I ever met. I can't do justice to his expressions, for
they lack his soft voice and curious hesitation. I wish we had him here,
though."

"Did you never hear of him again?" some one asked.

"Yes. When we reached New York I found him standing in his old place by
the aft wheel-house in a dazed sort of way, with apparently no intention
of going ashore; so I asked him what hotel he intended to stop at. His
only answer was to hand me a letter dated some days before:


                          "'JUNTA, Texas.

     "'Kitty died last night. It is a boy, and is named after
     you--her last wish.

                          "'PARKER.'



That was all the letter said, but as I looked at his white face and
burning eyes I saw it was what he had feared.

"As I bade him good-night at the hotel that evening he asked me, 'Do you
really feel sure that I could find her--there?'

"'Yes: she said so, did she not?' I replied.

"'I will try,' he said simply.

"The next morning they found him with a bullet-hole in his temple. He
had gone to find Kitty."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Heads!" said Thornton as the boom swung over and the swirl from the
Idler's bow told us the wind had come. As I changed my place I caught
Miss Brogden's eye, and felt satisfied that Donaldson was forgiven.

                          LAWRENCE BUCKLEY.




A GREAT SINGER.


There are so few of them! The next generation will hardly understand how
great were some of the lately-vanished kings and queens of the lyric
drama. We who have passed middle age, who have heard Lablache, and
Tamberlik, and Jenny Lind, and Viardot Garcia, and Alboni, and Giuglini
in their prime, and Grisi, Mario, Sontag and Persiani with voices but a
little the worse for wear, can sadly contrast the vocal glories of the
past with those of the present. Who are the great singers of to-day? Two
or three _prime donne_ and as many baritones. There is not a single
basso living to suggest Lablache, not a tenor to revive the triumphs of
Rubini, Mario, Giuglini or the subject of the present article.

Gustave Roger, the celebrated French tenor, who so long reigned a king
at the Grand Opéra of Paris, was a born Parisian. He was of gentle
blood, his uncle being Baron Roger, who was a member of the Chamber of
Deputies in the days of Louis Philippe. He was born in 1815, and was
originally destined for the legal profession. But the boy's destiny was
the stage. It is on record that, being sent to a provincial town where
there was no theatre to complete his studies, he got up a representation
on his own account, playing the principal _rôles_ in three comedies. The
notary in whose office he had been placed was present on the occasion,
and warmly applauded the young actor, but the next day sent his
refractory pupil back to Paris. Finally, Roger's relatives decided that
his vocation for the stage was stronger than their powers of combating
it, and they placed him at the Conservatoire. He remained there for one
year only, at the end of which time he carried off two first prizes--one
for singing and the other for declamation.

And here a curious fact must be remarked. Side by side with the great
lyric or dramatic celebrities that have won their first renown at the
_concours_ of the Conservatoire there is always some other pupil of
immense promise, who does as well as, if not better than, the future
star at the moment of the competition, but who afterward disappears into
the mists of mediocrity or of oblivion. Thus, in the year in which the
elder Coquelin obtained his prize the public loudly protested against
the award of the jury, declaring that the most gifted pupil of the class
was a certain M. Malard, who now holds a third-rate position on the
boards of the Gymnase. When Delaunay, the accomplished leading actor of
the Comédie Française, left the Conservatoire, it was with a second
prize only: the first was carried off by M. Blaisot, who now plays the
"second old men" at the Gymnase. So with Roger as first prize was
associated one Flavio Ping, a tall, handsome young man with a superb
voice. So far as physical advantages were concerned, he was better
fitted for a theatrical career than was the future creator of John of
Leyden, as Roger was not tall and had a tendency to embonpoint. M. Ping,
however, went to Italy, accepted engagements at the opera-houses of
Rome, Naples and Milan, sang there with success for a few years, lost
his voice, and finally disappeared.

In 1838, Roger made his début at the Opéra Comique in _L'Éclair_, by
Auber. His success was immediate and complete. He remained at that
theatre for some years, his favorite character being George Brown in _La
Dame Blanche_. But his greatest triumphs at this period were those which
awaited him in the great opera-houses of London, where he sang the
leading tenor rôles in the operas of Bellini and Donizetti. In his
recently-published diary he gives some interesting details respecting
Jenny Lind, then at the height of her fame and the very zenith of her
powers. His first impression, after hearing her in _Norma_, was one of
disappointment. It was in June, 1847. The great tenor thus records his
impressions of the great prima donna: "She is well enough in Casta
Diva--that invocation to the moon suits her dreamy Teutonic nature--but
the fury of the loving woman, the deserted mother--No, no! a thousand
times no!" But the next season he goes to hear her in _Lucia_, and at
once the verdict is reversed. "She is one of the greatest artists it has
ever been my lot to hear," he writes. "Her voice, though charming in the
upper notes, is unfortunately a little weak in the middle register; but
what intelligence and invention! She imitates no one, she studies
unceasingly, both the dramatic situation and the musical phrase, and her
ornamentation is of a novelty and elegance that reconcile me to that
style of execution. I do not love roulades, I must confess, though I may
learn to do so later. Jenny Lind does one thing admirably: during the
malediction, instead of clinging to her lover as all the other Lucias
never fail to do till the act is ended, as soon as Edgar throws her from
him she remains motionless: she is a statue. A livid smile contracts her
features, her haggard eyes are fixed on the table where she signed the
fatal contract, and when the curtain falls one sees that madness has
already seized upon her."

During this season in London, Roger, while singing at the Ancient
Concerts, saw in the audience one evening the duke of Wellington, and
thus writes of the event: "I had Wellington before me. I heard the voice
that commanded the troops at Waterloo. I looked into the eyes that saw
the back of the emperor. I cannot express the rage that seized upon me
at beholding him. To sing to and give pleasure to that man whom I would
fain annihilate!--him, and his past, and his country! As a Frenchman I
hate him, but I am forced also to admire him."

The next year Roger, while fulfilling an engagement in London, was
requested to sing at a garden-fête given, under the patronage of the
queen, at Fulham, for the benefit of the poor. After the concert Roger,
leaning against an acacia, was watching the departure of the royal
carriages. "Lavandy came to me," he writes, "and said in a whisper, 'Do
you know who is at the other side of this tree?'

"'No.'

"I turned round, and saw a man with an aquiline nose and blue eyes,
whose deep yet gloomy gaze was fixed upon the splendors of royalty. 'Who
is it?' I asked of Lavandy.

"'Louis Bonaparte.'

"He had just been elected member of the Chamber of Deputies. As his name
appeared to be dangerous, he had been requested to take a vacation, and
he had returned to London, where he had formerly lived. I am glad that I
saw him: he may be somebody some day."

It was in April of the previous year (1847) that Roger went to a
concert, where he records how he heard a comic opera called _The
Alcove_, by Offenbach and Déforges: "A little inexperience, but some
charming things. Offenbach is a fellow who will go far if the doors of
the Opéra Comique are not closed against him: he has the gift of melody
and the perseverance of a demon." It is rather curious to note, in
connection with this prophecy, that the doors of the Opéra Comique,
which were closed against Offenbach after the failure of his _Vert-Vert_
some years before the war, are to be reopened to him next season, his
_Contes de Hoffman_ having proved the "Open, sesame!" to those
long-barred portals.

But to return to Roger's reminiscences of Jenny Lind, which are, after
all, the most interesting for music-loving readers. We find him writing
in July, 1848: "I have again been to see Jenny Lind in _Lucia_. She is
indeed a great, a sublime artist, in whom are united inspiration and
industry."

It was during this season that he concluded an engagement with the
English impresario Mitchell to become the tenor of the travelling
opera-troupe in which Jenny Lind was to be the prima donna, and which
was to undertake a tour through Scotland, Ireland and the provincial
towns of England. "I am delighted," he writes: "I shall now be able to
study near at hand this singular woman, whom Paris has never possessed,
but whose reputation, fostered at first in Germany under the auspices of
Meyerbeer, has attained in England such proportions that upon her
arrival in a certain city the bells were rung and the archbishop went
out to meet her and to invite her to his house. She is a noble-hearted
creature, and her munificence is royal: she founds hospitals and
colleges. In her blue eyes glows the flame of genius. Deprived of her
voice, she would still be a remarkable woman. Believing in herself, she
is full of daring, and achieves great things because she never troubles
herself about the critics. She lives the life of a saint: one would say
that she imagines herself sent by God to make the happiness of humanity
by the religion of art. Thus she remains cold and chaste in private
life, never permitting her heart to become inflamed by the ardent
passions wherewith she glows upon the stage. She told me that she could
never comprehend the lapse from virtue of Mademoiselle R----, a woman of
such lofty talent: 'To fail thus in what was due to one's self!'"

It is pleasing to note how Roger's admiration for this great artist
extinguishes all the usual petty jealousy of a fellow-singer. He writes
thus frankly respecting a concert which they gave during their tour at
Birmingham: "It was a brilliant success, but the final triumph was borne
off by Jenny Lind, who fairly carried the audience away with her Swedish
melodies, the effect of which is really remarkable. She has a strength
of voice in the upper notes that is vast and surprising: without
screaming she produces echoes, the loud and soft notes being almost
simultaneous. In the artist's green-room she is kind and courteous
without being either mirthful or expansive. Moreover, she is
indefatigable, which is a precious quality for the manager. She never
stays at the same hotel with the rest of the troupe, which is a rather
imperial proceeding; but it is better so: we are more at our ease. She
lives her own concentrated life like some old wine that never sees the
light excepting on great occasions. I have at last found in Jenny Lind a
partner who understands me. On the stage she becomes animated; her hands
clasp mine with energy, and the thrill of dramatic fervor possesses her
whole being: she becomes thoroughly identified with her part, and yet
she never permits herself to be so carried away as to cease to be
entirely mistress of her voice."

Roger gives us some brief glimpses of Jenny Lind in private life--her
love of dancing, of which she seems to have been as passionately fond as
was Fanny Kemble in her youth, and her delight in horseback riding. He
gives a comical account of an improvised ball, in which he figured as
the prima donna's partner, on board of the steamboat going from Dublin
to Holyhead: "Unfortunately, our orchestra fell off one by one; the
music finally ceased; and when we stopped waltzing and cast an uneasy
glance around us, we beheld all our musicians, their chests pressed
against the railings, their arms extended toward the ocean, in the
pitiable attitude of Punch when knocked down by the policeman." Some
days later, during a performance of _La Fille du Regiment_ at Brighton,
in the last act, while the orchestra was playing the prelude to the
final rondo, "Jenny Lind said to me in a whisper, 'Listen well to this
song, Roger, for these are the last notes of mine that you will hear in
any theatre.'"

The next day a farewell ball, to which a supper succeeded, was given by
the manager at the Bedford Hotel to celebrate the conclusion and
brilliant success of the tour: "That dear Jenny drew from her finger a
ring set with a diamond of the finest water, and presented it to me with
the words, 'May every sparkle of this stone, Roger, recall to you one of
my wishes for your happiness!' In this phrase there was all the woman
and a tinge of the Swede."

The next day he takes a final ride with the prima donna and Madame
Lablache. "I was very sad," he writes: "the idea of ending this happy
day has spoiled my pleasure. How well she looks on horseback, with her
great blue eyes and her loosened fair hair! And why does she quit the
stage? Is she tired of doing good? As long as she has been an artist she
has lived the life of a saint. They tell me of a bishop who has put
certain scruples into her head. May Heaven be his judge!

"I know that in Paris people say, 'Why does she not come here to
consecrate her reputation? She is afraid, doubtless, of comparisons and
recollections.' No, no! she has nothing to fear. She preserves in her
heart of hearts, doubtless, some resentment for the indifference--to
call it no more--wherewith the last manager of the Opéra received her
advances for a hearing when her fresh young talent had just left the
hands of Manuel Garcia. But since then Meyerbeer has composed operas for
her; Germany, Sweden, England have set the seal upon her reputation: we
can add nothing to it. As to homage, what could we give her? Wherever
she goes, as soon as she arrives in a city its chief personages hasten
to meet her; when she leaves the theatre five or six hundred persons
await her exit with lighted torches; every leaf that falls from her
laurel-wreaths is quarrelled over; crowds escort her to her hotel; and
serenades are organized under her windows. At Paris, when once the
curtain falls the emotion is over, the artist no longer exists. A
serenade! Who ever saw such a thing outside of the _Barber of Seville?_
It is in bad taste to do anything singular. As to escorting a prima
donna home, Malibran could find her way alone very well."

Roger returned to Paris, recording as he did so the fact that he was by
no means overjoyed at finding himself at home: "And why? I cannot tell.
Perhaps I regret the life of excitement, those great theatres, the
audiences that changed every day, the struggle of the singer with new
_partitions_, the boundless admiration I experienced for that strange
being, that compound of goodness and coldness, of egotism and
benevolence, whom one might not perhaps love, but whom it is impossible
to forget."

The next prominent event in the great tenor's career was his creation of
the character of John of Leyden in Meyerbeer's _Prophète_. There is
something very charming in the naïve delight and enthusiasm with which
he speaks of this, the crowning glory of his life. Contrary to the usual
theory respecting the production of a great dramatic effect, he declares
that the grand scene between the prophet and Fides in the third act,
where John of Leyden, by the sheer force of intonation of voice and play
of feature, forces his mother to retract her recognition of him and to
fall at his feet, was created, so to speak, by Madame Viardot and
himself on the inspiration of the moment and without any preliminary
conference or arrangement. How wonderful this fine dramatic situation
appeared when interpreted by these two great artists, I, who had the
delight of seeing them both, can well remember. To this day it forms one
of the great traditions of the French lyric stage.

In the month of July, 1859, just ten years after that crowning triumph,
Roger one day, being then at his country-seat, took his gun and went out
to shoot pheasants: an hour later he was brought I back to the house
with his right arm horribly shattered by the accidental discharge of his
gun. His first action after having the wound dressed was to sing. "My
voice is all right," he remarked to his wife: "there is no harm done."
Unfortunately, the bones were so shattered that amputation was judged
necessary. That accident brought Roger's operatic career to a close.
Notwithstanding the perfection of the mechanical arm that replaced the
missing limb, he was oppressed by the consciousness of a physical
defect. He imagined that the public ridiculed him, and that the critics
only spared him out of pity. He retired from the stage, and devoted
himself to teaching, his amiable character and great artistic renown
gaining him hosts of pupils. In the autumn of 1879 the kindly, blameless
life came to a close.

A devoted husband, a generous and unselfish comrade in his profession
even to his immediate rivals, and a true and faithful friend, he left
behind him a record that shows a singular blending of simple domestic
virtues with great artistic qualities, the union adorning a theatrical
career which was one series of dazzling triumphs.

                          LUCY H. HOOPER.




OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.


CONSERVATORY LIFE IN BOSTON.

Our aspiring young friend from the rural districts who comes to Boston,
the great musical centre, for the art-training she cannot enjoy at home,
is full of enthusiasm as she crosses the threshold of that teeming hive,
the New England Conservatory of Music. The conflicting din of organs,
pianos and violins, of ballad, scale and operetta, though discordant to
the actual ear have a harmony which is not lost to her spiritual sense.
It is a choral greeting to the new recruit, who gathers in a moment all
the moral support humanity derives from sympathy and companionship in a
common purpose. Devoutly praying that this inspiration may not ooze out
at her fingers' ends, she goes into the director's sanctum to be
examined. This trial has pictured itself to her active imagination for
weeks past. Of course he will ask her to play one of her pieces, perhaps
several. Has she not, ever since her plans for coming to the
Conservatory were matured, been engaged in carefully training,
manipulating, her battle-horse for this critical experiment? As the door
of that little room closes upon her her knees begin to tremble. But how
easy and reassuring is the director's manner! He requests her to be
seated at the piano. Will she be able to remember a note at all? That is
now the question. Her musical memory is for the nonce obliterated. He
may have an intuition of this, for he says quietly, "Now play me a scale
and a five-finger exercise." Cecilia does this mechanically, and feels
encouraged. Now for the piece, the battle-horse, to be brought out and
shown off. She waits quietly a minute. But he asks for nothing more. Her
mere touch expresses to his practised ear her probable grade of
acquirement, and he assigns her to the instructor he deems best suited
to test her abilities and classify her in accordance with them.

In a day or two she finds herself in regular working order, one of a
class of four. "And am I only to have fifteen minutes for _my_ lesson,"
she asks herself, "when I always had an hour from the professor at
Woodville?" She knows that recitation is the cream of the lesson. In the
actual rendering of her task she can, in justice to her companions,
consume but a quarter of the allotted hour, but she soon discovers that
she is to a great extent a participant in Misses A----, B---- and
C----'s cream. After the master's correction of her own performance, to
see and hear the same study played by others with more or less
excellence--to compare their faults with her own--is perhaps of greater
benefit to her, while in this eminently receptive frame, than a mere
personal repetition would be. The horizon is broader: she gets more
light on the work in hand.

"And now," she asks of her teacher, "how much would you advise, how much
do you wish, me to practise?"

He smiles: memory reverts to his own six hours at Leipsic or Stuttgart,
but "milk for babes:" "Certainly not less than two hours a day under any
circumstances or obstacles, if you care to learn at all. If you have
fair health, and neither onerous household duties nor educational
demands upon your time outside of music, let me earnestly recommend you
to practise four hours. Less than this cannot show the desired result."

The new pupil accepts the maximum of four hours' daily practice. "I
should be ashamed to give less," she generously confides to herself and
her room-mate: "it is but a small proportion, after all, of the
twenty-four."

But this is not all. There are exercises at the Conservatory apart from
her special lessons which are too valuable to a broad musical education
to be neglected--the instruction in harmony, sight reading, the art of
teaching, analyses of compositions, as well as lectures and concerts.
One of the Conservatory exercises strikes her as being alike novel and
edifying. This is called "Questions and Answers." A box in one of the
halls receives anonymous questions from the pupils from day to day, and
once a week a professor of the requisite enlightenment to satisfy the
miscellaneous curiosity of six or seven hundred minds devotes a full
hour to the purpose. These questions are presumed to relate solely to
musical topics, and the custom was instituted for the relief of timid
yet earnest inquirers. A motley crew, however, frequently avail
themselves of the masquerade privilege to steal in uninvited. Cecilia
illustrates these fantastic ramifications of the young idea for the
benefit of friends in the interior. She jots down some of these
questions and their answers in her note-book:

"How does a polka differ from a schottisch?"--"A schottisch is a lazy
polka. A polka is the worst thing in the world: the next worst is a
schottisch. A schottisch is so lazy, so slow, that a fire would hardly
kindle with it."

"In preparing to play a piece in public should one practise it up to the
last moment?"--"Try it and see: you will soon decide in the negative.
Lay it aside some time before if you would avoid nervousness."

"What would you give as a first piano-lesson to a young lady who had
never taken a lesson before?"--"Make her get the piano-stool at exactly
the right height and place: then ensure a good position of her hands
and easy motion of the fingers. Let her practise this for three days."

"How far advanced ought a person to be in music to begin to
teach?"--"Teaching involves three things: first, a knowledge of
something on the part of the teacher; second, a corresponding ignorance
on the part of the learner; third, the ability to impart this knowledge.
These conditions fulfilled might sometimes allow a person to begin to
teach with advantage at a very early age and with a very moderate range
of acquirements, though, as every instructor knows, his earlier methods
were very different from his later ones. The difficulty with young
teachers in general is that they try to teach too much at once, like the
young minister who preached all he knew in his first sermon. Never
introduce more than two principles in any one lesson, and as a rule but
one."

"Is a mazourka as bad as a polka?"--"No. I think it is not morally so
bad as a polka: it has somewhat the grace of the waltz."

"Who is the best music-teacher in Boston?"--"As there are twenty-five
hundred persons teaching music in and about this city, and seventy-five
regular teachers at this Conservatory alone, both ignorance and delicacy
on my part should forbid a definite reply. It were well to remember
Paris, the apple of discord and the Trojan war."

"Is Mr. A---- (a young professor at the Conservatory, voted attractive
by the feminine pupils in general) married?"--"This being Leap Year, a
personal investigation of the subject might be more satisfactory and
effectual than a public decision of this point."

At the expiration of her first term Cecilia realizes that her condition
is one of constant growth: quickening influences are in the air. She
came to Boston to learn music: she is also learning life. She perceives,
moreover, that in her musical progress the æsthetic part of her nature
has not been permitted to keep in advance of technique. Heretofore she
was ever gratifying herself and her friends by undertaking new and more
elaborate pieces, not one of which ever became other than a mere
superficial possession. Now her taste is inexorably commanded to wait
for her muscles: the discipline has been useful to her. After a few more
such winters she will return to Woodville a teacher, herself become a
quickening influence to others. Musical thought will be truer, will find
a more adequate expression, in her vicinity. She will act as a
reflector, sending forth rays of light into dark corners farther than
she can follow them.

And this is the motive, the mission, of the conservatory system in this
country, inasmuch as organized is more potent than individual effort to
elevate our national taste, to prepare the way for the future artist,
that he may be born under the right conditions, his divine gift fostered
and directed to become worthy of its exalted destiny. Already centuries
old in Europe, the conservatory is a young thing of comparatively
limited experience on our soil. It was introduced here twenty-five years
ago by Eben Tourjée. He had longed and vainly sought for the advantages
to perfect his own talent, and resolved while a mere boy that those of
like tastes who came after him should not have to contend with the
obstacles he had fought--that instruction should be brought within the
reach of all by a college of music similar to those in Europe, embracing
the best elements, attaining the most satisfactory results at the least
possible cost to the student. This project, for a youth without capital,
dependent upon his abilities for his personal support, was regarded even
by sympathetic friends as visionary. But nothing progressive is accepted
as a mere optimistic vision by the predestined reformer. Remote Huguenot
and immediate Yankee ancestry is perhaps a good combination for pioneer
material. However this may be, his efforts were crystallized, shaped,
sooner than most schemes of such magnitude. Continuing his classes in
piano, organ and voice for a year or two with successful energy, Mr.
Tourjée found in 1859 the desired opportunity for his experiment. The
principal of a seminary in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, accorded him
the use of his building, and more students presented themselves
ultimately than could be accommodated on the grounds of the institution.
After a visit to Europe for the purpose of examining the celebrated
German, French and Italian schools, Mr. Tourjée returned, and, fired
with new zeal, started in 1864 a chartered conservatory at Providence.
This proved eminently successful. But Boston was the ideal site: talent
gravitates toward large cities, and Boston's acknowledged "love of the
first rate" would be the best surety for a lofty standard and
approximate fulfilment. In 1867, under a charter from the State, he
finally transplanted his school to this metropolis under the name of the
New England Conservatory of Music, which it retains to the present date.
It has, with characteristic American rapidity, become the largest
music-school in the world, having within fifteen years instructed over
twenty thousand pupils: in a single term it frequently numbers between
eight and nine hundred. It has a connection with Boston University, the
only one in the country where music is placed on the same basis with
other intellectual pursuits, and the faculty numbers some of the most
renowned artists and composers in the land. Eben Tourjée was appointed
dean of the College of Music in the University, with the title of Mus.
Doctor.

The New England Conservatory deserves this special mention as the parent
school in America, and it has been promptly and ably followed by the
establishment of others in most of our large cities.

                          F. D.


CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE IN THE WEST OF IRELAND.

[The following extract from a private letter just received from Ireland
gives a glimpse of the state of affairs in that country which may
interest our readers, as indicating, better than any mere partisan
statements or newspaper reports, the solid grounds that exist for
apprehension in regard to impending disturbances:]

     "I have just returned from a tour in the west of Ireland, and I
     wish I could describe the horrors I have seen--such abject
     misery and such demoralization as you, no doubt, never came in
     contact with in your life. The scenery of Connemara beats
     Killarney in beauty and the Rhine in extent and magnificence,
     but no tourist could face the hotels: the dirt, the
     incompetence, the abominableness of every kind are awful. As
     these people were two hundred years ago, so they are
     now--ignorant, squalid savages, half naked, living on potatoes
     such as a Yankee pig would scorn, speaking only their barbarous
     native tongue, lying and thieving through terror and want, with
     their children growing up in hopeless squalor. Very few savages
     lead such lives, while few people are so oppressed and harassed
     by the pains and penalties of civilization. For they are
     chin-deep in debt. I saw promissory notes five and six times
     renewed, with the landlord, away on the Continent, threatening
     eviction. The selfishness of the landlords is too revolting.
     They live in England or on the Continent, and confine their
     duties in life to giving receipts for their rent. Imagine the
     whole product of the land, in a country destitute of
     manufactures and commerce, remitted to England, and the utmost
     farthing of rent exacted from these wretches, no matter what
     the season is, a valuation of fifty shillings, for example,
     paying a rent of seven pounds--three hundred per cent.! Some
     great catastrophe is imminent. Not a gun is left in the
     gunsmiths' shops in Dublin, and I am told that shiploads are
     brought in from America weekly. The people are perfectly right
     in resisting eviction, but Parliament ought to interpose. We
     must get rid of the landlords, and we must establish compulsory
     education. Then the priests will go like smoke before the wind.
     Free trade is another cause of the troubles. That is one of the
     most specious humbugs extant, and has ruined the Irish farmers.
     It may be all right in principle, but now and here it is simply
     mischievous. Professor ----, who is a member of the new Land
     Commission, went round with me in Connemara, and implored me to
     write up the state of the district; but before anything can be
     published and reach the English ear the autumn rent-day will
     have come, and the gale will be at its height."


HIGH JINKS ON THE UPPER MISSISSIPPI.

_To the Editor of Lippincott's Magazine:_

It is a remarkable historical fact that the latest visitor to the Upper
Mississippi has always felt it his duty to assail the good faith of
every previous traveller. Beltrami (1823) attacked Pike (1806);
Schoolcraft (1832) fleshed his pen in Beltrami; Allen, who accompanied
Schoolcraft, afterward became his enemy and branded him as a
geographical quack; Nicollet (1836) arraigned both Schoolcraft and Allen
for incompetency; and so on. And now, at this late day, in a mild way
tradition repeats itself. Your great original geographer, Mr. Siegfried,
concluded his two essays on the "High Mississippi" by saying, "Beyond
reasonable doubt our party is the only one that ever pushed its way by
boat up the entire course of the farthermost Mississippi. Beyond any
question ours were the first wooden boats that ever traversed these
waters." Then, after a slap at poor Schoolcraft, he declares that
although I claimed the entire trip in my canoe five years ago, my guide
and others told him that my Dolly Varden never was above Brainerd, and
_that my portages above were frequent_. Except that, by implication, he
questions my veracity, I would not have taken any notice of the feat on
which he prides himself. To the general reader the word "Brainerd"
conveys no idea further than the one which the author adroitly tries to
convey (without saying so), that I did not travel the entire Upper
Mississippi: his use of the word "High" is another trick to cover a very
small job, as I shall hereafter show. But the fact is, that Mr.
Siegfried has discovered a mare's nest. By stating one fact which has
never been disguised, and repeating an allegation which is absolutely
false, he would dispose utterly of the very trip that made his journey
so easy of accomplishment.

I laid out for myself just one task and no more: I started in May, 1872,
for the sources of the Mississippi, thence to descend the entire river.
After days of inquiry and two trips over the Northern Pacific Railroad,
I decided upon a route to Itasca Lake which no white man had ever
traversed. I made an entirely successful journey, marking out the White
Earth route so clearly that any child could follow it thereafter. What
feat is there to go over ground which I described so explicitly as
follows?--First stage, to White Earth; second stage, to the Twin Lakes;
third stage, across the prairie to the Wild Rice River; fourth stage, up
that stream to the Lake of the Spirit Isle; and fifth stage, of half a
day, by the Ah-she-wa-wa-see-ta-gen portage, to the Mississippi, at a
point twenty-six miles north of Itasca. The same afternoon and the
following day, energetically employed, will suffice to put anybody at
the sources of "the Father of Rivers." Anybody could take a tissue-paper
boat to Itasca after 1872. Had I had a predecessor over this route to
Itasca, as Mr. Siegfried had, and could I have travelled as he did with
a roll of newspaper letters telling me where to stop and when, how to go
and where, I should have been the first to acknowledge my indebtedness
to the man who showed me the way. Why did not Mr. S. take Nicollet's or
Schoolcraft's route, or seek a new one? Simply for the reason that my
itinerary was so clearly laid down that the journey became merely a
Cook's excursion. I had built and took with me to Minnesota a paper boat
for the descent of the river, but I have never made any secret of the
fact that I bought another one (a twin in name and fitted with the
appliances of the New York craft) for the tramp of seventy miles through
the wilderness from the railroad to the sources. In this I merely
followed the example frequently set by Mr. MacGregor, who is the father
of canoeing, and the advice of George A. Morrison, government
storekeeper at White Earth, the Hon. Dr. Day, United States Indian
commissioner, and other gentlemen of equal prominence. Neither of these
gentlemen had been over the ground, but they represented the country as
awful in the extreme. I acquainted everybody who asked with my
decision, and, were it desirable to involve others in this matter, could
name fifty persons to whom every detail of this initial stage of my trip
has been explained. Not a particle of accurate information regarding the
road, the number of days required or the distance could be obtained. It
was not possible _then_ to contract for forty-one dollars to be landed
on the Mississippi! Mr. Siegfried might have seen at every
camping-ground and meal-station along the route the blazed trees bearing
the deeply-cut Greek "delta," which seven years' precedence cannot have
effaced. His descriptions and mine are identical throughout: therefore,
he has either not been over the course at all (which I do not insinuate)
or he only proves the accuracy of my reports. He disposes of my fourteen
hundred and seventy-one miles of canoeing on the Mississippi because,
forsooth! I did not make a small part of it in a craft to suit his
liking. He claims that his was the first wooden boat that ever pushed up
to Itasca. This is something that I don't know anything about: several
parties have been there since 1832. What will he do with the claimant of
the first sheet-iron boat?

Mr. Siegfried's allegation that I made frequent portages is grossly and
maliciously false. That honor belongs to him, as a few facts will show.
In giving the guide as his authority he is most illogical, for in his
first article (on three separate pages) he wholly discredits this same
man. Again, some information: there are five portages above Aitkin, as
follows: first, into the western gulf of Lake Cass, saving six miles;
second, Little Winnipeg Lake into a stream leading to the Ball Club Lake
(missing the great tributary Leech Lake River); third, at White Oak
Point, below the Eagle's Nest Savannah; fourth, Pokegama Falls, a carry
of two hundred yards on the left bank (a necessity); and fifth, a
cut-off above Swan River, saving six miles. This last was the only
portage (except the falls) made by my party, and was availed of to reach
good camping-ground before dark. Indeed, as to portaging I must yield
the palm to my vainglorious successor. Behold his record! He jumped
twenty-six miles in the Ball Club Lake portage, and was still unhappy
because he could not ride from the landing below Pokegama to Aitkin (one
hundred and fifty miles; see p. 288) on the small steamboat that
sometimes runs to the lumber-camp. Reaching Muddy River (now Aitkin), in
the language of a free pass, he boarded "the splendid railway"
for--Minneapolis!--thus again skipping two hundred and forty-four miles
of the river at one bound, and escaping the French Rapids, Little Falls,
Pike, Wautab and Sauk Rapids, while I was foolish enough to paddle down
to Anoka (as near as I cared to go to St. Anthony's Falls). Thence I
portaged to Minnehaha Creek, as he did--another strange
coincidence--whence, by daily stages, I descended to Alton, seven
hundred and seventy-five miles, where I took steamer for St. Louis, New
Orleans, and, finally, New York. Mr. Siegfried, on the contrary, in a
distance of six hundred and ninety-six miles from the sources to St.
Anthony (Nicollet's official measurement; see _U. S. Senate Doc. 237_,
Twenty-sixth Congress, 2d Session, Appendix), jumped exactly two hundred
and sixty miles, or about two-fifths of his whole journey! Some of that
water, too, which he so conveniently escaped is very unpleasant, even
dangerous, especially Pike Rapids, into which I was drawn unawares, and
had to run through at considerable risk to my boat.

        I am, sir, yours,

              J. CHAMBERS,

    _The Crew of the Dolly Varden._

    PHILADELPHIA, August 21, 1880.


FATE OF AN OLD COMPANION OF NAPOLEON III.

_L'Indépendant_, published at Boulogne, gives some interesting details
about a personage that played an important rôle in the history of the
last emperor of the French, and has not had much cause to be proud of
the gratitude of his patron. This personage was the famous tame eagle
that accompanied Prince Louis in his ridiculous expedition to Boulogne,
and which was taught to swoop down upon the head of the pretender--a
glorious omen to those who did not know that the attraction was a piece
of salted pork! This unfortunate eagle was captured at the same time as
his master, but while the latter was shut up at Ham, the eagle was sent
to the slaughter-house at Boulogne, where he lived many years--an
improvement in his fate, says _L'Indépendant_, since his diet of salt
pork was replaced by one of fresh meat. In 1855, Napoleon III. went to
Boulogne to review the troops destined for the Crimea and to receive the
queen of England. While there some one in his suite spoke to him of this
bird, telling him that it was alive and where it was to be found. But
the emperor refused to see his old companion, or even grant him a
life-pension in the Paris Jardin des Plantes. The old eagle ended his
days in the slaughter-house, and to-day he figures, artistically
_taxidermatized_, in one of the glass cases of the museum of
Boulogne--immortal as his master, despite the reverses of fortune.


A NATURAL BAROMETER.

Everybody has admired the delicate and ingenious work of the spider,
everybody has watched her movements as she spins her wonderful web, but
all do not know that she is the most reliable weather-prophet in the
world. Before a wind-storm she shortens the threads that suspend her
web, and leaves them in this state as long as the weather remains
unsettled. When she lengthens these threads count on fine weather, and
in proportion to their length will be its duration. When a spider rests
inactive it is a sign of rain: if she works during a rain, be sure it
will soon clear up and remain clear for some time. The spider, it is
said, changes her web every twenty-four hours, and the part of the day
she chooses to do this is always significant. If it occurs a little
before sunset, the night will be fine and clear. Hence the old French
proverb: "Araignée du soir, espoir."

                          M. H.




LITERATURE OF THE DAY.


     L'Art: revue hebdomadaire illustrée. Sixième année, Tome II.
     New York: J. W. Bouton.

Nowhere but in Paris could the resources, the technical knowledge and
perfect command of all the appliances of bookmaking be found to sustain
such a publication as _L'Art_. In six years it has not abated by one
tittle the perfection with which it first burst upon the world. Its
standard is as high, its subjects are as inexhaustible, as ever. We hear
now and then of a decline in French art: the great artists who carried
it to the high-water mark of modern times have all, or nearly all,
passed away, but there is certainly no sign of a vacuum. The activity of
production is as great as ever, the interest in art as vital. _L'Art_
draws its material from past as well as present; the work of older
artists is kept alive in its pages by the most perfect reproductions;
and in its special department of black and white there is advancement
rather than decline. The importance of such a publication to the
interests of art throughout the world is incalculable. It absorbs the
best thought and production of the day. Its high standard and breadth of
scope render it impossible for any particular clique to predominate in
its pages, while its independent tone and encouragement of individual
talent make it a powerful counteracting influence to the conventionalism
which forms the chief danger to art in a country where technical rules
have become official laws. In fact, _L'Art_ has constituted itself a
government of the opposition. It has its Prix de Florence for the
education in Italy of promising young sculptors--its galleries in the
Avenue de l'Opéra, which are used for the purpose of "independent"
exhibitions or for the display of work by one or another artist. It
examines and reports the progress of art all over the world, rousing the
latent Parisian curiosity as to the achievements of foreign artists,
and, what is of more importance (to us at least), it shows the world
what is being done and said and thought in the art-circles of Paris. The
perusal of its comprehensive index alone will give the reader a clear
outline of the state of art in Russia, Japan, Persia and Algeria, as
well as in the better-known countries. Such a work is not for the
delight of one people alone: it comes home to art-lovers everywhere.

The principal art-event of last spring was the Demidoff sale. About half
the etchings in the volume before us are reproductions of pictures in
that collection. M. Flameng has forgotten all the perplexities and
intricacies of the nineteenth century to render the placid graciousness
of a beauty whose portrait was painted in the eighteenth by Drouais. M.
Trimolet has etched in a Dutch manner a landscape of Hobbema in the
Louvre, but M. Gaucherel translates a Ruysdael from the Demidoff
collection into an exquisite delicacy and airiness of line which is the
language of etching in its most modern expression. A Demidoff Rembrandt,
a Lucrezia, reproduced by the needle of M. Koepping, is an example of
the naïveté of an art which gave itself no thought for archæology.
Lucrezia is a simple Dutch maiden in the full-sleeved, straight-bodied
Flemish costume. Her innocent, childish face tells of real grief, but
not of a tragic history. It is interesting to compare the type with that
of Raphael's Lucrezia, with its clinging classic drapery and countenance
moulded on that of a tragic mask.

The most striking etching in this volume is that of M. Edm. Ramus, after
a portrait in this year's Salon. The name of the painter, Van der Bos,
is Flemish, but if his picture had any qualities not distinctively
French the genius of the etcher has swept them away. The conception, the
character, the pose would all pass for a work of the most advanced
French school. Its qualities belong to Paris and to-day. A young woman
of a somewhat hard, positive type, neither beautiful nor intellectual,
but _chic_ to her finger-tips, jauntily dressed--hat with curling
feathers, elbow sleeves, long gloves--standing in an erect and
completely unaffected attitude,--that is the subject. The execution is
simply superb. Every line is strong and effective: the modelling, the
poise of the figure and the breadth of the shadows in dry point, are
masterly. The Salon articles, five in number, are from the pen of M. Ph.
Burty, the most radical, incisive and original writer on the
staff--champion of the Impressionists, bitter enemy of the Academics and
warm admirer of any fresh, sincere and individual talent. In his short
review of the work of American artists in the Salon his sympathies are
frankly with those who have ranged themselves under unofficial
leadership in their adopted city. He has warm eulogy both for Mr.
Sargent and Mr. Picknell, refusing to believe that the excellence of the
latter is due in any way to his instruction at the École des Beaux-Arts.
M. Burty concludes the notice of American pictures with a "Hurrah pour
la jeune école Américaine! hurrah!" which will be gratefully responded
to by those of us who are proud of our growing school.

The "Silhouettes d'Artistes contemporains" are continued in two papers
on De Nittis, accompanied by some exquisite reproductions of etchings by
that artist; and there are a couple of articles of great interest by M.
Véron on Ribot, illustrated by fac-similes of the powerful work of one
whom M. Véron unhesitatingly ranks among the greatest names in modern
French art. There is both literary and artistic interest in the
engravings after pen-and-ink sketches made by Victor Hugo, showing that
the poet is able to throw his personality and wonderful imagination into
an art which he did not practise till pretty late in life, and then
simply as a recreation and without attempting to master its technique.
Victor Hugo is stamped as plainly upon these drawings--made, not by line
and rule, but by following up the ideas suggested by the direction of a
blot of ink--as on the pages of his most deliberate works. In offering
homage to the poet _L'Art_ does not depart from its line, which embraces
art in its manifold forms. The newest products of the stage are
discussed as well as those of the studios, and contemporary literature
is reflected in more ways than one in its pages.


     Mrs. Beauchamp Brown. (Second No-Name Series.) Boston: Roberts
     Brothers.

Were this story as good as its name or half as good as some of the
undeniably clever things it contains, it might be accepted as a very
fair book of its kind. It was written with the evident intention of
saying brilliant and witty things; but this brilliance and wit sometimes
miss their effect, as, for instance, on the very first page, where Dick
Steele's famous compliment is bestowed upon Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
instead of the Lady Elizabeth Hastings. We might mention other thwarted
attempts, which give much the same jar to our sensibilities as when some
one thinks to afford us pleasure by singing a favorite air out of tune.
The facility with which the characters are transported from the ends of
the earth to meet at a place called Plum Island surpasses any trick in
legerdemain. Unless we had read it here we should never have believed
that life on the coast of Maine could be so exciting, so cosmopolitan in
its scope, so thrilling in its incidents. There is a jumble of
notabilities--leaders of Boston and Washington society, a Jesuit Father,
an English peer, a brilliant diplomatist on the point of setting out on
a foreign mission, a Circe the magic of whose voice and eyes is
responsible for most of the mischief which goes on, Anglican priests, a
college professor, collegiates, at least one raving maniac, beautiful
young girls and representative Yankee men and women. From this company,
most of whom conduct themselves in manner which fails to prepossess us,
Mrs. Beauchamp Brown alone emerges with a distinct identity. Her zealous
adherence to herself, her unconsciousness of weakness or defect even in
the most rashly-chosen part, are good points. The writer allows her to
express herself without too elaborate canvassing of her character and
motives. When the Fifth Avenue Hotel is burning the great lady is amazed
at such behavior, and shrieks peremptory orders to have the fire put out
_immediately_. When she reaches Plum Island, and is transferred from the
steamboat to the skiff which is to carry her ashore, she is "angrily
scared at the seething waters and the grinning rocks."

"'Man! this thing is full of water: my feet are almost in it!' shrieked
Mrs. Beauchamp Brown as the gundalow lurched and heaved shoreward.

"The White man looked over his shoulder, and slowly wrinkled his
leathern cheeks into an encouraging smile. 'Like ter near killed a
woggin,' replied he sententiously. 'Will be ashore in a brace of
shakes.'"

The Yankees are all capitally done, and the "local color" is excellent.
There is not much to be said for the other characters in the book.
Margaret, who is supposed to be irresistible, raises surprise if not
disgust. Her conversation is crude and infelicitous, her conduct
excessively ill-bred. Indeed, for a company of so-called elegant people,
the talk and doings are singularly bald and crude. Even the Jesuit
Father seems to have a dull perception about nice points of good
behavior, and we have a doubt which amounts to an active suspicion as to
the reality of the writer's experience of Jesuitical casuistry and
social wiles. Certainly, Father Williams fails to make us understand how
his order could have ever been considered dangerous. It seems a pity
that the author should have tried such a wide survey of human nature.
Her talent does not carry her into melodrama, to say nothing of tragedy,
but there are many evidences in her book of very fair powers in the way
of light comedy.


     Studies in German Literature. By Bayard Taylor. With an
     Introduction by George H. Boker.--Critical Essays and Literary
     Notes. By Bayard Taylor. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

It would be impossible to name a better representative of American men
of letters, if there be such a class, than the late Bayard Taylor. We
have a few writers, easily counted, who are distinctively poets,
novelists or essayists; but the common ambition is to unite these titles
and add a few others--to enjoy, in fact, a free range over the whole
field of literature, exclusive only of the most arid or least attractive
portions. Taylor's versatility exceeded that of all his competitors: he
attempted a greater variety of tasks than any of them, and he failed in
none. And his writings, while so diverse, have a distinct and pervading
flavor. Though he travelled so extensively, imbibed so deeply of foreign
literature, and wrote so much on foreign themes, his tone of thought and
sentiment not only remained thoroughly American, but was always
suggestive of his early life and surroundings, his quiet Pennsylvania
home and its sober influences. His pictures of these are not the least
noteworthy portion of what he has given to the world, but in all his
productions the same spirit is visible--not flashing and impulsive, but
habituated to just conceptions and exact performance; not to be startled
or dazed by novelties, but capable of measuring and assimilating
whatever best suited it. On the whole, his nature, while retaining its
individuality and poise, was rather a highly receptive than a strongly
original one. Its growth was a steady accretion of knowledge, ideas,
experiences and aptitudes, without the exhibition of that power
which in minds of a rarer order reacts upon impressions with
a transforming influence. There is more appearance of freedom, of
spontaneousness--paradoxical as this may seem--in his translation of
_Faust_ than in any of his other performances, while deliberate,
conscientious workmanship is a leading characteristic of all, not
excepting the short notices of books reprinted from the New York
_Tribune_ in one of the volumes now before us. The matter of both these
volumes is chiefly critical, and the characterizations of men as well as
of books are always discriminating, generally just, often happily
expressed, but seldom vivid. The articles on Rückert, Thackeray and
Weimar, which deal chiefly with personal reminiscences, are especially
pleasant reading; but the lectures on Goethe, however well they may have
served their immediate purpose, contain little that called for
preservation, being neither profound nor stimulating. While, however,
these volumes may add nothing to their author's reputation, they are no
unworthy memorials of a laborious, well-spent and happy life, of a
nature as kindly as it was earnest and sincere, and of talents that had
neither been buried nor misapplied. We find in a short paper on Lord
Houghton the remark that "there is an important difference between the
impression which a man makes who has avowedly done the utmost of which
he is capable, and that which springs from the exercise of genuine gifts
not so stimulated to their highest development." It cannot be doubted
that the former description is that which would apply to Taylor himself,
and probably with more force than to almost any of his contemporaries.


     The American Art Review, Nos. 8 and 9. Boston: Estes & Lauriat.

These two numbers of the _Art Review_ contain some critical writing of a
really high order in a couple of papers by Mrs. M. G. Van Rensselaer,
entitled "Artist and Amateur." They present an earnest plea for the
pursuit of culture for its own sake in this country. Taking "culture" in
the true sense of the word, as the opening and development of all the
faculties, a positive and electric not a negative and apathetic force,
Mrs. Van Rensselaer points out that it is not the natural birthright of
a select few, but is to be won by none without hard endeavor. The
endeavor, the intelligence and, to a certain extent, the desire for
culture, already exist here, but are constantly misapplied, and this, as
Mrs. Van Rensselaer aims to prove, through a misconception of the
relative positions of artist and amateur. All instruction is directed
toward execution, which is the artist's province, instead of
understanding and appreciation, which are the gifts of culture. The
effort to make the execution keep pace with the teaching confines the
latter, for the majority of learners, to the lowest mechanical rules,
leaving intellectual cultivation altogether to artists. Mrs. Van
Rensselaer argues that the time and money spent by young ladies of
slender talent in learning to paint pottery would, if given to study of
the principles of technique and of the history and aims of art, leave
them with more trained perceptions, an intelligent delight in works of
art and a wider intellectual range. She does not confine the application
of her ideas to painting, but extends it to other arts, making the aim
in music the substitution of appreciative listeners for mediocre
performers. Another interesting article, which the two numbers before us
divide between them, is one on Elihu Vedder by Mr. W. H. Bishop. It does
not force any very definite conclusions upon the reader, but it gives
him some idea of the career of this much talked-of painter, and is
finely illustrated with an etching of _The Sea-Serpent_ by Mr. Shoff, an
unusually strong full-page engraving of _The Sleeping Girl_ by Mr.
Linton, and a very tender and beautiful little cut by Mr. Kruell of _The
Venetian Model_.




_Books Received._


The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. By Edward
Gibbon. With Notes by Dean Milman, M. Guizot and Dr. William Smith. 6
vols. New York: Harper & Brothers.

Health and Healthy Homes. By George Wilson, M. A., M. D. With Notes and
Additions by J. G. Richardson, M. D. Philadelphia: Presley Blakiston.

A Model Superintendent: A Sketch of the Life, Character and Methods of
Work of Henry P. Haven. By H. Clay Trumbull. New York: Harper &
Brothers.

Monsieur Lecoq. From the French of Émile Gaboriau. Boston: Estes &
Lauriat.