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                          MODERN SHORT STORIES

                        A BOOK FOR HIGH SCHOOLS




                   EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES

                                   BY

                       FREDERICK HOUK LAW, Ph.D.

        Lecturer in English in New York University, and Head of
              the Department of English in the Stuyvesant
                       High School, New York City



                            Publisher’s Logo




                                NEW YORK
                            THE CENTURY CO.
                                  1921


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                          Copyright, 1918, by
                            THE CENTURY CO.




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                                PREFACE


For many years high school teachers have wished for books of short
stories edited for high school use. They have known that most novels,
however interesting, are too long to hold attention, and that too few
novels can be read to give proper appreciation of form in narration. The
essay, as seen in _The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers_, and in Irving’s
_Sketch Book_, has been a poor substitute for the short story. High
school students have longed for action, for quickness, for life, for
climax, for something new and modern. Instead, they have had hundreds of
pages, long expositions, descriptions, leisurely treatment, and material
drawn from the past. They have read such material because they must, and
have turned, for relief, to short stories in the cheaper magazines.

The short story is to-day our most common literary product. It is read
by everyone. Not every boy or girl will read novels after leaving
school, but every boy or girl is certain to read short stories. It is
important in the high school to guide taste and appreciation in short
story reading, so that the reading of days when school life is over will
be healthful and upbuilding. This important duty has been recognized in
all the most recent suggestions for high school reading. The short story
is just beginning to take its important place in the high school course.
To make use of a book of short stories in high school work is to fall in
line with the most modern developments in the teaching of literature in
the high school.

Most collections of short stories that have been prepared, for school
use, up to the present, are more or less alike in drawing much of their
material from the past. Authors and content alike are dead. Here is a
collection that is entirely modern. The authors represented are among
the leading authors of the day, the stories are principally stories of
present-day life, the themes are themes of present-day thought. The
students who read this book will be more awake to the present, and will
be better citizens of to-day.

The great number of stories presented has given opportunity to
illustrate different types of short story writing. What could not be
done by the class study of many novels may be accomplished by the study
of the different stories in this book. The student will gain a knowledge
of types, of ways of construction, of style, that he could not gain
otherwise except by long-continued study. Class study of the short story
leads inevitably to keen appreciation of artistic effects in fiction.

The introductory material, biographies, explanations, and notes, have
been made purely for high school students, in order to help those who
may have read comparatively little, so that,—instead of being turned
aside forever by a dry-as-dust treatment,—they may wish to proceed
further in their study.

It is always pure delight to teach the short story to high school
classes, but it is even more delightful when the material is especially
fitted for high school work. This book, we hope, will aid both teachers
and pupils to come upon many happy hours in the class room.

The editor acknowledges, with thanks, the kindly permissions to use
copyright material that have been granted by the various authors and
publishers. Complete acknowledgments appear in the table of contents.


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                                CONTENTS


                                                       PAGE
             PREFACE                                    iii
             INTRODUCTION

                 I Our National Reading                 vii

                II The Definition                       vii

               III The Family Tree of the Short Story    ix

                IV A Good Story                          xi

                 V What Shall I Do with This Book?     xiii

                VI Where to Find Some Good Short         xv
                     Stories

               VII Some Interesting Short Stories       xvi

              VIII What to Read about the Short Story   xix

             THE ADVENTURES OF SIMON AND SUSANNA  —       3
               _Joel Chandler Harris_ From “Daddy
               Jake and the Runaways.”

             THE CROW-CHILD  — _Mary Mapes Dodge_         9
               From “The Land of Pluck.”

             THE SOUL OF THE GREAT BELL — _Lafcadio      17
               Hearn_ From “Some Chinese Ghosts.”

             THE TEN TRAILS — _Ernest Thompson Seton_    22
               From “Woodmyth and Fable.”

             WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO —          23
               _Count Leo Tolstoi_ From “Tales and
               Parables.”

             WOOD-LADIES — _Perceval Gibbon_ From        38
               “Scribner’s Magazine.”

             ON THE FEVER SHIP — _Richard Harding        53
               Davis_ From “The Lion and the
               Unicorn.”

             A SOURCE OF IRRITATION — _Stacy             69
               Aumonier_ From “The Century Magazine.”

             MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER — _Rudyard Kipling_       84
               From “Plain Tales from the Hills.”

             GULLIVER THE GREAT — _Walter A. Dyer_       92
               From “Gulliver the Great and Other
               Stories.”

             SONNY’S SCHOOLIN’ — _Ruth McEnery          105
               Stuart_ From “Sonny, a Christmas
               Guest.”

             HER FIRST HORSE SHOW — _David Gray_ From   117
               “Gallops 2.”

             MY HUSBAND’S BOOK — _James Matthew         135
               Barrie_ From “Two of Them.”

             WAR — _Jack London_ From “The              141
               Night-Born.”

             THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS — _Morgan       147
               Robertson_ From “Where Angels Fear to
               Tread.”

             A DILEMMA — _S. Weir Mitchell_ From        160
               “Little Stories.”

             THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE — _A. Conan Doyle_   166
               From “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”

             ONE HUNDRED IN THE DARK — _Owen Johnson_   192
               From “Murder in Any Degree.”

             A RETRIEVED REFORMATION — _O. Henry_       212
               From “Roads of Destiny.”

             BROTHER LEO — _Phyllis Bottome_ From       221
               “The Derelict and Other Stories.”

             A FIGHT WITH DEATH —  _Ian Maclaren_       238
               From “Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush.”

             THE DÀN-NAN-RÒN — _Fiona Macleod_ From     248
               “The Dominion of Dreams, Under the
               Dark Star.”

             NOTES AND COMMENTS                         275

             SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR CLASS USE         296


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                              INTRODUCTION


                                   I

                          OUR NATIONAL READING

Is there anyone who has not read a short story? Is there anyone who has
not stopped at a news-stand to buy a short-story magazine? Is there
anyone who has not drawn a volume of short stories from the library, or
bought one at the book-store? Short stories are everywhere. There are
bed-time stories and fairy stories for little children; athletic
stories, adventure stories, and cheerful good-time stories for boys and
girls; humorous stories for those who like to laugh, and serious stories
for those who like to think. The World and his Wife still say, “Tell me
a story,” just as they did a thousand years ago. Our printing presses
have fairly roared an answer, and, at this moment, are busy printing
short stories. Even the newspapers, hardly able to find room for news
and for advertisements, often give space to re-printing short stories.
Our people are so fond of soda water that some one has laughingly called
it our national drink. Our people of every class, young and old, are so
fond of short stories that, with an equal degree of truth, we may call
the short story our national reading.


                                   II

                             THE DEFINITION

The short story and the railroad are about equally old,—or, rather,
equally new, for both were perfected in distinctly recent times. The
railroad is the modern development of older ways of moving people and
goods from one place to another,—of litters, carts, and wagons. The
short story is the modern development of older ways of telling what
actually had happened, or might happen, or what might be imagined to
happen,—of tales, fables, anecdotes, and character studies. A great
number of men led the way to the locomotive, but it remained for the
nineteenth century, in the person of George Stephenson, to perfect it.
In like manner, many authors led the way to the short story of to-day,
but it remained for the nineteenth century, and particularly for Edgar
Allan Poe, to perfect it, and give it definition.

Before Poe’s time the short story had sometimes been written well, and
sometimes poorly. It had often been of too great length, wandering, and
without point. Poe wrote stories that are different from many earlier
stories in that they are all comparatively short. Another difference is
that Poe’s stories do not wander, producing now one effect, and now
another. Like a Roman road, every one goes straight to the point that
the maker had in mind at the beginning, and produces one single effect.
In the older stories the writers often turned from the principal subject
to introduce other matter. Poe excluded everything,—no matter how
interesting,—that did not lead directly to the effect he wished to
produce. The earlier stories often ended inconclusively. The reader felt
that more might be said, or that some other ending might be possible.
Poe tried to write so that the story should be absolutely complete, and
its ending the one necessary ending, with no other ending even to be
thought of. With it all, he tried to write so that,—no matter how
improbable the story really might be,—it should, at least, seem entirely
probable,—as real as though it had actually happened.

In general, Poe’s definition of the short story still holds true. There
are many kinds of stories to-day,—just as there are many kinds of
engines,—but the great fundamental principles hold true in both. We may
still define the modern short story as:


  1. A narrative that is short enough to be read easily at a single
    sitting;

  2. That is written to produce a single impression on the mind of the
    reader;

  3. That excludes everything that does not lead to that single
    impression;

  4. That is complete and final in itself;

  5. That has every indication of reality.


                                  III

                   THE FAMILY TREE OF THE SHORT STORY

  Everyone knows his father and mother. Very few, except those of noble
  descent, know even the names of their great-great grandparents. As if
  of the noblest, even of royal descent, the short story knows its
  family tree. Its ancestry, like that of the American people, goes back
  to Europe; draws strength from many races, and finally loses itself
  somewhere in the prehistoric East,—in ancient Greece, India, or Egypt.

  In the royal galleries kings look at pictures of their great
  ancestors, and somewhat realize remote the past. Many of the ancestors
  of the short story still live. They drank of the fountain of youth,
  and are as strong and full of life as ever. Such immortal ancestors of
  the short story of to-day are _The Story of Polyphemus_ (ninth
  century, B.C.), _The Story of Pandora and her Box_ (ninth century,
  B.C.), _The Book of Esther_ (second century, B.C.), _The City Mouse
  and the Country Mouse_ (first century, B.C.), and _The Fables of Æsop_
  (third century, A. D.). There are still existing many Egyptian short
  stories, some of which are of the most remote antiquity, the _Tales of
  the Magicians_ going back to 4000 B.C.

  All the stories just named,—and many others equally familiar, drawn
  from every ancient land,—affected the short story in English.

  In the earliest days in England, in the fifth and in a few succeeding
  centuries, the priests made collections of short stories from which
  they could select illustrative material for the instruction of their
  hearers. They drew many such stories from Latin, which, in turn, had
  drawn them from still more ancient sources. Then, or a little later,
  came folk stories, romantic stories of adventure, and other stories
  for mere amusement.

  In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the Italians became very
  skilful in telling short stories, or “novelle.” Their “new” tales had
  a lasting effect on short story telling in English.

  Chaucer’s _Canterbury Tales_, in the fourteenth century, although in
  verse, told in a most delightfully realistic way all kinds of stories
  from all kinds of sources, particularly from the literatures of Italy
  and of France. Chaucer told his stories so remarkably well, with such
  humor and reality, that he is one of the great forces in the history
  of the short story in English.

  In the sixteenth century stories from France, Spain, and other lands,
  also gave new incentives to the development of the short story in
  English.

  In the eighteenth century Addison’s _Spectator_ published very short
  realistic narratives that often presented closely drawn character
  studies. These are hardly to be called short stories, but they
  influenced the short story form.

  About the beginning of the nineteenth century, partly because of
  German influence, it became the fashion to write stories of mystery
  and horror, such as many of those by Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe.
  Irving softened such stories by the touch of realistic humor;
  Hawthorne gave them artistic form and nobility; Poe developed the full
  value of the short story as a literary type, and pointed out the five
  principles named above. The genius of these men led the way to the
  modern short story.

  Since their time the short story has moved on in its development,
  including every kind of subject, tending to speak more and more
  realistically of persons and places, but not losing its romantic
  nature. Popular short stories of to-day are closely localized, and are
  frequently quick, incisive, and emphatic.

  to-day there are all kinds of short stories,—folk-lore tales, local
  color stories, animal stories, humorous stories, stories of society,
  of satire, of science, of character, of atmosphere, and scores of
  other types, all virile, interesting, and profitable.

  However well-dressed the modern short story may be in form and style,
  it is worth little, unless, like its immortal ancestors, it has the
  soul of goodness, truth, and beauty, and does something to reveal
  nobility in the life of man.


                                   IV

                              A GOOD STORY

  With houses and stories it is much the same. As any one may build a
  hut, so any one may compose a short story. In both cases the materials
  may be common and cheap, and the construction careless. The one may
  give shelter from the storm, and the other may hold attention for a
  moment. Neither may be worth much. Somewhat better are the ordinary
  house, and the ordinary story. Both are good, and fairly well
  constructed, but the material is frequently commonplace, and the
  general characteristics ordinary. To lift either a house or a story
  out of the ordinary there must be fine material, artistic workmanship,
  close and tender association with life,—something beautiful, or good,
  or true. For the highest beauty there is need of something other than
  obedience to rule in construction. Any architect can tell how to build
  a beautiful house, but there is a fine beauty no mere architect can
  give, a beauty that comes with years, or the close touch of human joys
  and sorrows. It is the same with stories. We can not analyze the finer
  quality, but we can, at least, tell some of the characteristics that
  make short stories good.

  As Poe said, the best short story is short enough to be read at a
  sitting, so that it produces a single effect. It includes nothing that
  does not lead to that effect, and it produces the effect as inevitably
  as an arrow flies to its mark. The ending is necessary, the one
  solution to which everything has moved from the beginning. In some way
  the story is close to life, and is so realistically told that the
  reader is drawn into its magic, and half believes it real.

  It has a combination of plot and characters,—the nature of the
  characters making the action, and the action affecting the persons
  involved.

  Without action of some sort there would, of course, be no story, but
  the action,—usually built up of two opposing forces,—must be woven
  into plot, that is, into a combination of events that lead to a
  definite result, perhaps not known at first by the reader, but known
  from the beginning by the author. The plot is somewhat simple, for the
  story is too short to allow of much complexity. The action and the
  characters are based on some experience, imaginary or otherwise, and
  are honestly presented. In the best short story there is no pronounced
  artificiality or posing.

  There is always a certain harmony of content, so that plot and
  characters work together naturally, every detail strictly in keeping
  with the nature of the story.

  The best story has an underlying idea,—not necessarily a moral,—a
  thought or theme, very often concerned with ideals of conduct, that
  can be expressed in a sentence.

  Closely associated with everything is an indefinable something, that
  rises from the story somewhat as the odor of sandalwood rises from an
  oriental box, a sort of fragrance, or charm, a deeply appealing
  characteristic that we call “atmosphere.”

  Some stories may emphasize one point, and others another,—the plot,
  the characters, the setting, the theme, or the atmosphere. As they
  vary thus they reveal new lights, colors, and effects.

  Still more do they vary in the charm that comes from apt choice of
  words, and originality or beauty of phrasing.

  Altogether, the best short story is truly an artistic product. The old
  violins made in Cremona by Antonius Stradivarius have such perfect
  harmony of material and form, and were made with such loving skill,
  that they are vibrant with tenderly beautiful over-tones. So the best
  short story is perfectly harmonious in every part, is made from chosen
  material, is put together with sympathetic care, and is rich with the
  over-tones of love, and laughter, and sorrow.


                                   V

                    WHAT SHALL I DO WITH THIS BOOK?

  Here is a book of more than twenty excellent short stories, not one of
  which was written with the slightest thought that any one would ever
  wish to study it as part of school work. Every story was written (1)
  because its author had a story to tell, (2) because he had a definite
  aim in telling the story, (3) because he felt that by certain methods
  of form and style he could interest and delight his readers. The
  magician opens his box, and holds the ring of spectators enthralled.
  Here is no place for study. One must simply stand in the circle, and
  look, and wonder, enjoy to his utmost, and applaud the entertainer
  when he makes his final bow. But the spectator is always privileged to
  look, not only idly but also as sharply as he pleases. So the reader
  is entitled to notice in every case the three reasons for writing the
  story.

  The best way, then, to study this book is not to “study” it. It is not
  a geography, nor a book of rules, nor any kind of book to be
  memorized. It is a book to be read with an appreciative mind and a
  sympathetic heart. Read the stories one by one in the order in which
  they are printed. Read with the expectation of having a good
  time,—that is what every author intended you to have. But keep your
  eyes open. Make sure you really know the story the author is telling.
  One way of testing your understanding is to tell the story in a very
  few words, either orally or in writing, so that some friend, who has
  not read it, may know the bare story, and know it clearly. If you find
  yourself confused, or if you lose yourself in details and can not tell
  the story briefly, you have not found the story the author has to
  tell.

  A second test is to tell in one sentence, or in one very short
  paragraph, exactly what purpose the writer had in telling the story.
  This will be more difficult but it will need little thought if you
  really have understood and appreciated the story. Do not make the
  mistake of thinking that a purpose must be a moral. A man who makes a
  chair, a clown in a circus, an artist, a violinist, a boy playing a
  game,—all have purposes in what they do, but the purpose is not
  primarily moral. If you are puzzled in finding the purpose of the
  story you should look the story over until its purpose flashes upon
  you.

  Thirdly, you should see if you can put into four or five unconnected
  sentences, either oral or written, the methods of form and style by
  which the author has interested you, and pleased you. These methods
  will include means of awakening interest, means of presenting the
  action, preparation for the climax, way of telling the climax, and way
  of ending the story. They will also include choice of words, use of
  language effects, and the means of producing atmosphere in the story.

  If it happens that there are words that are not familiar, look them up
  in the dictionary. You can not hope to understand a story until you
  understand its language.

  A good way to test your appreciation of story telling as an art,—and
  to help you to appreciate even more keenly,—is to write short stories
  of your own. Try, in every case, to imitate some method employed in a
  particular story by a well-known author. Do not imitate too much. Be
  original. Be yourself. If some of our best short story writers had
  done nothing but imitate they would never have succeeded. Make your
  short stories different from those by anyone else in your class. Write
  your story in such a way that no one will draw pictures, or look out
  of the window, or whisper to his neighbor, when it comes your turn to
  read. There are three ways to bring that about:


    1. Write about something that you, and your class, know about, and
      like to hear about.

    2. Think of a good, emphatic, or surprising climax, and then make a
      plot that will lead to the climax with absolute certainty.

    3. Tell your story in a way that will be different from the way
      employed by any of your classmates.


    In general, the stories in this book are to be read and enjoyed,
    worked over, and talked about, in a simple manner, as one might
    discuss stories at a reading club. To treat the stories in any other
    way would be to make displeasing work out of what should be pure
    pleasure.

    In the back of the book is a small amount of biographical and
    explanatory material, such as a friendly teacher might tell to his
    class. There are also a few questions that will help you to
    appreciate and enjoy the best effects in every story. The notes have
    been given merely for reference, as if they were contained in a sort
    of handy encyclopedia. They are not for hard, systematic study.

    A class studying this book should forget that it is a class in
    school, and resolve itself into a reading club, whose
    object,—written in its constitution, in capital letters,—is pure
    enjoyment of all that is best in short stories, and in short story
    telling.


                                   VI

                 WHERE TO FIND SOME GOOD SHORT STORIES


               Baldwin, Charles     American Short
                 Sears                Stories

               Cody, Sherwin        The World’s Best
                                      Short Stories

               Dawson, W. J. and C. Great English Short
                 W.                   Story Writers

               Esenwein, Joseph     Short Story
                 Berg                 Masterpieces

               Firkins, I. T. E.    Index to Short
                                      Stories

               Hawthorne, Julian    Library of the
                                      World’s Best
                                      Mystery and
                                      Detective Stories

               Jessup, Alexander    Little French
                                      Masterpieces

               Jessup, A. and       The Book of the
                 Canby, H. S.         Short Story

               Matthews, Brander    The Short Story

               Patten, William      Great Short Stories

               Patten, William      Short Story Classics

               Charles Scribner’s   Stories by American
                 Sons                 Authors

               Charles Scribner’s   Stories by English
                 Sons                 Authors

               Charles Scribner’s   Stories by Foreign
                 Sons                 Authors


                                  VII

                     SOME INTERESTING SHORT STORIES

    R. H. Davis: The Bar Sinister; Washington Irving: The Rose of the
    Alhambra; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Rip Van Winkle; The Three
    Beautiful Princesses; Rudyard Kipling: Garm, A Hostage; The Arabian
    Nights: Aladdin; Ali Baba; Annie Trumbull Slosson: Butterneggs; Ruth
    McEnery Stuart: Sonny’s Diploma; Frederick Remington: How Order No.
    6 Went Through; Mark Twain: The Jumping Frog; Henry Van Dyke: The
    First Christmas Tree.

    H. C. Andersen: The Ugly Duckling; Grimm Brothers: Little Briar
    Rose; Rudyard Kipling: Mowgli’s Brothers; Toomai of the Elephants;
    Her Majesty’s Servants; Æsop: The Country Mouse and the City Mouse;
    Joel Chandler Harris: The Wonderful Tar Baby Story; How Black Snake
    Caught the Wolf; Brother Mud Turtle’s Trickery; A French Tar Baby;
    George Ade: The Preacher Who Flew His Kite.

    Henry Van Dyke: The Other Wise Man; Nathaniel Hawthorne: Rapaccini’s
    Daughter; David Swan; The Snow Image; The Great Stone Face; Lady
    Eleanor’s Mantle; The Minister’s Black Veil; The Birth Mark; E. A.
    Poe: William Wilson; Rudyard Kipling: The Ship that Found Herself;
    Henry James: The Madonna of the Future; R. L. Stevenson: Will o’ the
    Mill; Joseph Addison: The Vision of Mirza.

    Howard Pyle: The Ruby of Kishmore; Rudyard Kipling: The Man Who
    Would Be King; Drums of the Fore and Aft; Tiger, Tiger; Kaa’s
    Hunting; R. H. Davis: Gallegher; Van Bibber’s Burglar; R. L.
    Stevenson: The Sire de Maletroit’s Door; Joseph Conrad: Youth; E. A.
    Poe: The Pit and the Pendulum; F. R. Stockton: My Terminal Moraine;
    Jesse Lynch Williams: The Stolen Story.

    Henry Van Dyke: Messengers at the Window; M. R. S. Andrews: A
    Messenger; Bulwer Lytton: The Haunted and the Haunters; FitzJames
    O’Brien: The Diamond Lens; What Was It?; M. E. Wilkins Freeman:
    Shadows on the Wall; R. W. Chambers: The Tree of Heaven; Marion
    Crawford: The Upper Berth; H. W. Jacobs: The Monkey’s Paw; Rudyard
    Kipling: At the End of the Passage; The Brushwood Boy; They; Prosper
    Merimee: The Venus of Ille.

    E. A. Poe: The Gold Bug; The Purloined Letter; Conan Doyle: The
    Dancing Men; the Speckled Band; Henry Van Dyke: The Night Call;
    FitzJames O’Brien: The Golden Ingot; Anton Chekhoff: The Safety
    Match; R. L. Stevenson: The Pavillion on the Links; Egerton Castle:
    The Baron’s Quarry; Wilkie Collins: The Dream Woman; Rudyard
    Kipling: The Sending of Dana Da.

    G. B. McCutcheon: The Day of the Dog; H. C. Bunner: The Love Letters
    of Smith; A Sisterly Scheme; O. Henry: The Ransom of Red Chief;
    While the Auto Waits; Samuel Minturn Peck: The Trouble at St. James;
    T. B. Aldrich: Goliath; R. M. S. Andrews: A Good Samaritan; The
    Grandfathers of Bob; E. P. Butler: Pigs is Pigs; Josephine Dodge
    Daskam: Edgar, the Choir Boy Uncelestial; T. A. Janvier: The Passing
    of Thomas; Myra Kelly: A Christmas Present for a Lady; Ruth McEnery
    Stuart: The Woman’s Exchange of Simpkinsville.

    F. Hopkinson Smith: The Veiled Lady of Stamboul; Stuart Edward
    White: The Life of the Winds of Heaven; T. B. Aldrich: Père
    Antoine’s Date Palm; Booth Tarkington: Monsieur Beaucaire; R. H.
    Davis: The Princess Aline; Alice Brown: A Map of the Country; M. R.
    S. Andrews: The Bishop’s Silence; Honoré de Balzac: A Passion in the
    Desert; Nathaniel Hawthorne: The White Old Maid.

    Irvin Cobb: Up Clay Street; M. E. Wilkins Freeman: The Revolt of
    Mother; A Humble Romance; Prosper Merimee: Mateo Falcone; Alphonse
    Daudet: The Last Class; G. W. Cable: Belles Demoiselles Plantation;
    Bret Harte: The Luck of Roaring Camp; Ruth McEnery Stuart: The
    Widder Johnsing; Owen Wister: Specimen Jones; T. A. Janvier: The
    Sage Brush Hen.

    T. B. Aldrich: Marjory Daw; Mademoiselle Olimpe Zabriskie; Miss
    Mehetabel’s Son; O. Henry: The Gift of the Magi; The Cop and the
    Anthem; The Whirligig of Life; Guy de Maupassant: The Diamond
    Necklace; F. R. Stockton: The Lady or the Tiger; John Fox, Jr.: The
    Purple Rhododendron; R. W. Chambers: A Young Man in a Hurry; E. A.
    Poe: Three Sundays in a Week; Ambrose Bierce: The Man and the Snake;
    FitzJames O’Brien: The Bohemian; Frank Norris: A Deal in Wheat.

    Mark Twain: A Dog’s Tale; W. D. Howells: Editha; E. T. Seton: The
    Biography of a Grizzly; Brander Matthews: The Story of a Story;
    Björnstjerne Björnson: The Father; Nathaniel Hawthorne: The
    Ambitious Guest; Jacob A. Riis: The Burgomaster’s Christmas; Charles
    Dickens: A Christmas Carol; Henry Van Dyke: The Mansion; E. E. Hale:
    The Man Without a Country.

    M. R. S. Andrews: The Perfect Tribute; François Coppee: The
    Substitute; J. B. Connolly: Sonny Boy’s People; S. O. Jewett: The
    Queen’s Twin; James Lane Allen: King Solomon of Kentucky; Bret
    Harte: Tennessee’s Partner; Jack London: The God of His Fathers;
    John Galsworthy: Quality.

    Thomas Nelson Page: Marse Chan; Meh Lady; R. L. Stevenson: The Merry
    Men; E. A. Poe: The Masque of the Red Death; The Fall of the House
    of Usher; Irvin Cobb: White and Black; F. J. Stimson: Mrs. Knollys;
    John Fox, Jr.: Christmas Eve on Lonesome; H. G. Dwight: In the
    Pasha’s Garden; Honoré de Balzac: An Episode Under the Terror; Jack
    London: Thanksgiving on Slav Creek; Charles Lamb: Dream Children; H.
    C. Brunner: Our Aromatic Uncle.

    Bret Harte: The Outcasts of Poker Flat; R. L. Stevenson: Markheim;
    Guy de Maupassant: A Piece of String; A Coward; E. A. Poe: The Cask
    of Amontillado; Edith Wharton: The Bolted Door; A Journey; Henry Van
    Dyke: A Lover of Music; S. R. Crockett: Elsie’s Dance for Her Life;
    Jack London: The White Silence.


                                  VIII

                   WHAT TO READ ABOUT THE SHORT STORY


          Albright, Evelyn May      The Short Story, its
                                      Principles and
                                      Structure

          Barrett, Charles R.       Short Story Writing

          Buck, Gertrude, and       A Course in Narrative
            Morris, Elizabeth         Writing
            Woodbridge

          Canby, Henry Seidel       The Short Story in
                                      English

          Cody, Sherwin             Story Writing and
                                      Journalism

          Dye, Charity              The Story Teller’s Art

          Esenwein, Joseph Berg     Writing the Short Story

          Hamilton, Clayton         Materials and Methods of
                                      Fiction

          Matthews, Brander         The Philosophy of the
                                      Short Story

          Perry, Bliss              A Study of Prose Fiction

          Pitkin, Walter B.         Short Story Writing

          Wells, Carolyn            The Technique of the
                                      Mystery Story


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            MODERN SHORT STORIES




------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                    THE
                             MODERN SHORT STORY




                 THE ADVENTURES OF SIMON AND SUSANNA[1]
                        By JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS


Footnote 1:

      It may be of interest to those who approach Folk-Lore stories from
      the scientific side, to know that this story was told to one of my
      little boys three years ago by a negro named John Holder. I have
      since found a variant (or perhaps the original) in Theal’s “Kaffir
      Folk-Lore.”

                                             Joel Chandler Harris, 1889.

    “I got one tale on my min’,” said Uncle Remus to the little boy one
    night. “I got one tale on my min’ dat I ain’t ne’er tell you; I
    dunner how come; I speck it des kaze I git mixt up in my idees. Deze
    is busy times, mon, en de mo’ you does de mo’ you hatter do, en w’en
    dat de case, it ain’t ter be ’spected dat one ole broke-down nigger
    kin ’member ’bout eve’ything.”

    “What is the story, Uncle Remus?” the little boy asked.

    “Well, honey,” said the old man, wiping his spectacles, “hit sorter
    run dis away: One time dey wuz a man w’at had a mighty likely
    daughter.”

    “Was he a white man or a black man?” the little boy asked.

    “I ’clar’ ter gracious, honey!” exclaimed the old man, “you er
    pushin’ me mos’ too close. Fer all I kin tell you, de man mout er
    bin ez w’ite ez de driven snow, er he mout er bin de blackes’
    Affi’kin er de whole kit en bilin’. I’m des tellin’ you de tale, en
    you kin take en take de man en whitewash ’im, or you kin black ’im
    up des ez you please. Dat’s de way I looks at it.

    “Well, one time dey wuz a man, en dish yer man he had a mighty
    likely daughter. She wuz so purty dat she had mo’ beaus dan w’at you
    got fingers en toes. But de gal daddy, he got his spishuns ’bout all
    un um, en he won’t let um come ’roun’ de house. But dey kep’ on
    pesterin’ ’im so, dat bimeby he give word out dat de man w’at kin
    clear up six acres er lan’ en roll up de logs, en pile up de bresh
    in one day, dat man kin marry his daughter.

    “In co’se, dis look like it unpossible, en all de beaus drap off
    ’ceppin’ one, en he wuz a great big strappin’ chap w’at look like he
    kin knock a steer down. Dis chap he wuz name Simon, en de gal, she
    wuz name Susanna. Simon, he love Susanna, en Susanna, she love
    Simon, en dar it went.

    “Well, sir, Simon, he went ter de gal daddy, he did, en he say dat
    ef anybody kin clear up dat lan’, he de one kin do it, least’ways he
    say he gwine try mighty hard. De ole man, he grin en rub his han’s
    terge’er, he did, en tole Simon ter start in in de mornin’. Susanna,
    she makes out she wuz fixin’ sumpin in de cubberd, but she tuck ’n
    kiss ’er han’ at Simon, en nod ’er head. Dis all Simon want, en he
    went out er dar des ez happy ez a jay-bird atter he done robbed a
    sparrer-nes’.

    “Now, den,” Uncle Remus continued, settling himself more comfortably
    in his chair, “dish yer man wuz a witch.”

    “Why, I thought a witch was a woman,” said the little boy.

    The old man frowned and looked into the fire.

    “Well, sir,” he remarked with some emphasis, “ef you er gwine ter
    tu’n de man into a ’oman, den dey won’t be no tale, kaze dey’s
    bleege ter be a man right dar whar I put dis un. Hit’s des like I
    tole you ’bout de color er de man. Black ’im er whitewash ’im des ez
    you please, en ef you want ter put a frock on ’im ter boot, hit
    ain’t none er my business; but I’m gwine ter ’low he wuz a man ef
    it’s de las’ ac’.”

    The little boy remained silent, and Uncle Remus went on:

    “Now, den, dish yer man was a witch. He could cunjer folks, mo’
    ’speshually dem folks w’at ain’t got no rabbit foot. He bin at his
    cunjerments so long, dat Susanna done learn mos’ all his tricks. So
    de nex’ mornin’ w’en Simon come by de house fer ter borry de ax,
    Susanna she run en got it fer ’im. She got it, she did, en den she
    sprinkles some black san’ on it, en say, ‘Ax, cut; cut, ax.’ Den she
    rub ’er ha’r ’cross it, en give it ter Simon. He tuck de ax, he did,
    en den Susanna say:

    “‘Go down by de branch, git sev’n w’ite pebbles, put um in dis
    little cloth bag, en whenever you want the ax ter cut, shake um up.’

    “Simon, he went off in de woods, en started in ter clearin’ up de
    six acres. Well, sir, dem pebbles en dat ax, dey done de work—dey
    did dat. Simon could ’a’ bin done by de time de dinner-horn blowed,
    but he hung back kaze he ain’t want de man fer ter know dat he doin’
    it by cunjerments.

    “W’en he shuck de pebbles de ax ’ud cut, en de trees ’ud fall, en de
    lim’s ’ud drap off, en de logs ’ud roll up terge’er, en de bresh ’ud
    pile itself up. Hit went on dis away twel by de time it wuz two
    hours b’ sun, de whole six acres wuz done cleaned up.

    “’Bout dat time de man come ’roun’, he did, fer ter see how de work
    gittin’ on, en, mon! he wuz ’stonish’. He ain’t know w’at ter do er
    say. He ain’t want ter give up his daughter, en yit he ain’t know
    how ter git out ’n it. He walk ’roun’ en ’roun’, en study, en study,
    en study how he gwine rue de bargain. At las’ he walk up ter Simon,
    he did, en he say:

    “‘Look like you sort er forehanded wid your work.’

    “Simon, he ’low: ‘Yasser, w’en I starts in on a job I’m mighty
    restless twel I gits it done. Some er dis timber is rough en tough,
    but I bin had wuss jobs dan dis in my time.’

    “De man say ter hisse’f: ‘W’at kind er folks is dis chap?’

    Den he say out loud: ‘Well, sence you er so spry, dey’s two mo’
    acres ’cross de branch dar. Ef you’ll clear dem up ’fo’ supper you
    kin come up ter de house en git de gal.’

    “Simon sorter scratch his head, kaze he dunner whedder de pebbles
    gwine ter hol’ out, yit he put on a bol’ front en he tell de man dat
    he’ll go ’cross dar en clean up de two acres soon ez he res’ a
    little.

    “De man he went off home, en soon’s he git out er sight, Simon went
    ’cross de branch en shook de pebbles at de two acres er woods, en ’t
    want no time skacely ’fo’ de trees wuz all cut down en pile up.

    “De man, he went home, he did, en call up Susanna, en say:

    “‘Daughter, dat man look like he gwine git you, sho’.’

    “Susanna, she hang ’er head, en look like she fretted, en den she
    say she don’t keer nuthin’ fer Simon, nohow.”

    “Why, I thought she wanted to marry him,” said the little boy.

    “Well, honey, w’en you git growed up, en git whiskers on yo’ chin,
    en den atter de whiskers git gray like mine, you’ll fin’ out sump’n
    ’n’er ’bout de wimmin folks. Dey ain’t ne’er say ’zackly w’at dey
    mean, none er um, mo’ ’speshually w’en dey er gwine on ’bout gittin’
    married.

    “Now, dar wuz dat gal Susanna what I’m a-tellin’ you ’bout. She
    mighty nigh ’stracted ’bout Simon, en yit she make ’er daddy b’lieve
    dat she ’spize ’im. I ain’t blamin’ Susanna,” Uncle Remus went on
    with a judicial air, “kase she know dat ’er daddy wuz a witch en a
    mighty mean one in de bargain.

    “Well, atter Susanna done make ’er daddy b’lieve dat she ain’t
    keerin’ nothin’ ’t all ’bout Simon, he ’gun ter set his traps en fix
    his tricks. He up ’n tell Susanna dat atter ’er en Simon git married
    dey mus’ go upsta’rs in de front room, en den he tell ’er dat she
    mus’ make Simon go ter bed fus’. Den de man went upsta’rs en tuck ’n
    tuck all de slats out’n de bedstid ceppin one at de head en one at
    de foot. Atter dat he tuck ’n put some foot-valances ’roun’ de
    bottom er de bed—des like dem w’at you bin see on yo’ gran’ma bed.
    Den he tuck ’n sawed out de floor und’ de bed, en dar wuz de trap
    all ready.

    “Well, sir, Simon come up ter de house, en de man make like he
    mighty glad fer ter see ’im, but Susanna, she look like she mighty
    shy. No matter ’bout dat; atter supper Simon en Susanna got married.
    Hit ain’t in de tale wedder dey sont fer a preacher er wedder dey
    wuz a squire browsin’ ’roun’ in de neighborhoods, but dey had cake
    wid reezins in it, en some er dish yer silly-bug w’at got mo’ foam
    in it dan dey is dram, en dey had a mighty happy time.

[Illustration:

  Simon shakes the pebbles
]

    “W’en bedtime come, Simon en Susanna went upsta’rs, en w’en dey got
    in de room, Susanna kotch ’im by de han’, en helt up her finger. Den
    she whisper en tell ’im dat ef dey don’t run away fum dar dey bofe
    gwine ter be kilt. Simon ax ’er how come, en she say dat ’er daddy
    want ter kill ’im kase he sech a nice man. Dis make Simon grin; yit
    he wuz sorter restless ’bout gittin’ ’way fum dar. But Susanna, she
    say wait. She say:

    “‘Pick up yo’ hat en button up yo’ coat. Now, den, take dat stick er
    wood dar en hol’ it ’bove yo’ head.’

    “W’iles he stan’in’ dar, Susanna got a hen egg out’n a basket, den
    she got a meal-bag, en a skillet. She ’low:

    “‘Now, den, drap de wood on de bed.’

    “Simon done des like she say, en time de wood struck de bed de tick
    en de mattruss went a-tumblin’ thoo de floor. Den Susanna tuck Simon
    by de han’ en dey run out de back way ez hard ez dey kin go.

    “De man, he wuz down dar waitin’ fer de bed ter drap. He had a big
    long knife in he han’, en time de bed drapped, he lit on it, he did,
    en stobbed it scan’lous. He des natchully ripped de tick up, en w’en
    he look, bless gracious, dey ain’t no Simon dar. I lay dat man wuz
    mad den. He snorted ’roun’ dar twel blue smoke come out’n his nose,
    en his eye look red like varmint eye in de dark. Den he run upsta’rs
    en dey ain’t no Simon dar, en nudder wuz dey any Susanna.

    “Gentermens! den he git madder. He rush out, he did, en look ’roun’,
    en ’way off yander he see Simon en Susanna des a-runnin’, en
    a-holdin’ one nudder’s han’.”

    “Why, Uncle Remus,” said the little boy, “I thought you said it was
    night?”

    “Dat w’at I said, honey, en I’ll stan’ by it. Yit, how many times
    dis blessed night is I got ter tell you dat de man wuz a witch? En
    bein’ a witch, co’se he kin see in de dark.

    “Well, dish yer witch-man, he look off en he see Simon en Susanna
    runnin’ ez hard ez dey kin. He put out atter um, he did, wid his
    knife in his han’, an’ he kep’ on a gainin’ on um. Bimeby, he got so
    close dat Susanna say ter Simon:

    “‘Fling down yo’ coat.’

    “Time de coat tech de groun’, a big thick woods sprung up whar it
    fell. But de man, he cut his way thoo it wid de knife, en kep’ on
    a-pursuin’ atter um.

    “Bimeby, he got so close dat Susanna drap de egg on de groun’, en
    time it fell a big fog riz up fum de groun’, en a little mo’ en de
    man would a got los’. But atter so long a time fog got blowed away
    by de win’, en de man kep’ on a-pursuin’ atter um.

    “Bimeby, he got so close dat Susanna drap de meal-sack, en a great
    big pon’ er water kivered de groun’ whar it fell. De man wuz in sech
    a big hurry dat he tried ter drink it dry, but he ain’t kin do dis,
    so he sot on de bank en blow’d on de water wid he hot breff, en
    atter so long a time de water made hits disappearance, en den he
    kep’ on atter um.

    “Simon en Susanna wuz des a-runnin’, but run ez dey would, de man
    kep’ a-gainin’ on um, en he got so close dat Susanna drapped de
    skillet. Den a big bank er darkness fell down, en de man ain’t know
    which away ter go. But atter so long a time de darkness lif’ up, en
    de man kep’ on a-pursuin’ atter um. Mon, he made up fer los’ time,
    en he got so close dat Susanna say ter Simon:

    “‘Drap a pebble.’

    “Time Simon do dis a high hill riz up, but de man clum it en kep’ on
    atter um. Den Susanna say ter Simon:

    “‘Drap nudder pebble.’

    “Time Simon drap de pebble, a high mountain growed up, but de man
    crawled up it en kep’ on atter um. Den Susanna say:

    “‘Drap de bigges’ pebble.’

    “No sooner is he drap it dan a big rock wall riz up, en hit wuz so
    high dat de witch-man can’t git over. He run up en down, but he
    can’t find no end, en den, atter so long a time, he turn ’roun’ en
    go home.

    “On de yuther side er dis high wall, Susanna tuck Simon by de han’,
    en say:

    “‘Now we kin res’.’

    “En I reckon,” said the old man slyly, “dat we all better res’.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             THE CROW-CHILD
                          By MARY MAPES DODGE


    MIDWAY between a certain blue lake and a deep forest there once
    stood a cottage, called by its owner “The Rookery.”

    The forest shut out the sunlight and scowled upon the ground,
    breaking with shadows every ray that fell, until only a few little
    pieces lay scattered about. But the broad lake invited all the rays
    to come and rest upon her, so that sometimes she shone from shore to
    shore, and the sun winked and blinked above her, as though dazzled
    by his own reflection. The cottage, which was very small, had sunny
    windows and dark windows. Only from the roof could you see the
    mountains beyond, where the light crept up in the morning and down
    in the evening, turning all the brooks into living silver as it
    passed.

    But something brighter than sunshine used often to look from the
    cottage into the forest, and something even more gloomy than shadows
    often glowered from its windows upon the sunny lake. One was the
    face of little Ruky Lynn; and the other was his sister’s when she
    felt angry or ill-tempered.

    They were orphans, Cora and Ruky, living alone in the cottage with
    an old uncle. Cora—or “Cor,” as Ruky called her—was nearly sixteen
    years old, but her brother had seen the forest turn yellow only four
    times. She was, therefore, almost mother and sister in one. The
    little fellow was her companion night and day. Together they ate and
    slept, and—when Cora was not at work in the cottage—together they
    rambled in the wood, or floated in their little skiff upon the lake.

    Ruky had bright, dark eyes, and the glossy blackness of his hair
    made his cheeks look even rosier than they were. He had funny ways
    for a boy, Cora thought. The quick, bird-like jerks of his
    raven-black head, his stately baby gait, and his habit of pecking at
    his food, as she called it, often made his sister laugh. Young as he
    was, the little fellow had learned to mount to the top of a
    low-branching tree near the cottage, though he could not always get
    down alone. Sometimes when, perched in the thick foliage, he would
    scream, “Cor! Cor! Come, help me down!” his sister would answer, as
    she ran out laughing, “Yes, little Crow! I’m coming.”

    Perhaps it was because he reminded her of a crow that Cora called
    him her little bird. This was when she was good-natured and willing
    to let him see how much she loved him. But in her cloudy moments, as
    the uncle called them, Cora was another girl. Everything seemed ugly
    to her, or out of tune. Even Ruky was a trial; and, instead of
    giving him a kind word, she would scold and grumble until he would
    steal from the cottage door, and, jumping lightly from the
    door-step, seek the shelter of his tree. Once safely perched among
    its branches he knew she would finish her work, forget her
    ill-humor, and be quite ready, when he cried “Cor! Cor!” to come
    from the cottage with a cheery, “Yes, little Crow! I’m coming! I’m
    coming!”

    No one could help loving Ruky, with his quick, affectionate ways;
    and it seemed that Ruky, in turn, could not help loving every person
    and thing around him. He loved his silent old uncle, the bright
    lake, the cool forest, and even his little china cup with red
    berries painted upon it. But more than all, Ruky loved his
    golden-haired sister, and the great dog, who would plunge into the
    lake at the mere pointing of his chubby little finger. In fact, that
    finger and the commanding baby voice were “law” to Nep at any time.

    Nep and Ruky often talked together, and though one used barks and
    the other words, there was a perfect understanding between them. Woe
    to the straggler that dared to rouse Nep’s wrath, and woe to the
    bird or rabbit that ventured too near!—those great teeth snapped at
    their prey without even the warning of a growl. But Ruky could
    safely pull Nep’s ears or his tail, or climb his great shaggy back,
    or even snatch away the untasted bone. Still, as I said before,
    every one loved the child; so, of course, Nep was no exception.

    One day Ruky’s “Cor! Cor!” had sounded oftener than usual. His rosy
    face had bent saucily to kiss Cora’s upturned forehead, as she
    raised her arms to lift him from the tree; but the sparkle in his
    dark eyes had seemed to kindle so much mischief in him that his
    sister’s patience became fairly exhausted.

    “Has Cor nothing to do but to wait upon _you_?” she cried, “and
    nothing to listen to but your noise and your racket? You shall go to
    bed early to-day, and then I shall have some peace.”

    “No, no, Cor. Please let Ruky wait till the stars come. Ruky wants
    to see the stars.”

    “Hush! Ruky is bad. He shall have a whipping when Uncle comes back
    from town.”

    Nep growled.

    “Ha! ha!” laughed Ruky, jerking his head saucily from side to side;
    “Nep says ‘No!’”

    Nep was shut out of the cottage for his pains, and poor Ruky was
    undressed, with many a hasty jerk and pull.

    “You hurt, Cor!” he said, plaintively. “I’m going to take off my
    shoes my own self.”

    “No, you’re not,” cried Cora, almost shaking him; and when he cried
    she called him naughty, and said if he did not stop he should have
    no supper. This made him cry all the more, and Cora, feeling in her
    angry mood that he deserved severe punishment, threw away his supper
    and put him to bed. Then all that could be heard were Ruky’s low
    sobs and the snappish clicks of Cora’s needles, as she sat knitting,
    with her back to him.

    He could not sleep, for his eyelids were scalded with tears, and his
    plaintive “Cor! Cor!” had reached his sister’s ears in vain. She
    never once looked up from those gleaming knitting-needles, nor even
    gave him his good-night kiss.

    It grew late. The uncle did not return. At last Cora, sulky and
    weary, locked the cottage door, blew out her candle, and lay down
    beside her brother.

    The poor little fellow tried to win a forgiving word, but she was
    too ill-natured to grant it. In vain he whispered, “Cor, Cor!” He
    even touched her hand over and over again with his lips, hoping she
    would turn toward him, and, with a loving kiss, murmur, as usual,
    “Good night, little bird.”

    Instead of this, she jerked her arm angrily away, saying:

    “Oh, stop your pecking and go to sleep! I wish you were a crow in
    earnest, and then I’d have some peace.”

    After this, Ruky was silent. His heart drooped within him as he
    wondered what this “peace” was that his sister wished for so often,
    and why he must go away before it could come to her.

    Soon, Cora, who had rejoiced in the sudden calm, heard a strange
    fluttering. In an instant she saw by the starlight a dark object
    circle once or twice in the air above her, then dart suddenly
    through the open window.

    Astonished that Ruky had not shouted with delight at the strange
    visitor, or else clung to her neck in fear, she turned to see if he
    had fallen asleep.

    No wonder that she started up, horror-stricken,—Ruky was not there!

    His empty place was still warm; perhaps he had slid softly from the
    bed. With trembling haste she lighted the candle, and peered into
    every corner. The boy was not to be found!

    Then those fearful words rang in her ears:

    “_I wish you were a crow in earnest!_”

    Cora rushed to the door, and, with straining gaze, looked out into
    the still night.

    “Ruky! Ruky!” she screamed.

    There was a slight stir in the low-growing tree.

    “Ruky, darling, come back!”

    “Caw, caw!” answered a harsh voice from the tree. Something black
    seemed to spin out of it, and then, in great sweeping circles,
    sailed upward, until finally it settled upon one of the loftiest
    trees in the forest.

    “Caw, caw!” it screamed, fiercely.

    The girl shuddered, but, with outstretched arms, cried out:

    “Oh, Ruky, if it is _you_, come back to poor Cor!”

    “Caw, caw!” mocked hundreds of voices, as a shadow like a
    thunder-cloud rose in the air. It was an immense flock of crows. She
    could distinguish them plainly in the starlight, circling higher and
    higher, then lower and lower, until, with their harsh “Caw, caw!”
    they sailed far off into the night.

    “Oh, Ruky, answer me!” she cried.

    Nep growled, the forest trees whispered softly together, and the
    lake, twinkling with stars, sang a lullaby as it lifted its weary
    little waves upon the shore: there was no other sound.

    It seemed that daylight never would come; but at last the trees
    turned slowly from black to green, and the lake put out its stars,
    one by one, and waited for the new day.

    Cora, who had been wandering restlessly in every direction, now went
    weeping into the cottage. “Poor boy!” she sobbed; “he had no
    supper.” Then she scattered breadcrumbs near the doorway, hoping
    that Ruky would come for them; but only a few timid little songsters
    hovered about, and, while Cora wept, picked up the food daintily, as
    though it burned their bills. When she reached forth her hand,
    though there were no crows among them, and called “Ruky! Ruky!” they
    scattered and flew away in an instant.

    Next she went to the steep-roofed barn, and, bringing out an
    apronful of grain, scattered it all around his favorite tree. Before
    long, to her great joy, a flock of crows came by. They spied the
    grain, and soon were busily picking it up with their short,
    feathered bills. One even came near the mound where she sat. Unable
    to restrain herself longer, she fell upon her knees with an
    imploring cry:

    “Oh, Ruky! is this you?”

    Instantly the entire flock set up an angry “caw,” and, surrounding
    the crow, who was hopping closer and closer to Cora, hurried him
    off, until they all looked like mere specks against the summer sky.

    Every day, rain or shine, she scattered the grain, trembling with
    dread lest Nep should leap among the hungry crows, and perhaps kill
    her “little bird” first. But Nep knew better; he never stirred when
    the noisy crowd settled around the cottage, excepting once, when one
    of them pounced upon his back. Then he started up, wagging his tail,
    and barking with uproarious delight. The crow flew off in a flutter,
    and did not venture near him again.

    Poor Cora felt sure that this could be no other than Ruky. Oh, if
    she only could have caught him then! Perhaps with kisses and prayers
    she might have won him back to Ruky’s shape; but now the chance was
    lost.

    There was no one to help her; for the nearest neighbor dwelt miles
    away, and her uncle had not yet returned.

    After a-while she remembered the little cup, and, filling it with
    grain, stood it upon a grassy mound. When the crows came, they
    fought and struggled for its contents with many an angry cry. One of
    them made no effort to seize the grain. He was content to peck at
    the berries painted upon its sides, as he hopped joyfully around it
    again and again. Nep lay very quiet. Only the tip of his tail
    twitched with an eager, wistful motion. But Cora sprang joyfully
    toward the bird.

    “It _is_ Ruky!” she cried, striving to catch it.

    Alas! the cup lay shattered beneath her hand, as, with a taunting
    “caw, caw,” the crow joined its fellows and flew away.

    Next, gunners came. They were looking for other birds; but they
    hated the crows, Cora knew, and she trembled for Ruky. She heard the
    sharp crack of fowling-pieces in the forest, and shuddered whenever
    Nep, pricking up his ears, darted with an angry howl in the
    direction of the sound. She knew, too, that her uncle had set traps
    for the crows, and it seemed to her that the whole world was against
    the poor birds, plotting their destruction.

    Time flew by. The leaves seemed to flash into bright colors and fall
    off almost in a day. Frost and snow came. Still the uncle had not
    returned, or, if he had, she did not know it. Her brain was
    bewildered. She knew not whether she ate or slept. Only the terrible
    firing reached her ears, or that living black cloud came and went
    with its ceaseless “caw.”

    At last, during a terrible night of wind and storm, Cora felt that
    she must go forth and seek her poor bird.

    “Perhaps he is freezing—dying!” she cried, springing frantically
    from the bed, and casting her long cloak over her night-dress.

    In a moment, she was trudging barefooted through the snow. It was so
    deep she could hardly walk, and the sleet was driving into her face;
    still she kept on, though her numbed feet seemed hardly to belong to
    her. All the way she was praying in her heart; promising never,
    never to be passionate again, if she only could find her bird—not
    Ruky the boy, but whatever he might be. She was willing to accept
    her punishment. Soon a faint cry reached her ear. With eager haste,
    she peered into every fold of the drifted snow. A black object
    caught her eye. It was a poor storm-beaten crow, lying there
    benumbed and stiff.

    For Ruky’s sake she folded it closely to her bosom, and plodded back
    to the cottage. The fire cast a rosy light on its glossy wing as she
    entered, but the poor thing did not stir. Softly stroking and
    warming it, she wrapped the frozen bird in soft flannel and blew
    into its open mouth. Soon, to her great relief, it revived, and even
    swallowed a few grains of wheat.

    Cold and weary, she cast herself upon the bed, still folding the
    bird to her heart. “It may be Ruky! It is all I ask,” she sobbed. “I
    dare not ask for more.”

    Suddenly she felt a peculiar stirring. The crow seemed to grow
    larger. Then, in the dim light, she felt its feathers pressing
    lightly against her cheek. Next, something soft and warm wound
    itself tenderly about her neck, and she heard a sweet voice saying:

    “Don’t cry, Cor,—I’ll be good.”

    She started up. It was, indeed, her own darling! The starlight shone
    into the room. Lighting her candle, she looked at the clock.

    It was just two hours since she had uttered those cruel words!
    Sobbing, she asked:

    “Have I been asleep, Ruky, dear?”

    “I don’t know, Cor. Do people cry when they’re asleep?”

    “Sometimes, Ruky,” clasping him very close.

    “Then you have been asleep. But Cor, please don’t let Uncle whip
    Ruky.”

    “No, no, my little bird—I mean, my brother. Good night, darling!”

    “Good night.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                     THE SOUL OF THE GREAT BELL[2]
                           By LAFCADIO HEARN

        _She hath spoken, and her words still resound in his ears._

                                            _Hao-Khieou-Tchouan: c. ix._


Footnote 2:

      From _Some Chinese Ghosts_. Copyright, 1887, by Little, Brown &
      Company.

    THE water-clock marks the hour in the _Ta-chung sz’_,—in the Tower
    of the Great Bell: now the mallet is lifted to smite the lips of the
    metal monster,—the vast lips inscribed with Buddhist texts from the
    sacred _Fa-hwa-King_, from the chapters of the holy _Ling-yen-King_!
    Hear the great bell responding!—how mighty her voice, though
    tongueless!—_KO-NGAI!_ All the little dragons on the high-tilted
    eaves of the green roofs shiver to the tips of their gilded tails
    under that deep wave of sound; all the porcelain gargoyles tremble
    on their carven perches; all the hundred little bells of the pagodas
    quiver with desire to speak. _KO-NGAI_!—all the green-and-gold tiles
    of the temple are vibrating; the wooden goldfish above them are
    writhing against the sky; the uplifted finger of Fo shakes high over
    the heads of the worshippers through the blue fog of incense!
    _KO-NGAI!_—What a thunder tone was that! All the lacquered goblins
    on the palace cornices wriggle their fire-colored tongues! And after
    each huge shock, how wondrous the multiple echo and the great golden
    moan and, at last, the sudden sibilant sobbing in the ears when the
    immense tone faints away in broken whispers of silver,—as though a
    woman should whisper, “_Hiai!_” Even so the great bell hath sounded
    every day for well-nigh five hundred years,—_Ko-Ngai_: first with
    stupendous clang, then with immeasurable moan of gold, then with
    silver murmuring of “_Hiai!_” And there is not a child in all the
    many-colored ways of the old Chinese city who does not know the
    story of the great bell,—who cannot tell you why the great bell says
    _Ko-Ngai_ and _Hiai!_

                  *       *       *       *       *

    Now, this is the story of the great bell in the Ta-chung sz’, as the
    same is related in the _Pe-Hiao-Tou-Choue_, written by the learned
    Yu-Pao-Tchen, of the City of Kwang-tchau-fu.

    Nearly five hundred years ago the Celestially August, the Son of
    Heaven, Yong-Lo, of the “Illustrious,” or Ming dynasty, commanded
    the worthy official, Kouan-Yu, that he should have a bell made of
    such size that the sound thereof might be heard for one hundred
    _li_. And he further ordained that the voice of the bell should be
    strengthened with brass, and deepened with gold, and sweetened with
    silver; and that the face and the great lips of it should be graven
    with blessed sayings from the sacred books, and that it should be
    suspended in the centre of the imperial capital, to sound through
    all the many-colored ways of the City of Pe-king.

    Therefore the worthy mandarin, Kouan-Yu, assembled the
    master-moulders and the renowned bellsmiths of the empire, and all
    men of great repute and cunning in foundry work; and they measured
    the materials for the alloy, and treated them skilfully, and
    prepared the moulds, the fires, the instruments, and the monstrous
    melting-pot for fusing the metal. And they labored exceedingly, like
    giants,—neglecting only rest and sleep and the comforts of life;
    toiling both night and day in obedience to Kouan-Yu, and striving in
    all things to do the behest of the Son of Heaven.

    But when the metal had been cast, and the earthen mould separated
    from the glowing casting, it was discovered that, despite their
    great labor and ceaseless care, the result was void of worth; for
    the metals had rebelled one against the other,—the gold had scorned
    alliance with the brass, the silver would not mingle with the molten
    iron. Therefore the moulds had to be once more prepared, and the
    fires rekindled, and the metal remelted, and all the work tediously
    and toilsomely repeated. The Son of Heaven heard, and was angry, but
    spake nothing.

    A second time the bell was cast, and the result was even worse.
    Still the metals obstinately refused to blend one with the other;
    and there was no uniformity in the bell, and the sides of it were
    cracked and fissured, and the lips of it were slagged and split
    asunder; so that all the labor had to be repeated even a third time,
    to the great dismay of Kouan-Yu. And when the Son of Heaven heard
    these things, he was angrier than before; and sent his messenger to
    Kouan-Yu with a letter, written upon lemon-colored silk, and sealed
    with the seal of the Dragon, containing these words:—

        ... “_From the Mighty Yong-Lo, the Sublime Tait-Sung, the
        Celestial and August,—whose reign is called ‘Ming,’—to
        Kouan-Yu the Fuh-yin: Twice thou hast betrayed the trust we
        have deigned graciously to place in thee; if thou fail a
        third time in fulfilling our command, thy head shall be
        severed from thy neck. Tremble, and obey!_”

    Now, Kouan-Yu had a daughter of dazzling loveliness, whose
    name—Ko-Ngai—was ever in the mouths of poets, and whose heart was
    even more beautiful than her face. Ko-Ngai loved her father with
    such love that she had refused a hundred worthy suitors rather than
    make his home desolate by her absence; and when she had seen the
    awful yellow missive, sealed with the Dragon-Seal, she fainted away
    with fear for her father’s sake. And when her senses and her
    strength returned to her, she could not rest or sleep for thinking
    of her parent’s danger, until she had secretly sold some of her
    jewels, and with the money so obtained had hastened to an
    astrologer, and paid him a great price to advise her by what means
    her father might be saved from the peril impending over him. So the
    astrologer made observations of the heavens, and marked the aspect
    of the Silver Stream (which we call the Milky Way), and examined the
    signs of the Zodiac,—the _Hwang-tao_, or Yellow Road,—and consulted
    the table of the Five _Hin_, or Principles of the Universe, and the
    mystical books of the alchemists. And after a long silence, he made
    answer to her, saying: “Gold and brass will never meet in wedlock,
    silver and iron never will embrace, until the flesh of a maiden be
    melted in the crucible; until the blood of a virgin be mixed with
    the metals in their fusion.” So Ko-Ngai returned home sorrowful at
    heart; but she kept secret all that she had heard, and told no one
    what she had done.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    At last came the awful day when the third and last effort to cast
    the great bell was to be made; and Ko-Ngai, together with her
    waiting-woman, accompanied her father to the foundry, and they took
    their places upon a platform over-looking the toiling of the
    moulders and the lava of liquefied metal. All the workmen wrought
    their tasks in silence; there was no sound heard but the muttering
    of the fires. And the muttering deepened into a roar like the roar
    of typhoons approaching, and the blood-red lake of metal slowly
    brightened like the vermilion of a sunrise, and the vermilion was
    transmuted into a radiant glow of gold, and the gold whitened
    blindingly, like the silver face of a full moon. Then the workers
    ceased to feed the raving flame, and all fixed their eyes upon the
    eyes of Kouan-Yu; and Kouan-Yu prepared to give the signal to cast.

    But ere ever he lifted his finger, a cry caused him to turn his
    head; and all heard the voice of Ko-Ngai sounding sharply sweet as a
    bird’s song above the great thunder of the fires,—“_For thy sake, O
    my Father_!” And even as she cried, she leaped into the white flood
    of metal; and the lava of the furnace roared to receive her, and
    spattered monstrous flakes of flame to the roof, and burst over the
    verge of the earthen crater, and cast up a whirling fountain of
    many-colored fires, and subsided quakingly, with lightnings and with
    thunders and with mutterings.

    Then the father of Ko-Ngai, wild with his grief, would have leaped
    in after her, but that strong men held him back and kept firm grasp
    upon him until he had fainted away and they could bear him like one
    dead to his home. And the serving-woman of Ko-Ngai, dizzy and
    speechless for pain, stood before the furnace, still holding in her
    hands a shoe, a tiny, dainty shoe, with embroidery of pearls and
    flowers,—the shoe of her beautiful mistress that was. For she had
    sought to grasp Ko-Ngai by the foot as she leaped, but had only been
    able to clutch the shoe, and the pretty shoe came off in her hand;
    and she continued to stare at it like one gone mad.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    But in spite of all these things, the command of the Celestial and
    August had to be obeyed, and the work of the moulders to be
    finished, hopeless as the result might be. Yet the glow of the metal
    seemed purer and whiter than before; and there was no sign of the
    beautiful body that had been entombed therein. So the ponderous
    casting was made; and lo! when the metal had become cool, it was
    found that the bell was beautiful to look upon, and perfect in form,
    and wonderful in color above all other bells. Nor was there any
    trace found of the body of Ko-Ngai; for it had been totally absorbed
    by the precious alloy, and blended with the well-blended brass and
    gold, with the intermingling of the silver and iron. And when they
    sounded the bell, its tones were found to be deeper and mellower and
    mightier than the tones of any other bell,—reaching even beyond the
    distance of one hundred _li_, like a pealing of summer thunder; and
    yet also like some vast voice uttering a name, a woman’s name,—the
    name of Ko-Ngai!

                  *       *       *       *       *

    And still, between each mighty stroke there is a long low moaning
    heard; and ever the moaning ends with a sound of sobbing and
    complaining, as though a weeping woman should murmur, “_Hiai!_” And
    still, when the people hear that great golden moan they keep
    silence; but when the sharp, sweet shuddering comes in the air, and
    the sobbing of “_Hiai!_” then, indeed, do all the Chinese mothers in
    all the many-colored ways of Pe-king whisper to their little ones:
    “_Listen! that is Ko-Ngai crying for her shoe! That is Ko-Ngai
    calling for her shoe!_”


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             THE TEN TRAILS
                        By ERNEST THOMPSON SETON


    ONCE there were two Indians who went out together to hunt. Hapeda
    was very strong and swift and a wonderful bowman. Chatun was much
    weaker and carried a weaker bow; but he was very patient.

    As they went through the hills they came on the fresh track of a
    small Deer. Chatun said: “My brother, I shall follow that.”

    But Hapeda said: “You may if you like, but a mighty hunter like me
    wants bigger game.”

    So they parted.

    Hapeda went on for an hour or more and found the track of ten large
    Elk going different ways. He took the trail of the largest and
    followed for a long way, but not coming up with it, he said: “That
    one is evidently traveling. I should have taken one of the others.”

    So he went back to the place where he first found it, and took up
    the trail of another. After a hunt of over an hour in which he
    failed to get a shot, he said: “I have followed another traveler.
    I’ll go back and take up the trail of one that is feeding.”

    But again, after a short pursuit, he gave up that one to go back and
    try another that seemed more promising. Thus he spent a whole day
    trying each of the trails for a short time, and at night came back
    to camp with nothing, to find that Chatun, though his inferior in
    all other ways, had proved wiser. He had stuck doggedly to the trail
    of the one little Deer, and now had its carcass safely in camp.

    MORAL: _The Prize is always at the end of the trail._


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                  WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO[3]
                          By COUNT LEO TOLSTOI


Footnote 3:

      Reprinted from the Everyman Edition of Tolstoi’s _Tales and
      Parables_, by special permission of the publishers. Copyright by
      E. P. Dutton & Company.

    IN a certain town there lived a shoemaker named Martin Avdeitch. He
    lived in a basement room which possessed but one window. This window
    looked onto the street, and through it a glimpse could be caught of
    the passers-by. It is true that only their legs could be seen, but
    that did not matter, as Martin could recognize people by their boots
    alone. He had lived here for a long time, and so had many
    acquaintances. There were very few pairs of boots in the
    neighbourhood which had not passed through his hands at least once,
    if not twice. Some he had resoled, others he had fitted with
    side-pieces, others, again, he had resewn where they were split, or
    provided with new toe-caps. Yes, he often saw his handiwork through
    that window. He was given plenty of custom, for his work lasted
    well, his materials were good, his prices moderate, and his word to
    be depended on. If he could do a job by a given time it should be
    done; but if not, he would warn you beforehand rather than
    disappoint you. Everyone knew Avdeitch, and no one ever transferred
    his custom from him. He had always been an upright man, but with the
    approach of old age he had begun more than ever to think of his
    soul, and to draw nearer to God.

    His wife had died while he was still an apprentice, leaving behind
    her a little boy of three. This was their only child, indeed, for
    the two elder ones had died previously. At first Martin thought of
    placing the little fellow with a sister of his in the country, but
    changed his mind, thinking: “My Kapitoshka would not like to grow up
    in a strange family, so I will keep him by me.” Then Avdeitch
    finished his apprenticeship, and went to live in lodgings with his
    little boy. But God had not seen fit to give Avdeitch happiness in
    his children. The little boy was just growing up and beginning to
    help his father and to be a pleasure to him, when he fell ill, was
    put to bed, and died after a week’s fever.

    Martin buried the little fellow and was inconsolable. Indeed, he was
    so inconsolable that he began to murmur against God. His life seemed
    so empty that more than once he prayed for death and reproached the
    Almighty for taking away his only beloved son instead of himself,
    the old man. At last he ceased altogether to go to church.

    Then one day there came to see him an ancient peasant-pilgrim—one
    who was now in the eighth year of his pilgrimage. To him Avdeitch
    talked, and then went on to complain of his great sorrow.

    “I no longer wish to be a God-fearing man,” he said. “I only wish to
    die. That is all I ask of God. I am a lonely, hopeless man.”

    “You should not speak like that, Martin,” replied the old pilgrim.
    “It is not for us to judge the acts of God. We must rely, not upon
    our own understanding, but upon the Divine wisdom. God saw fit that
    your son should die and that you should live. Therefore it must be
    better so. If you despair, it is because you have wished to live too
    much for your own pleasure.”

    “For what, then, should I live?” asked Martin.

    “For God alone,” replied the old man. “It is He who gave you life,
    and therefore it is He for whom you should live. When you come to
    live for Him you will cease to grieve, and your trials will become
    easy to bear.”

    Martin was silent. Then he spoke again.

    “But how am I to live for God?” he asked.

    “Christ has shown us the way,” answered the old man. “Can you read?
    If so, buy a Testament and study it. You will learn there how to
    live for God. Yes, it is all shown you there.”

    These words sank into Avdeitch’s soul. He went out the same day,
    bought a large-print copy of the New Testament, and set himself to
    read it.

    At the beginning Avdeitch had meant only to read on festival days,
    but when he once began his reading he found it so comforting to the
    soul that he came never to let a day pass without doing so. On the
    second occasion he became so engrossed that all the kerosene was
    burnt away in the lamp before he could tear himself away from the
    book.

    Thus he came to read it every evening, and, the more he read, the
    more clearly did he understand what God required of him, and in what
    way he could live for God; so that his heart grew ever lighter and
    lighter. Once upon a time, whenever he had lain down to sleep, he
    had been used to moan and sigh as he thought of his little
    Kapitoshka; but now he only said—“Glory to Thee, O Lord! Glory to
    Thee! Thy will be done!”

    From that time onwards Avdeitch’s life became completely changed.
    Once he had been used to go out on festival days and drink tea in a
    tavern, and had not denied himself even an occasional glass of
    _vodka_. This he had done in the company of a boon companion, and,
    although no drunkard, would frequently leave the tavern in an
    excited state and talk much nonsense as he shouted and disputed with
    this friend of his. But now he had turned his back on all this, and
    his life had become quiet and joyous. Early in the morning he would
    sit down to his work, and labor through his appointed hours. Then he
    would take the lamp down from a shelf, light it, and sit down to
    read. And the more he read, the more he understood, and the clearer
    and happier he grew at heart.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    It happened once that Martin had been reading late. He had been
    reading those verses in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke
    which run:

    “And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the
    other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy
    coat also. Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that
    taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And as ye would that men
    should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”

    Then, further on, he had read those verses where the Lord says:

    “And why call ye Me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
    Whosoever cometh to Me and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I
    will show you to whom he is like: He is like a man which built an
    house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock: and when
    the flood arose, the storm beat vehemently upon that house, and
    could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock. But he that
    heareth and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built
    an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat
    vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was
    great.”

    Avdeitch read these words, and felt greatly cheered in soul. He took
    off his spectacles, laid them on the book, leaned his elbows upon
    the table, and gave himself up to meditation. He set himself to
    measure his own life by those words, and thought to himself:

    “Is my house founded upon a rock or upon sand? It is well if it be
    upon a rock. Yet it seems so easy to me as I sit here alone. I may
    so easily come to think that I have done all that the Lord has
    commanded me, and grow careless and—sin again. Yet I will keep on
    striving, for it is goodly so to do. Help Thou me, O Lord.”

    Thus he kept on meditating, though conscious that it was time for
    bed; yet he was loathe to tear himself away from the book. He began
    to read the seventh chapter of St. Luke, and read on about the
    centurion, the widow’s son, and the answer given to John’s
    disciples; until in time he came to the passage where the rich
    Pharisee invited Jesus to his house, and the woman washed the Lord’s
    feet with her tears and He justified her. So he came to the
    forty-fourth verse and read:

    “And He turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this
    woman? I entered into thine house, and thou gavest Me no water for
    My feet: but she hath washed My feet with tears, and wiped them with
    the hairs of her head. Thou gavest Me no kiss: but this woman since
    the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss My feet. My head with oil
    thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed My feet with
    ointment.”

    He read these verses and thought:

    “‘Thou gavest Me no water for My feet’ ... ‘Thou gavest Me no kiss’
    ... ‘My head with oil thou didst not anoint’ ...”—and once again he
    took off his spectacles, laid them on the book, and became lost in
    meditation.

    “I am even as that Pharisee,” he thought to himself. “I drink tea
    and think only of my own needs. Yes, I think only of having plenty
    to eat and drink, of being warm and clean—but never of entertaining
    a guest. And Simon too was mindful only of himself, although the
    guest who had come to visit him was—who? Why, even the Lord Himself!
    If, then, He should come to visit _me_, should I receive Him any
    better?”—and, leaning forward upon his elbows, he was asleep almost
    before he was aware of it.

    “Martin!” someone seemed to breathe in his ear.

    He started from his sleep.

    “Who is there?” he said. He turned and looked towards the door, but
    could see no one. Again he bent forward over the table. Then
    suddenly he heard the words:

    “Martin, Martin! Look thou into the street to-morrow, for I am
    coming to visit thee.”

    Martin roused himself, got up from the chair, and rubbed his eyes.
    He did not know whether it was dreaming or awake that he had heard
    these words, but he turned out the lamp and went to bed.

    The next morning Avdeitch rose before daylight and said his prayers.
    Then he made up the stove, got ready some cabbage soup and porridge,
    lighted the _samovar_, slung his leather apron about him, and sat
    down to his work in the window. He sat and worked hard, yet all the
    time his thoughts were centred upon last night. He was in two ideas
    about the vision. At one moment he would think that it must have
    been his fancy, while the next moment he would find himself
    convinced that he had really heard the voice. “Yes, it must have
    been so,” he concluded.

    As Martin sat thus by the window he kept looking out of it as much
    as working. Whenever a pair of boots passed with which he was
    acquainted he would bend down to glance upwards through the window
    and see their owner’s face as well. The doorkeeper passed in new
    felt boots, and then a water-carrier. Next, an old soldier, a
    veteran of Nicholas’ army, in old, patched boots, and carrying a
    shovel in his hands, halted close by the window. Avdeitch knew him
    by his boots. His name was Stepanitch, and he was kept by a
    neighboring tradesman out of charity, his duties being to help the
    doorkeeper. He began to clear away the snow from in front of
    Avdeitch’s window, while the shoemaker looked at him and then
    resumed his work.

    “I think I must be getting into my dotage,” thought Avdeitch with a
    smile. “Just because Stepanitch begins clearing away the snow I at
    once jump to the conclusion that Christ is about to visit me. Yes, I
    am growing foolish now, old greybeard that I am.”

    Yet he had hardly made a dozen stitches before he was craning his
    neck again to look out of the window. He could see that Stepanitch
    had placed his shovel against the wall, and was resting and trying
    to warm himself a little.

    “He is evidently an old man now and broken,” thought Avdeitch to
    himself. “He is not strong enough to clear away snow. Would he like
    some tea, I wonder? That reminds me that the _samovar_ must be ready
    now.”

    He made fast his awl in his work and got up. Placing the _samovar_
    on the table, he brewed the tea, and then tapped with his finger on
    the window-pane. Stepanitch turned round and approached. Avdeitch
    beckoned to him, and then went to open the door.

    “Come in and warm yourself,” he said. “You must be frozen.”

    “Christ requite you!” answered Stepanitch. “Yes, my bones are almost
    cracking.”

    He came in, shook the snow off himself, and, though tottering on his
    feet, took pains to wipe them carefully, that he might not dirty the
    floor.

    “Nay, do not trouble about that,” said Avdeitch. “I will wipe your
    boots myself. It is part of my business in this trade. Come you here
    and sit down, and we will empty this tea-pot together.”

    He poured out two tumblerfuls, and offered one to his guest; after
    which he emptied his own into the saucer, and blew upon it to cool
    it. Stepanitch drank his tumblerful, turned the glass upside down,
    placed his crust upon it, and thanked his host kindly. But it was
    plain that he wanted another one.

    “You must drink some more,” said Avdeitch, and refilled his guest’s
    tumbler and his own. Yet, in spite of himself, he had no sooner
    drunk his tea than he found himself looking out into the street
    again.

    “Are you expecting anyone?” asked his guest.

    “Am—am I expecting anyone? Well, to tell the truth, yes. That is to
    say, I am, and I am not. The fact is that some words have got fixed
    in my memory. Whether it was a vision or not I cannot tell, but at
    all events, my old friend, I was reading in the Gospels last night
    about Our Little Father Christ, and how He walked this earth and
    suffered. You have heard of Him, have you not?”

    “Yes, yes, I have heard of Him,” answered Stepanitch; “but we are
    ignorant folk and do not know our letters.”

    “Well, I was reading of how He walked this earth, and how He went to
    visit a Pharisee, and yet received no welcome from him at the door.
    All this I read last night, my friend, and then fell to thinking
    about it—to thinking how some day I too might fail to pay Our Little
    Father Christ due honor. ‘Suppose,’ I thought to myself, ‘He came to
    me or to anyone like me? Should we, like the great lord Simon, not
    know how to receive Him and not go out to meet Him?’ Thus I thought,
    and fell asleep where I sat. Then as I sat sleeping there I heard
    someone call my name; and as I raised myself the voice went on (as
    though it were the voice of someone whispering in my ear): ‘Watch
    thou for me to-morrow, for I am coming to visit thee.’ It said that
    twice. And so those words have got into my head, and, foolish though
    I know it to be, I keep expecting _Him_—the Little Father—every
    moment.”

    Stepanitch nodded and said nothing, but emptied his glass and laid
    it aside. Nevertheless Avdeitch took and refilled it.

    “Drink it up; it will do you good,” he said. “Do you know,” he went
    on, “I often call to mind how when Our Little Father walked this
    earth, there was never a man, however humble, whom He despised, and
    how it was chiefly among the common people that He dwelt. It was
    always with _them_ that He walked; it was from among _them_—from
    among such men as you and I—from among sinners and working folk—that
    He chose His disciples. ‘Whosoever,’ He said, ‘shall exalt himself,
    the same shall be abased; and whosoever shall abase himself, the
    same shall be exalted.’ ‘You,’ He said again, ‘call me Lord; yet
    will I wash your feet.’ ‘Whosoever,’ He said, ‘would be chief among
    you, let him be the servant of all. Because,’ He said, ‘blessed are
    the lowly, the peacemakers, the merciful, and the charitable.’”

    Stepanitch had forgotten all about his tea. He was an old man, and
    his tears came easily. He sat and listened, with the tears rolling
    down his cheeks.

    “Oh, but you must drink your tea,” said Avdeitch; yet Stepanitch
    only crossed himself and said the thanksgiving, after which he
    pushed his glass away and rose.

    “I thank you, Martin Avdeitch,” he said. “You have taken me in, and
    fed both soul and body.”

    “Nay, but I beg of you to come again,” replied Avdeitch. “I am only
    too glad of a guest.”

    So Stepanitch departed, while Martin poured out the last of the tea
    and drank it. Then he cleaned the crockery, and sat down again to
    his work by the window—to the stitching of a back-piece. He stitched
    away, yet kept on looking through the window—looking for Christ, as
    it were—and ever thinking of Christ and His works. Indeed, Christ’s
    many sayings were never absent from Avdeitch’s mind.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    Two soldiers passed the window, the one in military boots, and the
    other in civilian. Next, there came a neighboring householder, in
    polished goloshes; then a baker with a basket. All of them passed
    on. Presently a woman in woollen stockings and rough country shoes
    approached the window, and halted near the buttress outside it.
    Avdeitch peered up at her from under the lintel of his window, and
    could see that she was a plain-looking, poorly-dressed woman and had
    a child in her arms. It was in order to muffle the child up more
    closely—little though she had to do it with!—that she had stopped
    near the buttress and was now standing there with her back to the
    wind. Her clothing was ragged and fit only for summer, and even from
    behind his window-panes Avdeitch could hear the child crying
    miserably and its mother vainly trying to soothe it. Avdeitch rose,
    went to the door, climbed the steps, and cried out: “My good woman,
    my good woman!”

    She heard him and turned round.

    “Why need you stand there in the cold with your baby?” he went on.
    “Come into my room, where it is warm, and where you will be able to
    wrap the baby up more comfortably than you can do here. Yes, come in
    with you.”

    The woman was surprised to see an old man in a leather apron and
    with spectacles upon his nose calling out to her, yet she followed
    him down the steps, and they entered his room. The old man led her
    to the bedstead.

    “Sit you down here, my good woman,” he said. “You will be near the
    stove, and can warm yourself and feed your baby.”

    “Ah,” she replied. “I have had nothing to eat this morning.”
    Nevertheless she put the child to her breast.

    Avdeitch nodded his head approvingly, went to the table for some
    bread and a basin, and opened the stove door. From the stove he took
    and poured some soup into the basin, and drew out also a bowl of
    porridge. The latter, however, was not yet boiling, so he set out
    only the soup, after first laying the table with a cloth.

    “Sit down and eat, my good woman,” he said, “while I hold your baby.
    I have had little ones of my own, and know how to nurse them.”

    The woman crossed herself and sat down, while Avdeitch seated
    himself upon the bedstead with the baby. He smacked his lips at it
    once or twice, but made a poor show of it, for he had no teeth left.
    Consequently the baby went on crying. Then he bethought him of his
    finger, which he wriggled to and fro towards the baby’s mouth and
    back again—without, however, actually touching the little one’s
    lips, since the finger was blackened with work and sticky with
    shoemaker’s wax. The baby contemplated the finger and grew
    quiet—then actually smiled. Avdeitch was delighted. Meanwhile the
    woman had been eating her meal, and now she told him, unasked, who
    she was and whither she was going.

    “I am a soldier’s wife,” she said, “but my husband was sent to a
    distant station eight months ago, and I have heard nothing of him
    since. At first I got a place as cook, but when the baby came they
    said they could not do with it and dismissed me. That was three
    months ago, and I have got nothing since, and have spent all my
    savings. I tried to get taken as a nurse, but no one would have me,
    for they said I was too thin. I have just been to see a tradesman’s
    wife where our grandmother is in service. She had promised to take
    me on, and I quite thought that she would, but when I arrived to-day
    she told me to come again next week. She lives a long way from here,
    and I am quite worn out and have tired my baby for nothing. Thank
    Heaven, however, my landlady is good to me, and gives me shelter for
    Christ’s sake. Otherwise I should not have known how to bear it
    all.”

    Avdeitch sighed and said: “But have you nothing warm to wear?”

    “Ah, sir,” replied the woman, “although it is the time for warm
    clothes I had to pawn my last shawl yesterday for two
    _grivenki_.”[4]

Footnote 4:

      The grivenka = 10 copecks = about five cents.

    Then the woman returned to the bedstead to take her baby, while
    Avdeitch rose and went to a cupboard. There he rummaged about, and
    presently returned with an old jacket.

    “Here,” he said. “It is a poor old thing, but it will serve to cover
    you.”

    The woman looked at the jacket, and then at the old man. Then she
    took the jacket and burst into tears. Avdeitch turned away, and went
    creeping under the bedstead, whence he extracted a box and pretended
    to rummage about in it for a few moments; after which he sat down
    again before the woman.

    Then the woman said to him: “I thank you in Christ’s name, good
    grandfather. Surely it was He Himself who sent me to your window.
    Otherwise I should have seen my baby perish with the cold. When I
    first came out the day was warm, but now it has begun to freeze. But
    He, Our Little Father, had placed you in your window, that you might
    see me in my bitter plight and have compassion upon me.”

    Avdeitch smiled and said: “He did indeed place me there: yet, my
    poor woman, it was for a special purpose that I was looking out.”

    Then he told his guest, the soldier’s wife, of his vision, and how
    he had heard a voice foretelling that to-day the Lord Himself would
    come to visit him.

    “That may very well be,” said the woman as she rose, took the
    jacket, and wrapped her baby in it. Then she saluted him once more
    and thanked him.

    “Also, take this in Christ’s name,” said Avdeitch, and gave her a
    two-_grivenka_ piece with which to buy herself a shawl. The woman
    crossed herself, and he likewise. Then he led her to the door and
    dismissed her.

    When she had gone Avdeitch ate a little soup, washed up the crockery
    again, and resumed his work. All the time, though, he kept his eye
    upon the window, and as soon as ever a shadow fell across it he
    would look up to see who was passing. Acquaintances of his came
    past, and people whom he did not know, yet never anyone very
    particular.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    Then suddenly he saw something. Opposite his window there had
    stopped an old pedlar-woman, with a basket of apples. Only a few of
    the apples, however, remained, so that it was clear that she was
    almost sold out. Over her shoulder was slung a sack of shavings,
    which she must have gathered near some new building as she was going
    home. Apparently, her shoulder had begun to ache under their weight,
    and she therefore wished to shift them to the other one. To do this,
    she balanced her basket of apples on the top of a post, lowered the
    sack to the pavement, and began shaking up its contents. As she was
    doing this, a boy in a ragged cap appeared from somewhere, seized an
    apple from the basket, and tried to make off. But the old woman, who
    had been on her guard, managed to turn and seize the boy by the
    sleeve, and although he struggled and tried to break away, she clung
    to him with both hands, snatched his cap off, and finally grasped
    him by the hair. Thereupon the youngster began to shout and abuse
    his captor. Avdeitch did not stop to make fast his awl, but threw
    his work down upon the floor, ran to the door, and went stumbling up
    the steps—losing his spectacles as he did so. Out into the street he
    ran, where the old woman was still clutching the boy by the hair and
    threatening to take him to the police, while the boy, for his part,
    was struggling in the endeavor to free himself.

    “I never took it,” he was saying. “What are you beating me for? Let
    me go.”

    Avdeitch tried to part them as he took the boy by the hand and said:

    “Let him go, my good woman. Pardon him for Christ’s sake.”

    “Yes, I will pardon him,” she retorted, “but not until he has tasted
    a new birch-rod. I mean to take the young rascal to the police.”

    But Avdeitch still interceded for him.

    “Let him go, my good woman,” he said. “He will never do it again.
    Let him go for Christ’s sake.”

    The old woman released the boy, who was for making off at once had
    not Avdeitch stopped him.

    “You must beg the old woman’s pardon,” he said, “and never do such a
    thing again. I saw you take the apple.”

    The boy burst out crying, and begged the old woman’s pardon as
    Avdeitch commanded.

    “There, there,” said Avdeitch. “Now I will give you one. Here you
    are,”—and he took an apple from the basket and handed it to the boy.
    “I will pay you for it, my good woman,” he added.

    “Yes, but you spoil the young rascal by doing that,” she objected.
    “He ought to have received a reward that would have made him glad to
    stand for a week.”

    “Ah, my good dame, my good dame,” exclaimed Avdeitch. “That may be
    _our_ way of rewarding, but it is not God’s. If this boy ought to
    have been whipped for taking the apple, ought not we also to receive
    something for our sins?”

    The old woman was silent. Then Avdeitch related to her the parable
    of the master who absolved his servant from the great debt which he
    owed him, whereupon the servant departed and took his own debtor by
    the throat. The old woman listened, and also the boy.

    “God has commanded us to pardon one another,” went on Avdeitch, “or
    _He_ will not pardon us. We ought to pardon all men, and especially
    the thoughtless.”

    The old woman shook her head and sighed.

    “Yes, that may be so,” she said, “but these young rascals are so
    spoilt already!”

    “Then it is for us, their elders, to teach them better,” he replied.

    “That is what I say myself at times,” rejoined the old woman. “I had
    seven of them once at home, but have only one daughter now.” And she
    went on to tell Avdeitch where she and her daughter lived, and how
    they lived, and how many grandchildren she had.

    “I have only such strength as you see,” she said, “yet I work hard,
    for my heart goes out to my grandchildren—the bonny little things
    that they are! No children could run to meet me as they do.
    Aksintka, for instance, will go to no one else. ‘Grandmother,’ she
    cries, ‘dear grandmother, you are tired’”—and the old woman became
    thoroughly softened. “Everyone knows what boys are,” she added
    presently, referring to the culprit. “May God go with him!”

    She was raising the sack to her shoulders again when the boy darted
    forward and said:

    “Nay, let me carry it, grandmother. It will be all on my way home.”

    The old woman nodded assent, gave up the sack to the boy, and went
    away with him down the street. She had quite forgotten to ask
    Avdeitch for the money for the apple. He stood looking after them,
    and observing how they were talking together as they went.

    Having seen them go, he returned to his room, finding his
    spectacles—unbroken—on the steps as he descended them. Once more he
    took up his awl and fell to work, but had done little before he
    found it difficult to distinguish the stitches, and the lamplighter
    had passed on his rounds. “I too must light up,” he thought to
    himself. So he trimmed the lamp, hung it up, and resumed his work.
    He finished one boot completely, and then turned it over to look at
    it. It was all good work. Then he laid aside his tools, swept up the
    cuttings, rounded off the stitches and loose ends, and cleaned his
    awl. Next he lifted the lamp down, placed it on the table, and took
    his Testament from the shelf. He had intended opening the book at
    the place which he had marked last night with a strip of leather,
    but it opened itself at another instead. The instant it did so, his
    vision of last night came back to his memory, and, as instantly, he
    thought he heard a movement behind him as of someone moving towards
    him. He looked round and saw in the shadow of a dark corner what
    appeared to be figures—figures of persons standing there, yet could
    not distinguish them clearly. Then the voice whispered in his ear:

    “Martin, Martin, dost thou not know me?”

    “Who art Thou?” said Avdeitch.

    “Even I!” whispered the voice again. “Lo, it is I!”—and there
    stepped from the dark corner Stepanitch. He smiled, and then, like
    the fading of a little cloud, was gone.

    “It is I!” whispered the voice again—and there stepped from the same
    corner the woman with her baby. She smiled, and the baby smiled, and
    they were gone.

    “And it is I!” whispered the voice again—and there stepped forth the
    old woman and the boy with the apple. They smiled, and were gone.

    Joy filled the soul of Martin Avdeitch as he crossed himself, put on
    his spectacles, and set himself to read the Testament at the place
    where it had opened. At the top of the page he read:

    “For I was an hungred, and ye gave Me meat: I was thirsty, and ye
    gave Me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took Me in.”

    And further down the page he read:

    “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my
    brethren ye have done it unto Me.”

    Then Avdeitch understood that the vision had come true, and that his
    Saviour had in very truth visited him that day, and that he had
    received Him.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                             WOOD-LADIES[5]
                           By PERCEVAL GIBBON


Footnote 5:

      By permission of the author. Copyright by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

    THE pine-trees of the wood joined their branches into a dome of
    intricate groinings over the floor of ferns where the children sat,
    sunk to the neck in a foam of tender green. The sunbeams that
    slanted in made shivering patches of gold about them. Joyce, the
    elder of the pair, was trying to explain why she had wished to come
    here from the glooms of the lesser wood beyond.

    “I wasn’t ’zactly frightened,” she said. “I knew there wasn’t any
    lions or robbers, or anything like that. But——”

    “Tramps?” suggested Joan.

    “No! You know I don’t mind tramps, Joan. But as we was going along
    under all those dark bushes where it was so quiet, I kept feeling as
    if there was—something—behind me. I looked round and there wasn’t
    anything, but—well, it felt as if there was.”

    Joyce’s small face was knit and intent with the efforts to convey
    her meaning. She was a slim erect child, as near seven years of age
    as makes no matter, with eyes that were going to be gray, but had
    not yet ceased to be blue. Joan, who was a bare five, a mere huge
    baby, was trying to root up a fern that grew between her feet.

    “I know,” she said, tugging mightily. The fern gave suddenly, and
    Joan fell over on her back, with her stout legs sticking up stiffly.
    In this posture she continued the conversation undisturbed. “I know,
    Joy. It was wood-ladies!”

    “Wood-ladies!” Joyce frowned in faint perplexity as Joan rolled
    right side up again. Wood-ladies were dim inhabitants of the woods,
    being of the order of fairies and angels and even vaguer, for there
    was nothing about them in the story-books. Joyce, who felt that she
    was getting on in years, was willing to be sceptical about them, but
    could not always manage it. In the nursery, with the hard clean
    linoleum underfoot and the barred window looking out on the lawn and
    the road, it was easy; she occasionally shocked Joan, and sometimes
    herself, by the license of her speech on such matters; but it was a
    different affair when one came to the gate at the end of the garden,
    and passed as through a dream portal from the sunshine and frank sky
    to the cathedral shadows and great whispering aisles of the wood.
    There the dimness was like the shadow of a presence; as babies they
    had been aware of it, and answered their own questions by inventing
    wood-ladies to float among the trunks and people the still green
    chambers. Now, neither of them could remember how they had first
    learned of wood-ladies.

    “Wood-ladies,” repeated Joyce, and turned with a little shiver to
    look across the ferns to where the pines ended and the lesser wood,
    dense with undergrowth, broke at their edge like a wave on a steep
    beach. It was there, in a tunnel of a path that writhed beneath
    overarching bushes, that she had been troubled with the sense of
    unseen companions. Joan, her fat hands struggling with another fern,
    followed her glance.

    “That’s where they are,” she said casually. “They like being in the
    dark.”

    “Joan!” Joyce spoke earnestly. “Say truly—truly, mind!—do you think
    there _is_ wood-ladies at all?”

    “’Course there is,” replied Joan cheerfully. “Fairies in fields and
    angels in heaven and dragons in caves and wood-ladies in woods.”

    “But,” objected Joyce, “nobody ever sees them.”

    Joan lifted her round baby face, plump, serene, bright with
    innocence, and gazed across at the tangled trees beyond the ferns.
    She wore the countenance with which she was wont to win games, and
    Joyce thrilled nervously at her certainty. Her eyes, which were
    brown, seemed to seek expertly; then she nodded.

    “There’s one now,” she said, and fell to work with her fern again.

    Joyce, crouching among the broad green leaves, looked tensely, dread
    and curiosity—the child’s avid curiosity for the supernatural—alight
    in her face. In the wood a breath of wind stirred the leaves; the
    shadows and the fretted lights shifted and swung; all was vague
    movement and change. Was it a bough that bent and sprang back or a
    flicker of draperies, dim and green, shrouding a tenuous form that
    passed like a smoke-wreath? She stared with wide eyes, and it seemed
    to her that for an instant she saw the figure turn and the pallor of
    a face, with a mist of hair about it, sway toward her. There was an
    impression of eyes, large and tender, of an infinite grace and
    fragility, of a coloring that merged into the greens and browns of
    the wood; and as she drew her breath it was all no more. The trees,
    the lights and shades, the stir of branches were as before, but
    something was gone from them.

    “Joan,” she cried, hesitating.

    “Yes,” said Joan, without looking up. “What?”

    The sound of words had broken a spell. Joyce was no longer sure that
    she had seen anything.

    “I thought, just now, I could see something,” she said. “But I
    s’pose I didn’t.”

    “I did,” remarked Joan.

    Joyce crawled through the crisp ferns till she was close to Joan,
    sitting solid and untroubled and busy upon the ground, with broken
    stems and leaves all round her.

    “Joan,” she begged. “Be nice. You’re trying to frighten me, aren’t
    you?”

    “I’m not,” protested Joan. “I did see a wood-lady. Wood-ladies
    doesn’t hurt you; wood-ladies are _nice_. You’re a coward, Joyce.”

    “I can’t help it,” said Joyce, sighing. “But I won’t go into the
    dark parts of the wood any more.”

    “Coward,” repeated Joan absently, but with a certain relish.

    “You wouldn’t like to go there by yourself,” cried Joyce. “If I
    wasn’t with you, you’d be a coward too. You know you would.”

    She stopped, for Joan had swept her lap free of débris and was
    rising to her feet. Joan, for all her plumpness and infantile
    softness, had a certain deliberate dignity when she was put upon her
    mettle. She eyed her sister with a calm and very galling
    superiority.

    “I’m going there now,” she answered; “all by mineself.”

    “Go, then,” retorted Joyce angrily.

    Without a further word, Joan turned her back and began to plough her
    way across the ferns toward the dark wood. Joyce, watching her, saw
    her go, at first with wrath, for she had been stung, and then with
    compunction. The plump baby was so small in the brooding solemnity
    of the pines, thrusting indefatigably along, buried to the waist in
    ferns. Her sleek brown head had a devoted look; the whole of her
    seemed to go with so sturdy an innocence toward those peopled and
    uncanny glooms. Joyce rose to her knees to call her back.

    “Joan!” she cried. The baby turned. “Joan! Come back; come back an’
    be friends!”

    Joan, maintaining her offing, replied only with a gesture. It was a
    gesture they had learned from the boot-and-knife boy, and they had
    once been spanked for practising it on the piano-tuner. The
    boot-and-knife boy called it “cocking a snook,” and it consisted in
    raising a thumb to one’s nose and spreading the fingers out. It was
    defiance and insult in tabloid form. Then she turned and plodded on.
    The opaque wall of the wood was before her and over her, but she
    knew its breach. She ducked her head under a droop of branches,
    squirmed through, was visible still for some seconds as a gleam of
    blue frock, and then the ghostly shadows received her and she was
    gone. The wood closed behind her like a lid.

    Joyce, squatting in her place, blinked a little breathlessly to
    shift from her senses an oppression of alarm, and settled down to
    wait for her. At least it was true that nothing ever happened to
    Joan; even when she fell into a water-butt she suffered no damage;
    and the wood was a place to which they came every day.

    “Besides,” she considered, enumerating her resources of comfort;
    “besides, there can’t be such things as wood-ladies _really_.”

    But Joan was a long time gone. The dome of pines took on an uncanny
    stillness; the moving patches of sun seemed furtive and unnatural;
    the ferns swayed without noise. In the midst of it, patient and
    nervous, sat Joyce, watching always that spot in the bushes where a
    blue overall and a brown head had disappeared. The undernote of
    alarm which stirred her senses died down; a child finds it hard to
    spin out a mood; she simply sat, half-dreaming in the peace of the
    morning, half-watching the wood. Time slipped by her and presently
    there came mother, smiling and seeking through the trees for her
    babies.

    “Isn’t there a clock inside you that tells you when it’s
    lunch-time?” asked mother. “You’re ever so late. Where’s Joan?”

    Joyce rose among the ferns, delicate and elfin, with a shy
    perplexity on her face. It was difficult to speak even to mother
    about wood-ladies without a pretence of scepticism.

    “I forgot about lunch,” she said, taking the slim cool hand which
    mother held out to her. “Joan’s in there.” She nodded at the bushes.

    “Is she?” said mother, and called aloud in her singing-voice, that
    was so clear to hear in the spaces of the wood. “Joan! Joan!”

    A cheeky bird answered with a whistle and mother called again.

    “She _said_,” explained Joyce—“she _said_ she saw a wood-lady and
    then she went in there to show me she wasn’t afraid.”

    “What’s a wood-lady, chick?” asked mother. “The rascal!” she said,
    smiling, when Joyce had explained as best she could. “We’ll have to
    go and look for her.”

    They went hand in hand, and mother showed herself clever in parting
    a path among the bushes. She managed so that no bough sprang back to
    strike Joyce and without tearing or soiling her own soft white
    dress; one could guess that when she had been a little girl she,
    too, had had a wood to play in. They cut down by the Secret Pond,
    where the old rhododendrons were, and out to the edge of the fields;
    and when they paused mother would lift her head and call again, and
    her voice rang in the wood like a bell. By the pond, which was a
    black water with steep banks, she paused and showed a serious face;
    but there were no marks of shoes on its clay slopes, and she shook
    her head and went on. But to all the calling there was no answer, no
    distant cheery bellow to guide them to Joan.

    “I wish she wouldn’t play these tricks,” said mother. “I don’t like
    them a bit.”

    “I expect she’s hiding,” said Joyce. “There aren’t wood-ladies
    really, are there, mother?”

    “There’s nothing worse in these woods than a rather naughty baby,”
    mother replied. “We’ll go back by the path and call her again.”

    Joyce knew that the hand which held hers tightened as they went and
    there was still no answer to mother’s calling. She could not have
    told what it was that made her suddenly breathless; the wood about
    her turned desolate; an oppression of distress and bewilderment
    burdened them both. “Joan, Joan!” called mother in her strong
    beautiful contralto, swelling the word forth in powerful music, and
    when she ceased the silence was like a taunt. It was not as if Joan
    were there and failed to answer; it was as if there were no longer
    any Joan anywhere. They came at last to the space of sparse trees
    which bordered their garden.

    “We mustn’t be silly about this,” said mother, speaking as much to
    herself as to Joyce. “Nothing can have happened to her. And you must
    have lunch, chick.”

    “Without waiting for Joan?” asked Joyce.

    “Yes. The gardener and the boot-boy must look for Joan,” said
    mother, opening the gate.

    The dining-room looked very secure and home-like, with its big
    window and its cheerful table spread for lunch. Joyce’s place faced
    the window, so that she could see the lawn and the hedge bounding
    the kitchen garden; and when mother had served her with food, she
    was left alone to eat it. Presently the gardener and the boot-boy
    passed the window, each carrying a hedge-stake and looking warlike.
    There reached her a murmur of voices; the gardener was mumbling
    something about tramps.

    “Oh, I don’t think so,” replied mother’s voice.

    Mother came in presently and sat down, but did not eat anything.
    Joyce asked her why.

    “Oh, I shall have some lunch when Joan comes,” answered mother. “I
    sha’n’t be hungry till then. Will you have some more, my pet?”

    When Joyce had finished, they went out again to the wood to meet
    Joan when she was brought back in custody. Mother walked quite
    slowly, looking all the time as if she would like to run. Joyce held
    her hand and sometimes glanced up at her face, so full of wonder and
    a sort of resentful doubt, as though circumstances were playing an
    unmannerly trick on her. At the gate they came across the boot-boy.

    “I bin all acrost that way,” said the boot-boy, pointing with his
    stumpy black forefinger, “and then acrost _that_ way, an’ Mister
    Jenks”—Jenks was the gardener—“’e’ve gone about in rings, ’e ’ave.
    And there ain’t sign nor token, mum—not a sign there ain’t.”

    From beyond him sounded the voice of the gardener, thrashing among
    the trees. “Miss Joan!” he roared. “Hi! Miss Jo-an! You’re
    a-frightin’ your ma proper. Where are ye, then?”

    “She must be hiding,” said mother. “You must go on looking, Walter.
    You must go on looking till you find her.”

    “Yes, ’m,” said Walter. “If she’s in there, us’ll find her, soon or
    late.”

    He ran off, and presently his voice was joined to Jenks’s, calling
    Joan—calling, calling, and getting no answer.

    Mother took Joyce’s hand again.

    “Come,” she said. “We’ll walk round by the path, and you must tell
    me again how it all happened. Did you really see something when Joan
    told you to look?”

    “I expect I didn’t,” replied Joyce dolefully. “But Joan’s always
    saying there’s a fairy or something in the shadows and I always
    think I see them for a moment.”

    “It couldn’t have been a live woman—or a man—that you saw?”

    “Oh, no!” Joyce was positive of that. Mother’s hand tightened on
    hers understandingly and they went on in silence till they met
    Jenks.

    Jenks was an oldish man with bushy gray whiskers, who never wore a
    coat, and now he was wet to the loins with mud and water.

    “That there ol’ pond,” he explained. “I’ve been an’ took a look at
    her. Tromped through her proper, I did, an’ I’ll go bail there ain’t
    so much as a dead cat in all the mud of her. Thish yer’s a mistry,
    mum, an’ no mistake.”

    Mother stared at him. “I can’t bear this,” she said suddenly. “You
    must go on searching, Jenks, and Walter must go on his bicycle to
    the police-station at once. Call him, please!”

    “Walter!” roared Jenks obediently.

    “Coming!” answered the boot-boy and burst forth from the bushes. In
    swift, clear words, which no stupidity could mistake or forget,
    mother gave him his orders, spoken in a tone that meant urgency.
    Walter went flying to execute them.

    “Oh, mother, where do you think Joan can be?” begged Joyce when
    Jenks had gone off to resume his search.

    “I don’t know,” said mother. “It’s all so absurd.”

    “If there _was_ wood-ladies, they wouldn’t hurt a baby like Joan,”
    suggested Joyce.

    “Oh, who could hurt her!” cried mother, and fell to calling again.
    Her voice, of which each accent was music, alternated with the harsh
    roars of Jenks.

    Walter on his bicycle must have hurried, in spite of his permanently
    punctured front tire, for it was a very short time before bells rang
    in the steep lane from the road and Superintendent Farrow himself
    wheeled his machine in at the gate, massive and self-possessed, a
    blue-clad minister of comfort. He heard mother’s tale, which
    embodied that of Joyce, with a half-smile lurking in his mustache
    and his big chin creased back against his collar. Then he nodded,
    exactly as if he saw through the whole business and could find Joan
    in a minute or two, and propped his bicycle against the fence.

    “I understand then,” he said, “that the little girl’s been missing
    for rather more than an hour. In that case, she can’t have got far.
    I sent a couple o’ constables round the roads be’ind the wood before
    I started, an’ now I’ll just ’ave a look through the wood myself.”

    “Thank you,” said mother. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous, but——”

    “Very natural, ma’am,” said the big superintendent comfortingly, and
    went with them to the wood.

    It was rather thrilling to go with him and watch him. Joyce and
    mother had to show him the place from which Joan had started and the
    spot at which she had disappeared. He looked at them hard, frowning
    a little and nodding to himself, and went stalking mightily among
    the ferns. “It was _’ere_ she went?” he inquired, as he reached the
    dark path, and being assured that it was, he thrust in and commenced
    his search. The pond seemed to give him ideas, which old Jenks
    disposed of, and he marched on till he came out to the edge of the
    fields, where the hay was yet uncut. Joan could not have crossed
    them without leaving a track in the tall grass as clear as a
    cart-rut.

    “We ’ave to consider the possibilities of the matter,” said the
    superintendent. “Assumin’ that the wood ’as been thoroughly
    searched, where did she get out of it?”

    “Searched!” growled old Jenks. “There ain’t a inch as I ’aven’t
    searched an’ seen—not a inch.”

    “The kidnappin’ the’ry,” went on the superintendent, ignoring him
    and turning to mother, “I don’t incline to. ’Owever, we must go to
    work in order, an’ I’ll ’ave my men up ’ere and make sure of the
    wood. All gypsies an’ tramps will be stopped and interrogated. I
    don’t think there’s no cause for you to feel anxious, ma’am. I ’ope
    to ’ave some news for you in the course of the afternoon.”

    They watched him free-wheel down the lane and shoot round the
    corner.

    “Oh, dear,” said mother then; “why doesn’t the baby come? I wish
    daddy weren’t away.”

    Now that the police had entered the affair, Joyce felt that there
    remained nothing to be done. Uniformed authority was in charge of
    events; it could not fail to find Joan. She had a vision of the
    police at work, stopping straggling families of tramps on distant
    by-roads, looking into the contents of their dreadful bundles,
    flashing the official bull’s-eye lantern into the mysterious
    interior of gypsy caravans, and making ragged men and slatternly
    women give an account of their wanderings. No limits to which they
    would not go; how could they fail? She wished their success seemed
    as inevitable to her mother as it did to her.

    “They’re sure to bring her back, mother,” she repeated.

    “Oh, chick,” said mother, “I keep telling myself so. But I wish—I
    wish——”

    “What, mother?”

    “I wish,” said mother, in a sudden burst of speech, as if she were
    confessing something that troubled her—“I wish you hadn’t seen that
    wood-lady.”

    The tall young constables and the plump fatherly sergeant annoyed
    old Jenks by searching the wood as though he had done nothing. It
    was a real search this time. Each of them took a part of the ground
    and went over it as though he were looking for a needle which had
    been lost, and no less than three of them trod every inch of the
    bottom of the Secret Pond. They took shovels and opened up an old
    fox’s earth; and a sad-looking man in shabby plain clothes arrived
    and walked about smoking a pipe—a detective! Up from the village,
    too, came the big young curate and the squire’s two sons, civil and
    sympathetic and eager to be helpful; they all thought it natural
    that mother should be anxious, but refused to credit for an instant
    that anything could have happened to Joan.

    “That baby!” urged the curate. “Why, my dear lady, Joan is better
    known hereabouts than King George himself. No one could take her a
    mile without having to answer questions. I don’t know what’s keeping
    her, but you may be sure she’s all right.”

    “’Course she is,” chorused the others, swinging their sticks
    light-heartedly. “’Course she’s all right.”

    “Get her for me, then,” said mother. “I don’t want to be silly and
    you’re awfully good. But I must have her; I must have her. I—I want
    her.”

    The squire’s sons turned as if on an order and went toward the wood.
    The curate lingered a moment. He was a huge youth, an athlete and a
    gentleman, and his hard, clean-shaven face could be kind and
    serious.

    “We’re sure to get her,” he said, in lower tones. “And you must help
    us with your faith and courage. Can you?”

    Mother’s hand tightened on that of Joyce.

    “We are doing our best,” she said, and smiled—she smiled! The curate
    nodded and went his way to the wood.

    A little later in the afternoon came Colonel Warden, the lord and
    master of all the police in the county, a gay, trim soldier whom the
    children knew and liked. With him, in his big automobile, were more
    policemen and a pair of queer liver-colored dogs, all baggy skin and
    bleary eyes—blood-hounds! Joyce felt that this really must settle
    it. Actual living blood-hounds would be more than a match for Joan.
    Colonel Warden was sure of it too.

    “Saves time,” he was telling mother, in his high snappy voice.
    “Shows us which way she’s gone, you know. Best hounds in the
    country, these two; never known ’em fail yet.”

    The dogs were limp and quiet as he led them through the wood,
    strange ungainly mechanisms which a whiff of a scent could set in
    motion. A pinafore which Joan had worn at breakfast was served to
    them for an indication of the work they had to do; they snuffed at
    it languidly for some seconds. Then the colonel unleashed them.

    They smelled round and about like any other dogs for a while, till
    one of them lifted his great head and uttered a long moaning cry.
    Then, noses down, the men running behind them, they set off across
    the ferns. Mother, still holding Joyce’s hand, followed. The hounds
    made a straight line for the wood at the point at which Joan had
    entered it, slid in like frogs into water, while the men dodged and
    crashed after them. Joyce and mother came up with them at a place
    where the bushes stood back, enclosing a little quiet space of turf
    that lay open to the sky. The hounds were here, one lying down and
    scratching himself, the other nosing casually and clearly without
    interest about him.

    “Dash it all,” the colonel was saying; “she can’t—she simply can’t
    have been kidnapped in a balloon.”

    They tried the hounds again and again, always with the same result.
    They ran their line to the same spot unhesitatingly, and then gave
    up as though the scent went no further. Nothing could induce them to
    hunt beyond it.

    “I can’t understand this,” said Colonel Warden, dragging at his
    mustache. “This is queer.” He stood glancing around him as though
    the shrubs and trees had suddenly become enemies.

    The search was still going on when the time came for Joyce to go to
    bed. It had spread from the wood across the fields, reinforced by
    scores of sturdy volunteers, and automobiles had puffed away to
    thread the mesh of little lanes that covered the country-side. Joyce
    found it all terribly exciting. Fear for Joan she felt not at all.

    “I know inside myself,” she told mother, “right down deep in the
    middle of me, that Joan’s all right.”

    “Bless you, my chick,” said poor mother. “I wish I could feel like
    that. Go to bed now, like a good girl.”

    There was discomfort in the sight of Joan’s railed cot standing
    empty in the night nursery, but Joyce was tired and had scarcely
    begun to be touched by it before she was asleep. She had a notion
    that during the night mother came in more than once, and she had a
    vague dream, too, all about Joan and wood-ladies, of which she could
    not remember much when she woke up. Joan was always dressed first in
    the morning, being the younger of the pair, but now there was no
    Joan and nurse was very gentle with Joyce and looked tired and as if
    she had been crying.

    Mother was not to be seen that morning; she had been up all night,
    “till she broke down, poor thing,” said nurse, and Joyce was bidden
    to amuse herself quietly in the nursery. But mother was about again
    at lunch-time when Joyce went down to the dining-room. She was very
    pale and her eyes looked black and deep, and somehow she seemed
    suddenly smaller and younger, more nearly Joyce’s age, than ever
    before. They kissed each other and the child would have tried to
    comfort.

    “No,” said mother, shaking her head. “No, dear. Don’t let’s be sorry
    for each other yet. It would be like giving up hope. And we haven’t
    done that, have we?”

    “_I_ haven’t,” said Joyce. “I _know_ it’s all right.”

    After lunch—again mother said she wouldn’t be hungry till Joan came
    home—they went out together. There were no searches now in the wood
    and the garden was empty; the police had left no inch unscanned and
    they were away, combing the country-side and spreading terror among
    the tramps. The sun was strong upon the lawn and the smell of the
    roses was heavy on the air; across the hedge the land rolled away to
    clear perspectives of peace and beauty.

    “Let’s walk up and down,” suggested mother. “Anything’s better than
    sitting still. And don’t talk, chick—not just now.”

    They paced the length of the lawn, from the cedar to the gate which
    led to the wood, perhaps a dozen times, hand in hand and in silence.
    It was while their backs were turned to the wood that they heard the
    gate click, and faced about to see who was coming. A blue-sleeved
    arm thrust the gate open and there advanced into the sunlight,
    coming forth from the shadow as from a doorway—Joan! Her round baby
    face, with the sleek brown hair over it, the massive infantile body,
    the sturdy bare legs, confronted them serenely. Mother uttered a
    deep sigh—it sounded like that—and in a moment she was kneeling on
    the ground with her arms round the baby.

    “Joan, Joan,” she said, over and over again. “My little, little
    baby!”

    Joan struggled in her embrace till she got an arm free and then
    rubbed her eyes drowsily.

    “Hallo!” she said.

    “But where have you been?” cried mother. “Baby-girl, where have you
    been all this time?”

    Joan made a motion of her head and her free arm toward the wood, the
    wood which had been searched a dozen times over like a pocket. “In
    there,” she answered carelessly. “Wiv the wood-ladies. I’m hungry!”

    “My darling!” said mother, and picked her up and carried her into
    the house.

    In the dining-room, with mother at her side and Joyce opposite to
    her, Joan fell to her food in her customary workman-like fashion,
    and between helpings answered questions in a fashion which only
    served to darken the mystery of her absence.

    “But there aren’t any wood-ladies really, darling,” remonstrated
    mother.

    “There is,” said Joan. “There’s lots. They wanted to keep me but I
    wouldn’t stay. So I comed home, ’cause I was hungry.”

    “But,” began mother, “where did they take you to?” she asked.

    “I don’t know,” said Joan. “The one what I went to speak to gave me
    her hand and tooked me to where there was more of them. It was a
    place in the wood wiv grass to sit on and bushes all round, and they
    gave me dead flowers to play wiv. Howwid old dead flowers!”

    “Yes?” said mother. “What else?”

    “There was anuvver little girl there,” went on Joan. “Not a
    wood-lady, but a girl like me, what they’d tooked from somewhere.
    She was wearing a greeny sort of dress like they was, and they
    wanted me to put one on too. But I wouldn’t.”

    “Why wouldn’t you?” asked Joyce.

    “’Cause I didn’t want to be a wood-lady,” replied Joan.

    “Listen to me, darling,” said mother. “Didn’t these people whom you
    call wood-ladies take you away out of the wood? We searched the
    whole wood, you know, and you weren’t there at all.”

    “I was,” said Joan. “I was there all the time an’ I heard Walter an’
    Jenks calling. I cocked a snook at them an’ the wood-ladies laughed
    like leaves rustling.”

    “But where did you sleep last night?”

    “I didn’t sleep,” said Joan, grasping her spoon anew. “I’se very
    sleepy now.”

    She was asleep as soon as they laid her in bed, and mother and Joyce
    looked at each other across her cot, above her rosy and unconscious
    face.

    “God help us,” said mother, in a whisper. “What is the truth of
    this?”

    There was never any answer, any hint of a solution, save Joan’s. And
    she, as soon as she discovered that her experiences amounted to an
    adventure, began to embroider them, and now she does not even know
    herself. She has reached the age of seven, and it is long since she
    has believed in anything so childish as wood-ladies.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          ON THE FEVER SHIP[6]
                        By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS


Footnote 6:

      From _The Lion and the Unicorn_. Copyright, 1899, by Charles
      Scribner’s Sons.

    THERE were four rails around the ship’s sides, the three lower ones
    of iron and the one on top of wood, and as he looked between them
    from the canvas cot he recognized them as the prison-bars which held
    him in. Outside his prison lay a stretch of blinding blue water
    which ended in a line of breakers and a yellow coast with ragged
    palms. Beyond that again rose a range of mountain-peaks, and, stuck
    upon the loftiest peak of all, a tiny block-house. It rested on the
    brow of the mountain against the naked sky as impudently as a
    cracker-box set upon the dome of a great cathedral.

    As the transport rode on her anchor-chains, the iron bars around her
    sides rose and sank and divided the landscape with parallel lines.
    From his cot the officer followed this phenomenon with severe,
    painstaking interest. Sometimes the wooden rail swept up to the very
    block-house itself, and for a second of time blotted it from sight.
    And again it sank to the level of the line of breakers, and wiped
    them out of the picture as though they were a line of chalk.

    The soldier on the cot promised himself that the next swell of the
    sea would send the lowest rail climbing to the very top of the
    palm-trees or, even higher, to the base of the mountains; and when
    it failed to reach even the palm-trees he felt a distinct sense of
    ill use, of having been wronged by some one. There was no other
    reason for submitting to this existence save these tricks upon the
    wearisome, glaring landscape; and now, whoever it was who was
    working them did not seem to be making this effort to entertain him
    with any heartiness.

    It was most cruel. Indeed, he decided hotly, it was not to be
    endured; he would bear it no longer, he would make his escape. But
    he knew that this move, which could be conceived in a moment’s
    desperation, could only be carried to success with great strategy,
    secrecy, and careful cunning. So he fell back upon his pillow and
    closed his eyes, as though he were asleep, and then opening them
    again, turned cautiously, and spied upon his keeper. As usual, his
    keeper sat at the foot of the cot turning the pages of a huge paper
    filled with pictures of the war printed in daubs of tawdry colors.
    His keeper was a hard-faced boy without human pity or consideration,
    a very devil of obstinacy and fiendish cruelty. To make it worse,
    the fiend was a person without a collar, in a suit of soiled khaki,
    with a curious red cross bound by a safety-pin to his left arm. He
    was intent upon the paper in his hands; he was holding it between
    his eyes and his prisoner. His vigilance had relaxed, and the moment
    seemed propitious. With a sudden plunge of arms and legs, the
    prisoner swept the bed-sheet from him, and sprang at the wooden rail
    and grasped the iron stanchion beside it. He had his knee pressed
    against the top bar and his bare toes on the iron rail beneath it.
    Below him the blue water waited for him. It was cool and dark and
    gentle and deep. It would certainly put out the fire in his bones,
    he thought; it might even shut out the glare of the sun which
    scorched his eyeballs.

    But as he balanced for the leap, a swift weakness and nausea swept
    over him, a weight seized upon his body and limbs. He could not lift
    the lower foot from the iron rail, and he swayed dizzily and
    trembled. He trembled. He who had raced his men and beaten them up
    the hot hill to the trenches of San Juan. But now he was a baby in
    the hands of a giant, who caught him by the wrist and with an iron
    arm clasped him around his waist and pulled him down, and shouted,
    brutally, “Help, some of youse, quick! he’s at it again. I can’t
    hold him.”

    More giants grasped him by the arms and by the legs. One of them
    took the hand that clung to the stanchion in both of his, and pulled
    back the fingers one by one, saying, “Easy now, Lieutenant—easy.”

    The ragged palms and the sea and block-house were swallowed up in a
    black fog, and his body touched the canvas cot again with a sense of
    home-coming and relief and rest. He wondered how he could have cared
    to escape from it. He found it so good to be back again that for a
    long time he wept quite happily, until the fiery pillow was moist
    and cool.

    The world outside of the iron bars was like a scene in a theater set
    for some great event, but the actors were never ready. He remembered
    confusedly a play he had once witnessed before that same scene.
    Indeed, he believed he had played some small part in it; but he
    remembered it dimly, and all trace of the men who had appeared with
    him in it was gone. He had reasoned it out that they were up there
    behind the range of mountains, because great heavy wagons and
    ambulances and cannon were emptied from the ships at the wharf above
    and were drawn away in long lines behind the ragged palms, moving
    always toward the passes between the peaks. At times he was
    disturbed by the thought that he should be up and after them, that
    some tradition of duty made his presence with them imperative. There
    was much to be done back of the mountains. Some event of momentous
    import was being carried forward there, in which he held a part; but
    the doubt soon passed from him, and he was content to lie and watch
    the iron bars rising and falling between the block-house and the
    white surf.

    If they had been only humanely kind, his lot would have been
    bearable, but they starved him and held him down when he wished to
    rise; and they would not put out the fire in the pillow, which they
    might easily have done by the simple expedient of throwing it over
    the ship’s side into the sea. He himself had done this twice, but
    the keeper had immediately brought a fresh pillow already heated for
    the torture and forced it under his head.

    His pleasures were very simple, and so few he could not understand
    why they robbed him of them so jealously. One was to watch a green
    cluster of bananas that hung above him from the awning, twirling on
    a string. He could count as many of them as five before the bunch
    turned and swung lazily back again, when he could count as high as
    twelve; sometimes when the ship rolled heavily he could count to
    twenty. It was a most fascinating game, and contented him for many
    hours. But when they found this out they sent for the cook to come
    and cut them down, and the cook carried them away to his galley.

    Then, one day, a man came out from the shore, swimming through the
    blue water with great splashes. He was a most charming man, who
    spluttered and dove and twisted and lay on his back and kicked his
    legs in an excess of content and delight. It was a real pleasure to
    watch him; not for days had anything so amusing appeared on the
    other side of the prison-bars. But as soon as the keeper saw that
    the man in the water was amusing his prisoner, he leaned over the
    ship’s side and shouted, “Sa-ay, you, don’t you know there’s sharks
    in there?”

    And the swimming man raced back to the shore like a porpoise with
    great lashing of the water, and ran up the beach half-way to the
    palms before he was satisfied to stop. Then the prisoner wept again.
    It was so disappointing. Life was robbed of everything now. He
    remembered that in a previous existence soldiers who cried were
    laughed at and mocked. But that was so far away and it was such an
    absurd superstition that he had no patience with it. For what could
    be more comforting to a man when he is treated cruelly than to cry.
    It was so obvious an exercise, and when one is so feeble that one
    cannot vault a four-railed barrier it is something to feel that at
    least one is strong enough to cry.

    He escaped occasionally, traversing space with marvellous rapidity
    and to great distances, but never to any successful purpose; and his
    flight inevitably ended in ignominious recapture and a sudden
    awakening in bed. At these moments the familiar and hated palms, the
    peaks, and the block-house were more hideous in their reality than
    the most terrifying of his nightmares.

    These excursions afield were always predatory; he went forth always
    to seek food. With all the beautiful world from which to elect and
    choose, he sought out only those places where eating was studied and
    elevated to an art. These visits were much more vivid in their
    detail than any he had ever before made to these same resorts. They
    invariably began in a carriage, which carried him swiftly over
    smooth asphalt. One route brought him across a great and beautiful
    square, radiating with rows and rows of flickering lights; two
    fountains splashed in the center of the square, and six women of
    stone guarded its approaches. One of the women was hung with wreaths
    of mourning. Ahead of him the late twilight darkened behind a great
    arch, which seemed to rise on the horizon of the world, a great
    window into the heavens beyond. At either side strings of white and
    colored globes hung among the trees, and the sound of music came
    joyfully from theaters in the open air. He knew the restaurant under
    the trees to which he was now hastening, and the fountain beside it,
    and the very sparrows balancing on the fountain’s edge; he knew
    every waiter at each of the tables, he felt again the gravel
    crunching under his feet, he saw the _maître d’hôtel_ coming forward
    smiling to receive his command, and the waiter in the green apron
    bowing at his elbow, deferential and important, presenting the list
    of wines. But his adventure never passed that point, for he was
    captured again and once more bound to his cot with a close burning
    sheet.

    Or else, he drove more sedately through the London streets in the
    late evening twilight, leaning expectantly across the doors of the
    hansom and pulling carefully at his white gloves. Other hansoms
    flashed past him, the occupant of each with his mind fixed on one
    idea—dinner. He was one of a million of people who were about to
    dine, or who had dined, or who were deep in dining. He was so
    famished, so weak for food of any quality, that the galloping horse
    in the hansom seemed to crawl. The lights of the Embankment passed
    like the lamps of a railroad station as seen from the window of an
    express; and while his mind was still torn between the choice of a
    thin or thick soup or an immediate attack upon cold beef, he was at
    the door, and the _chasseur_ touched his cap, and the little
    _chasseur_ put the wicker guard over the hansom’s wheel. As he
    jumped out he said, “Give him half-a-crown,” and the driver called
    after him, “Thank you, sir.”

    It was a beautiful world, this world outside of the iron bars.
    Everyone in it contributed to his pleasure and to his comfort. In
    this world he was not starved nor man-handled. He thought of this
    joyfully as he leaped up the stairs, where young men with grave
    faces and with their hands held negligently behind their backs bowed
    to him in polite surprise at his speed. But they had not been
    starved on condensed milk. He threw his coat and hat at one of them,
    and came down the hall fearfully and quite weak with dread lest it
    should not be real. His voice was shaking when he asked Ellis if he
    had reserved a table. The place was all so real, it must be true
    this time. The way Ellis turned and ran his finger down the list
    showed it was real, because Ellis always did that, even when he knew
    there would not be an empty table for an hour. The room was crowded
    with beautiful women; under the light of the red shades they looked
    kind and approachable, and there was food on every table, and iced
    drinks in silver buckets. It was with the joy of great relief that
    he heard Ellis say to his underling, “_Numéro cinq, sur la terrace,
    un couvert_.” It was real at last. Outside, the Thames lay a great
    gray shadow. The lights of the Embankment flashed and twinkled
    across it, the tower of the House of Commons rose against the sky,
    and here, inside, the waiter was hurrying toward him carrying a
    smoking plate of rich soup with a pungent, intoxicating odor.

    And then the ragged palms, the glaring sun, the immovable peaks, and
    the white surf stood again before him. The iron rails swept up and
    sank again, the fever sucked at his bones, and the pillow scorched
    his cheek.

    One morning for a brief moment he came back to real life again and
    lay quite still, seeing everything about him with clear eyes and for
    the first time, as though he had but just that instant been lifted
    over the ship’s side. His keeper, glancing up, found the prisoner’s
    eyes considering him curiously, and recognized the change. The
    instinct of discipline brought him to his feet with his fingers at
    his sides.

    “Is the Lieutenant feeling better?”

    The Lieutenant surveyed him gravely.

    “You are one of our hospital stewards.”

    “Yes, Lieutenant.”

    “Why aren’t you with the regiment?”

    “I was wounded, too, sir. I got it same time you did, Lieutenant.”

    “Am I wounded? Of course, I remember. Is this a hospital ship?”

    The steward shrugged his shoulders. “She’s one of the transports.
    They have turned her over to the fever cases.”

    The Lieutenant opened his lips to ask another question; but his own
    body answered that one, and for a moment he lay silent.

    “Do they know up North that I—that I’m all right?”

    “Oh, yes, the papers had it in—there were pictures of the Lieutenant
    in some of them.”

    “Then I’ve been ill some time?”

    “Oh, about eight days.”

    The soldier moved uneasily, and the nurse in him became uppermost.

    “I guess the Lieutenant hadn’t better talk any more,” he said. It
    was his voice now which held authority.

    The Lieutenant looked out at the palms and the silent gloomy
    mountains and the empty coastline, where the same wave was rising
    and falling with weary persistence.

    “Eight days,” he said. His eyes shut quickly, as though with a
    sudden touch of pain. He turned his head and sought for the figure
    at the foot of the cot. Already the figure had grown faint and was
    receding and swaying.

    “Has anyone written or cabled?” the Lieutenant spoke, hurriedly. He
    was fearful lest the figure should disappear altogether before he
    could obtain his answer. “Has anyone come?”

    “Why, they couldn’t get here, Lieutenant, not yet.”

    The voice came very faintly. “You go to sleep now, and I’ll run and
    fetch some letters and telegrams. When you wake up, maybe I’ll have
    a lot for you.”

    But the Lieutenant caught the nurse by the wrist, and crushed his
    hand in his own thin fingers. They were hot, and left the steward’s
    skin wet with perspiration. The Lieutenant laughed gayly.

    “You see, Doctor,” he said, briskly, “that you can’t kill me. I
    can’t die. I’ve got to live, you understand. Because, sir, she said
    she would come. She said if I was wounded, or if I was ill, she
    would come to me. She didn’t care what people thought. She would
    come anyway and nurse me—well, she will come.”

    “So, Doctor—old man—” He plucked at the steward’s sleeve, and
    stroked his hand eagerly, “old man—” he began again, beseechingly,
    “you’ll not let me die until she comes, will you? What? No, I know I
    won’t die. Nothing made by man can kill me. No, not until she comes.
    Then, after that—eight days, she’ll be here soon, any moment? What?
    You think so, too? Don’t you? Surely, yes, any moment. Yes, I’ll go
    to sleep now, and when you see her rowing out from shore you wake
    me. You’ll know her; you can’t make a mistake. She is like—no, there
    is no one like her—but you can’t make a mistake.”

    That day strange figures began to mount the sides of the ship, and
    to occupy its every turn and angle of space. Some of them fell on
    their knees and slapped the bare deck with their hands, and laughed
    and cried out, “Thank God, I’ll see God’s country again!” Some of
    them were regulars, bound in bandages; some were volunteers, dirty
    and hollow-eyed, with long beards on boys’ faces. Some came on
    crutches; others with their arms around the shoulders of their
    comrades, staring ahead of them with a fixed smile, their lips drawn
    back and their teeth protruding. At every second step they stumbled,
    and the face of each was swept by swift ripples of pain.

    They lay on cots so close together that the nurses could not walk
    between them. They lay on the wet decks, in the scuppers and along
    the transoms and hatches. They were like shipwrecked mariners
    clinging to a raft, and they asked nothing more than that the ship’s
    bow be turned toward home. Once satisfied as to that, they relaxed
    into a state of self-pity and miserable oblivion to their
    environment, from which hunger nor nausea nor aching bones could
    shake them.

    The hospital steward touched the Lieutenant lightly on the shoulder.

    “We are going North, sir,” he said. “The transport’s ordered North
    to New York, with these volunteers and the sick and the wounded. Do
    you hear me, sir?”

    The Lieutenant opened his eyes. “Has she come?” he asked.

    “Gee!” exclaimed the hospital steward. He glanced impatiently at the
    blue mountains and the yellow coast, from which the transport was
    rapidly drawing away.

    “Well, I can’t see her coming just now,” he said. “But she will,” he
    added.

    “You let me know at once when she comes.”

    “Why, cert’nly, of course,” said the steward.

    Three trained nurses came over the side just before the transport
    started North. One was a large, motherly looking woman, with a
    German accent. She had been a trained nurse, first in Berlin, and
    later in the London Hospital in Whitechapel, and at Bellevue. The
    nurse was dressed in white, and wore a little silver medal at her
    throat; and she was strong enough to lift a volunteer out of his cot
    and hold him easily in her arms, while one of the convalescents
    pulled his cot out of the rain. Some of the men called her “nurse”;
    others, who wore scapulars around their necks, called her “Sister”;
    and the officers of the medical staff addressed her as Miss Bergen.

    Miss Bergen halted beside the cot of the Lieutenant and asked, “Is
    this the fever case you spoke about, Doctor—the one you want moved
    to the officers’ ward?” She slipped her hand up under his sleeve and
    felt his wrist.

    “His pulse is very high,” she said to the steward. “When did you
    take his temperature?” She drew a little morocco case from her
    pocket and from that took a clinical thermometer, which she shook up
    and down, eying the patient meanwhile with a calm, impersonal
    scrutiny. The Lieutenant raised his head and stared up at the white
    figure beside his cot. His eyes opened and then shut quickly, with a
    startled look, in which doubt struggled with wonderful happiness.
    His hand stole out fearfully and warily until it touched her apron,
    and then, finding it was real, he clutched it desperately, and
    twisting his face and body toward her, pulled her down, clasping her
    hands in both of his, and pressing them close to his face and eyes
    and lips. He put them from him for an instant, and looked at her
    through his tears.

    “Sweetheart,” he whispered, “sweetheart, I knew you’d come.”

    As the nurse knelt on the deck beside him, her thermometer slipped
    from her fingers and broke, and she gave an exclamation of
    annoyance. The young Doctor picked up the pieces and tossed them
    overboard. Neither of them spoke, but they smiled appreciatively.
    The Lieutenant was looking at the nurse with the wonder and hope and
    hunger of soul in his eyes with which a dying man looks at the cross
    the priest holds up before him. What he saw where the German nurse
    was kneeling was a tall, fair girl with great bands and masses of
    hair, with a head rising like a lily from a firm, white throat, set
    on broad shoulders above a straight back and sloping breast—a tall,
    beautiful creature, half-girl, half-woman, who looked back at him
    shyly, but steadily.

    “Listen,” he said.

    The voice of the sick man was so sure and so sane that the young
    Doctor started, and moved nearer to the head of the cot. “Listen,
    dearest,” the Lieutenant whispered. “I wanted to tell you before I
    came South. But I did not dare; and then I was afraid something
    might happen to me, and I could never tell you, and you would never
    know. So I wrote it to you in the will I made at Baiquiri, the night
    before the landing. If you hadn’t come now, you would have learned
    it in that way. You would have read there that there never was
    anyone but you; the rest were all dream people, foolish, silly—mad.
    There is no one else in the world but you; you have been the only
    thing in life that has counted. I thought I might do something down
    here that would make you care. But I got shot going up a hill, and
    after that I wasn’t able to do anything. It was very hot, and the
    hills were on fire; and they took me prisoner, and kept me tied down
    here, burning on these coals. I can’t live much longer, but now that
    I’ve told you I can have peace. They tried to kill me before you
    came; but they didn’t know I loved you, they didn’t know that men
    who love you can’t die. They tried to starve my love for you, to
    burn it out of me; they tried to reach it with their knives. But my
    love for you is my soul, and they can’t kill a man’s soul. Dear
    heart, I have lived because you lived. Now that you know—now that
    you understand—what does it matter?”

    Miss Bergen shook her head with great vigor. “Nonsense,” she said,
    cheerfully. “You are not going to die. As soon as we move you out of
    this rain, and some food cook——”

    “Good God!” cried the young Doctor, savagely. “Do you want to kill
    him?”

    When she spoke, the patient had thrown his arms heavily across his
    face, and had fallen back, lying rigid on the pillow.

    The Doctor led the way across the prostrate bodies, apologizing as
    he went. “I am sorry I spoke so quickly,” he said, “but he thought
    you were real. I mean he thought you were some one he really knew——”

    “He was just delirious,” said the German nurse, calmly. The Doctor
    mixed himself a Scotch and soda and drank it with a single gesture.

    “Ugh!” he said to the ward-room. “I feel as though I’d been opening
    another man’s letters.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

    The transport drove through the empty seas with heavy, clumsy
    upheavals, rolling like a buoy. Having been originally intended for
    the freight-carrying trade, she had no sympathy with hearts that
    beat for a sight of their native land, or for lives that counted
    their remaining minutes by the throbbing of her engines.
    Occasionally, without apparent reason, she was thrown violently from
    her course; but it was invariably the case that when her stern went
    to starboard, something splashed in the water on her port side and
    drifted past her, until, when it had cleared the blades of her
    propeller, a voice cried out, and she was swung back on her
    home-bound track again.

    The Lieutenant missed the familiar palms and the tiny block-house;
    and seeing nothing beyond the iron rails but great wastes of gray
    water, he decided he was on board a prison-ship, or that he had been
    strapped to a raft and cast adrift. People came for hours at a time
    and stood at the foot of his cot, and talked with him and he to
    them—people he had loved and people he had long forgotten, some of
    whom he had thought were dead. One of them he could have sworn he
    had seen buried in a deep trench, and covered with branches of
    palmetto. He had heard the bugler, with tears choking him, sound
    “taps”; and with his own hand he had placed the dead man’s campaign
    hat on the mound of fresh earth above the grave. Yet here he was
    still alive, and he came with other men of his troop to speak to
    him; but when he reached out to them they were gone—the real and the
    unreal, the dead and the living—and even She disappeared whenever he
    tried to take her hand, and sometimes the hospital steward drove her
    away.

    “Did that young lady say when she was coming back again?” he asked
    the steward.

    “The young lady! What young lady?” asked the steward, wearily.

    “The one who has been sitting there,” he answered. He pointed with
    his gaunt hand at the man in the next cot.

    “Oh, that young lady. Yes, she’s coming back. She’s just gone below
    to fetch you some hard-tack.”

    The young volunteer in the next cot whined grievously.

    “That crazy man gives me the creeps,” he groaned. “He’s always
    waking me up, and looking at me as though he was going to eat me.”

    “Shut your head,” said the steward. “He’s a better man crazy than
    you’ll ever be with the little sense you’ve got. And he has two
    Mauser holes in him. Crazy, eh? It’s a good thing for you that there
    was about four thousand of us regulars just as crazy as him, or
    you’d never seen the top of the hill.”

    One morning there was a great commotion on deck, and all the
    convalescents balanced themselves on the rail, shivering in their
    pajamas, and pointed one way. The transport was moving swiftly and
    smoothly through water as flat as a lake, and making a great noise
    with her steam-whistle. The noise was echoed by many more
    steam-whistles; and the ghosts of out-bound ships and tugs and
    excursion steamers ran past her out of the mist and disappeared,
    saluting joyously. All of the excursion steamers had a heavy list to
    the side nearest the transport, and the ghosts on them crowded to
    that rail and waved handkerchiefs and cheered. The fog lifted
    suddenly, and between the iron rails the Lieutenant saw high green
    hills on either side of a great harbor. Houses and trees and
    thousands of masts swept past like a panorama; and beyond was a
    mirage of three cities, with curling smoke-wreaths, and sky-reaching
    buildings, and a great swinging bridge, and a giant statue of woman
    waving a welcome home.

    The Lieutenant surveyed the spectacle with cynical disbelief. He was
    far too wise and far too cunning to be bewitched by it. In his heart
    he pitied the men about him, who laughed wildly, and shouted, and
    climbed recklessly to the rails and ratlines. He had been deceived
    too often not to know that it was not real. He knew from cruel
    experience that in a few moments the tall buildings would crumble
    away, the thousands of columns of white smoke that flashed like snow
    in the sun, the busy, shrieking tug-boats, and the great statue
    would vanish into the sea, leaving it gray and bare. He closed his
    eyes and shut the vision out. It was so beautiful that it tempted
    him: but he would not be mocked, and he buried his face in his
    hands. They were carrying the farce too far, he thought. It was
    really too absurd; for now they were at a wharf which was so real
    that, had he not known by previous suffering, he would have been
    utterly deceived by it. And there were great crowds of smiling,
    cheering people, and a waiting guard of honor in fresh uniforms, and
    rows of police pushing the people this way and that; and these men
    about him were taking it all quite seriously and making ready to
    disembark, carrying their blanket-rolls and rifles with them.

    A band was playing joyously, and the man in the next cot, who was
    being lifted to a stretcher, said, “There’s the Governor and his
    staff; that’s him in the high hat.” It was really very well done.
    The Custom-house and the Elevated Railroad and Castle Garden were as
    like to life as a photograph, and the crowd was as well handled as a
    mob in a play. His heart ached for it so that he could not bear the
    pain, and he turned his back on it. It was cruel to keep it up so
    long. His keeper lifted him in his arms, and pulled him into a dirty
    uniform which had belonged, apparently, to a much larger man—a man
    who had been killed probably, for there were dark-brown marks of
    blood on the tunic and breeches. When he tried to stand on his feet,
    Castle Garden and the Battery disappeared in a black cloud of night,
    just as he knew they would; but when he opened his eyes from the
    stretcher, they had returned again. It was a most remarkably vivid
    vision. They kept it up so well. Now the young Doctor and the
    hospital steward were pretending to carry him down a gangplank and
    into an open space; and he saw quite close to him a long line of
    policemen, and behind them thousands of faces, some of them women’s
    faces—women who pointed at him and then shook their heads and cried,
    and pressed their hands to their cheeks, still looking at him. He
    wondered why they cried. He did not know them, nor did they know
    him. No one knew him; these people were only ghosts.

    There was a quick parting in the crowd. A man he had once known
    shoved two of the policemen to one side, and he heard a girl’s voice
    speaking his name, like a sob; and She came running out across the
    open space and fell on her knees beside the stretcher, and bent down
    over him, and he was clasped in two young, firm arms.

    “Of course it is not real, of course it is not She,” he assured
    himself. “Because She would not do such a thing. Before all these
    people She would not do it.”

    But he trembled and his heart throbbed so cruelly that he could not
    bear the pain.

    She was pretending to cry.

    “They wired us you had started for Tampa on the hospital ship,” She
    was saying, “and Aunt and I went all the way there before we heard
    you had been sent North. We have been on the cars a week. That is
    why I missed you. Do you understand? It was not my fault. I tried to
    come. Indeed, I tried to come.”

    She turned her head and looked up fearfully at the young Doctor.

    “Tell me, why does he look at me like that?” she asked. “He doesn’t
    know me. Is he very ill? Tell me the truth.” She drew in her breath
    quickly. “Of course you will tell me the truth.”

    When she asked the question he felt her arms draw tight about his
    shoulders. It was as though she was holding him to herself, and from
    someone who had reached out for him. In his trouble he turned to his
    old friend and keeper. His voice was hoarse and very low.

    “Is this the same young lady who was on the transport—the one you
    used to drive away?”

    In his embarrassment, the hospital steward blushed under his tan,
    and stammered.

    “Of course it’s the same young lady,” the Doctor answered, briskly.
    “And I won’t let them drive her away.” He turned to her, smiling
    gravely. “I think his condition has ceased to be dangerous, Madam,”
    he said.

    People who, in a former existence, had been his friends, and Her
    brother, gathered about his stretcher and bore him through the crowd
    and lifted him into a carriage filled with cushions, among which he
    sank lower and lower. Then She sat beside him, and he heard Her
    brother say to the coachman, “Home, and drive slowly and keep on the
    asphalt.”

    The carriage moved forward, and She put her arm about him, and his
    head fell on her shoulder, and neither of them spoke. The vision had
    lasted so long now that he was torn with the joy that after all it
    might be real. But he could not bear the awakening if it were not,
    so he raised his head fearfully and looked up into the beautiful
    eyes above him. His brows were knit, and he struggled with a great
    doubt and an awful joy.

    “Dearest,” he said, “is it real?”

    “Is it real?” she repeated.

    Even as a dream, it was so wonderfully beautiful that he was
    satisfied if it could only continue so, if but for a little while.

    “Do you think,” he begged again, trembling, “that it is going to
    last much longer?”

    She smiled, and bending her head slowly, kissed him.

    “It is going to last—always,” she said.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                         A SOURCE OF IRRITATION
                           By STACY AUMONIER


    TO look at old Sam Gates you would never suspect him of having
    nerves. His sixty-nine years of close application to the needs of
    the soil had given him a certain earthy stolidity. To observe him
    hoeing, or thinning out a broad field of turnips, hardly attracted
    one’s attention, he seemed so much part and parcel of the whole
    scheme. He blended into the soil like a glorified swede.
    Nevertheless, the half-dozen people who claimed his acquaintance
    knew him to be a man who suffered from little moods of irritability.

    And on this glorious morning a little incident annoyed him
    unreasonably. It concerned his niece, Aggie. She was a plump girl
    with clear, blue eyes, and a face as round and inexpressive as the
    dumplings for which the county was famous. She came slowly across
    the long sweep of the downland and, putting down the bundle wrapped
    in a red handkerchief which contained his breakfast and dinner, she
    said:

    “Well, Uncle, is there any noos?”

    Now, this may not appear to the casual reader to be a remark likely
    to cause irritation, but it affected old Sam Gates as a very silly
    and unnecessary question. It was, moreover, the constant repetition
    of it which was beginning to anger him. He met his niece twice a
    day. In the morning she brought his bundle of food at seven, and
    when he passed his sister’s cottage on the way home to tea at five
    she was invariably hanging about the gate, and she always said in
    the same voice:

    “Well, Uncle, is there any noos?”

    Noos! What noos should there be? For sixty-nine years he had never
    lived farther than five miles from Halvesham. For nearly sixty of
    those years he had bent his back above the soil. There were, indeed,
    historic occasions. Once, for instance, when he had married Annie
    Hachet. And there was the birth of his daughter. There was also a
    famous occasion when he had visited London. Once he had been to a
    flower-show at Market Roughborough. He either went or didn’t go to
    church on Sundays. He had had many interesting chats with Mr. James
    at the Cowman, and three years ago had sold a pig to Mrs. Way. But
    he couldn’t always have interesting noos of this sort up his sleeve.
    Didn’t the silly zany know that for the last three weeks he had been
    hoeing and thinning out turnips for Mr. Hodge on this very same
    field? What noos could there be?

    He blinked at his niece, and didn’t answer. She undid the parcel and
    said:

    “Mrs. Goping’s fowl got out again last night.”

    “Ah,” he replied in a non-committal manner and began to munch his
    bread and bacon. His niece picked up the handkerchief and, humming
    to herself, walked back across the field.

    It was a glorious morning, and a white sea mist added to the promise
    of a hot day. He sat there munching, thinking of nothing in
    particular, but gradually subsiding into a mood of placid content.
    He noticed the back of Aggie disappear in the distance. It was a
    mile to the cottage and a mile and a half to Halvesham. Silly
    things, girls. They were all alike. One had to make allowances. He
    dismissed her from his thoughts, and took a long swig of tea out of
    a bottle. Insects buzzed lazily. He tapped his pocket to assure
    himself that his pouch of shag was there, and then he continued
    munching. When he had finished, he lighted his pipe and stretched
    himself comfortably. He looked along the line of turnips he had
    thinned and then across the adjoining field of swedes. Silver
    streaks appeared on the sea below the mist. In some dim way he felt
    happy in his solitude amidst this sweeping immensity of earth and
    sea and sky.

    And then something else came to irritate him: it was one of “these
    dratted airyplanes.” “Airyplanes” were his pet aversion. He could
    find nothing to be said in their favor. Nasty, noisy, disfiguring
    things that seared the heavens and made the earth dangerous. And
    every day there seemed to be more and more of them. Of course “this
    old war” was responsible for a lot of them, he knew. The war was a
    “plaguy noosance.” They were short-handed on the farm, beer and
    tobacco were dear, and Mrs. Steven’s nephew had been and got wounded
    in the foot.

    He turned his attention once more to the turnips; but an “airyplane”
    has an annoying genius for gripping one’s attention. When it appears
    on the scene, however much we dislike it, it has a way of taking the
    stage-center. We cannot help constantly looking at it. And so it was
    with old Sam Gates. He spat on his hands and blinked up at the sky.
    And suddenly the aëroplane behaved in a very extraordinary manner.
    It was well over the sea when it seemed to lurch drunkenly and
    skimmed the water. Then it shot up at a dangerous angle and
    zigzagged. It started to go farther out, and then turned and made
    for the land. The engines were making a curious grating noise. It
    rose once more, and then suddenly dived downward, and came plump
    down right in the middle of Mr. Hodge’s field of swedes.

    And then, as if not content with this desecration, it ran along the
    ground, ripping and tearing up twenty-five yards of good swedes, and
    then came to a stop.

    Old Sam Gates was in a terrible state. The aëroplane was more than a
    hundred yards away, but he waved his arms and called out:

    “Hi, you there, you mustn’t land in they swedes! They’re Mister
    Hodge’s.”

    The instant the aëroplane stopped, a man leaped out and gazed
    quickly round. He glanced at Sam Gates, and seemed uncertain whether
    to address him or whether to concentrate his attention on the
    flying-machine. The latter arrangement appeared to be his ultimate
    decision. He dived under the engine and became frantically busy. Sam
    had never seen any one work with such furious energy; but all the
    same it was not to be tolerated. It was disgraceful. Sam started out
    across the field, almost hurrying in his indignation. When he
    appeared within earshot of the aviator he cried out again:

    “Hi! you mustn’t rest your old airyplane here! You’ve kicked up all
    Mr. Hodge’s swedes. A noice thing you’ve done!”

    He was within five yards when suddenly the aviator turned and
    covered him with a revolver! And speaking in a sharp, staccato
    voice, he said:

    “Old Grandfather, you must sit down. I am very much occupied. If you
    interfere or attempt to go away, I shoot you. So!”

    Sam gazed at the horrid, glittering little barrel and gasped. Well,
    he never! To be threatened with murder when you’re doing your duty
    in your employer’s private property! But, still, perhaps the man was
    mad. A man must be more or less mad to go up in one of those crazy
    things. And life was very sweet on that summer morning despite
    sixty-nine years. He sat down among the swedes.

    The aviator was so busy with his cranks and machinery that he hardly
    deigned to pay him any attention except to keep the revolver handy.
    He worked feverishly, and Sam sat watching him. At the end of ten
    minutes he appeared to have solved his troubles with the machine,
    but he still seemed very scared. He kept on glancing round and out
    to sea. When his repairs were complete he straightened his back and
    wiped the perspiration from his brow. He was apparently on the point
    of springing back into the machine and going off when a sudden mood
    of facetiousness, caused by relief from the strain he had endured,
    came to him. He turned to old Sam and smiled, at the same time
    remarking:

    “Well, old Grandfather, and now we shall be all right, isn’t it?”

    He came close up to Sam, and then suddenly started back.

    “_Gott!_” he cried, “Paul Jouperts!”

    Bewildered, Sam gazed at him, and the madman started talking to him
    in some foreign tongue. Sam shook his head.

    “You no roight,” he remarked, “to come bargin’ through they swedes
    of Mr. Hodge’s.”

    And then the aviator behaved in a most peculiar manner. He came up
    and examined Sam’s face very closely, and gave a sudden tug at his
    beard and hair, as if to see whether they were real or false.

    “What is your name, old man?” he said.

    “Sam Gates.”

    The aviator muttered some words that sounded something like “mare
    vudish,” and then turned to his machine. He appeared to be dazed and
    in a great state of doubt. He fumbled with some cranks, but kept
    glancing at old Sam. At last he got into the car and strapped
    himself in. Then he stopped, and sat there deep in thought. At last
    he suddenly unstrapped himself and sprang out again and, approaching
    Sam, said very deliberately:

    “Old Grandfather, I shall require you to accompany me.”

    Sam gasped.

    “Eh?” he said. “What be talkin’ about? ’Company? I got these ’ere
    loines o’ turnips—I be already behoind—”

    The disgusting little revolver once more flashed before his eyes.

    “There must be no discussion,” came the voice. “It is necessary that
    you mount the seat of the car without delay. Otherwise I shoot you
    like the dog you are. So!”

    Old Sam was hale and hearty. He had no desire to die so
    ignominiously. The pleasant smell of the Norfolk downland was in his
    nostrils; his foot was on his native heath. He mounted the seat of
    the car, contenting himself with a mutter:

    “Well, that be a noice thing, I must say! Flyin’ about the country
    with all they turnips on’y half thinned!”

    He found himself strapped in. The aviator was in a fever of anxiety
    to get away. The engines made a ghastly splutter and noise. The
    thing started running along the ground. Suddenly it shot upward,
    giving the swedes a last contemptuous kick. At twenty minutes to
    eight that morning old Sam found himself being borne right up above
    his fields and out to sea! His breath came quickly. He was a little
    frightened.

    “God forgive me!” he murmured.

    The thing was so fantastic and sudden that his mind could not grasp
    it. He only felt in some vague way that he was going to die, and he
    struggled to attune his mind to the change. He offered up a mild
    prayer to God, Who, he felt, must be very near, somewhere up in
    these clouds. Automatically he thought of the vicar at Halvesham,
    and a certain sense of comfort came to him at the reflection that on
    the previous day he had taken a “cooking of runner beans” to God’s
    representative in that village. He felt calmer after that, but the
    horrid machine seemed to go higher and higher. He could not turn in
    his seat and he could see nothing but sea and sky. Of course the man
    was mad, mad as a March hare. Of what earthly use could _he_ be to
    any one? Besides, he had talked pure gibberish, and called him Paul
    something, when he had already told him that his name was Sam. The
    thing would fall down into the sea soon, and they would both be
    drowned. Well, well, he had almost reached three-score years and
    ten. He was protected by a screen, but it seemed very cold. What on
    earth would Mr. Hodge say? There was no one left to work the land
    but a fool of a boy named Billy Whitehead at Dene’s Cross. On, on,
    on they went at a furious pace. His thoughts danced disconnectedly
    from incidents of his youth, conversations with the vicar, hearty
    meals in the open, a frock his sister wore on the day of the
    postman’s wedding, the drone of a psalm, the illness of some ewes
    belonging to Mr. Hodge. Everything seemed to be moving very rapidly,
    upsetting his sense of time. He felt outraged, and yet at moments
    there was something entrancing in the wild experience. He seemed to
    be living at an incredible pace. Perhaps he was really dead and on
    his way to the kingdom of God. Perhaps this was the way they took
    people.

    After some indefinite period he suddenly caught sight of a long
    strip of land. Was this a foreign country, or were they returning?
    He had by this time lost all feeling of fear. He became interested
    and almost disappointed. The “airyplane” was not such a fool as it
    looked. It was very wonderful to be right up in the sky like this.
    His dreams were suddenly disturbed by a fearful noise. He thought
    the machine was blown to pieces. It dived and ducked through the
    air, and things were bursting all round it and making an awful din,
    and then it went up higher and higher. After a while these noises
    ceased, and he felt the machine gliding downward. They were really
    right above solid land—trees, fields, streams, and white villages.
    Down, down, down they glided. This was a foreign country. There were
    straight avenues of poplars and canals. This was not Halvesham. He
    felt the thing glide gently and bump into a field. Some men ran
    forward and approached them, and the mad aviator called out to them.
    They were mostly fat men in gray uniforms, and they all spoke this
    foreign gibberish. Some one came and unstrapped him. He was very
    stiff and could hardly move. An exceptionally gross-looking man
    punched him in the ribs and roared with laughter. They all stood
    round and laughed at him, while the mad aviator talked to them and
    kept pointing at him. Then he said:

    “Old Grandfather, you must come with me.”

    He was led to an iron-roofed building and shut in a little room.
    There were guards outside with fixed bayonets. After a while the mad
    aviator appeared again, accompanied by two soldiers. He beckoned him
    to follow. They marched through a quadrangle and entered another
    building. They went straight into an office where a very
    important-looking man, covered with medals, sat in an easy-chair.
    There was a lot of saluting and clicking of heels. The aviator
    pointed at Sam and said something, and the man with the medals
    started at sight of him, and then came up and spoke to him in
    English.

    “What is your name? Where do you come from? Your age? The name and
    birthplace of your parents?”

    He seemed intensely interested, and also pulled his hair and beard
    to see if they came off. So well and naturally did he and the
    aviator speak English that after a voluble examination they drew
    apart, and continued the conversation in that language. And the
    extraordinary conversation was of this nature:

    “It is a most remarkable resemblance,” said the man with medals.
    “_Unglaublich!_ But what do you want me to do with him, Hausemann?”

    “The idea came to me suddenly, Excellency,” replied the aviator,
    “and you may consider it worthless. It is just this. The resemblance
    is so amazing. Paul Jouperts has given us more valuable information
    than any one at present in our service, and the English know that.
    There is an award of five thousand francs on his head. Twice they
    have captured him, and each time he escaped. All the company
    commanders and their staff have his photograph. He is a serious
    thorn in their flesh.”

    “Well?” replied the man with the medals.

    The aviator whispered confidentially:

    “Suppose, your Excellency, that they found the dead body of Paul
    Jouperts?”

    “Well?” replied the big man.

    “My suggestion is this. To-morrow, as you know, the English are
    attacking Hill 701, which for tactical reasons we have decided to
    evacuate. If after the attack they find the dead body of Paul
    Jouperts in, say, the second lines, they will take no further
    trouble in the matter. You know their lack of thoroughness. Pardon
    me, I was two years at Oxford University. And consequently Paul
    Jouperts will be able to prosecute his labors undisturbed.”

    The man with the medals twirled his mustache and looked thoughtfully
    at his colleague.

    “Where is Paul at the moment?” he asked.

    “He is acting as a gardener at the Convent of St. Eloise, at
    Mailleton-en-haut, which, as you know, is one hundred meters from
    the headquarters of the British central army staff.”

    The man with the medals took two or three rapid turns up and down
    the room, then he said:

    “Your plan is excellent, Hausemann. The only point of difficulty is
    that the attack started this morning.”

    “This morning?” exclaimed the other.

    “Yes; the English attacked unexpectedly at dawn. We have already
    evacuated the first line. We shall evacuate the second line at
    eleven-fifty. It is now ten-fifteen. There may be just time.”

    He looked suddenly at old Sam in the way that a butcher might look
    at a prize heifer at an agricultural show and remarked casually:

    “Yes, it is a remarkable resemblance. It seems a pity not to—do
    something with it.”

    Then, speaking in German, he added:

    “It is worth trying. And if it succeeds, the higher authorities
    shall hear of your lucky accident and inspiration, Herr Hausemann.
    Instruct _Ober-lieutenant_ Schultz to send the old fool by two
    orderlies to the east extremity of Trench 38. Keep him there till
    the order of evacuation is given, then shoot him, but don’t
    disfigure him, and lay him out face upward.”

    The aviator saluted and withdrew, accompanied by his victim. Old Sam
    had not understood the latter part of the conversation, and he did
    not catch quite all that was said in English; but he felt that
    somehow things were not becoming too promising, and it was time to
    assert himself. So he remarked when they got outside:

    “Now, look ’ee ’ere, Mister, when am I goin’ to get back to my
    turnips?”

    And the aviator replied, with a pleasant smile:

    “Do not be disturbed, old Grandfather. You shall get back to the
    soil quite soon.”

    In a few moments he found himself in a large gray car, accompanied
    by four soldiers. The aviator left him. The country was barren and
    horrible, full of great pits and rents, and he could hear the roar
    of artillery and the shriek of shells. Overhead, aëroplanes were
    buzzing angrily. He seemed to be suddenly transported from the
    kingdom of God to the pit of darkness. He wondered whether the vicar
    had enjoyed the runner beans. He could not imagine runner beans
    growing here; runner beans, aye, or anything else. If this was a
    foreign country, give him dear old England!

    _Gr-r-r! bang!_ Something exploded just at the rear of the car. The
    soldiers ducked, and one of them pushed him in the stomach and
    swore.

    “An ugly-looking lout,” he thought. “If I wor twenty years younger,
    I’d give him a punch in the eye that ’u’d make him sit up.”

    The car came to a halt by a broken wall. The party hurried out and
    dived behind a mound. He was pulled down a kind of shaft, and found
    himself in a room buried right underground, where three officers
    were drinking and smoking. The soldiers saluted and handed them a
    type-written dispatch. The officers looked at him drunkenly, and one
    came up and pulled his beard and spat in his face and called him “an
    old English swine.” He then shouted out some instructions to the
    soldiers, and they led him out into the narrow trench. One walked
    behind him, and occasionally prodded him with the butt-end of a gun.
    The trenches were half full of water and reeked of gases, powder,
    and decaying matter. Shells were constantly bursting overhead, and
    in places the trenches had crumbled and were nearly blocked up. They
    stumbled on, sometimes falling, sometimes dodging moving masses, and
    occasionally crawling over the dead bodies of men. At last they
    reached a deserted-looking trench, and one of the soldiers pushed
    him into the corner of it and growled something, and then
    disappeared round the angle. Old Sam was exhausted. He leaned
    panting against the mud wall, expecting every minute to be blown to
    pieces by one of those infernal things that seemed to be getting
    more and more insistent. The din went on for nearly twenty minutes,
    and he was alone in the trench. He fancied he heard a whistle amidst
    the din. Suddenly one of the soldiers who had accompanied him came
    stealthily round the corner, and there was a look in his eye old Sam
    did not like. When he was within five yards the soldier raised his
    rifle and pointed it at Sam’s body. Some instinct impelled the old
    man at that instant to throw himself forward on his face. As he did
    so he was aware of a terrible explosion, and he had just time to
    observe the soldier falling in a heap near him, and then he lost
    consciousness.

    His consciousness appeared to return to him with a snap. He was
    lying on a plank in a building, and he heard some one say:

    “I believe the old boy’s English.”

    He looked round. There were a lot of men lying there, and others in
    khaki and white overalls were busy among them. He sat up, rubbed his
    head, and said:

    “Hi, Mister, where be I now?”

    Some one laughed, and a young man came up and said: “Well, old man,
    you were very nearly in hell. Who are you?”

    Some one came up, and two of them were discussing him. One of them
    said:

    “He’s quite all right. He was only knocked out. Better take him in
    to the colonel. He may be a spy.”

    The other came up, touched his shoulder, and remarked:

    “Can you walk, Uncle?”

    He replied:

    “Aye, I can walk all roight.”

    “That’s an old sport!”

    The young man took his arm and helped him out of the room into a
    courtyard. They entered another room, where an elderly, kind-faced
    officer was seated at a desk. The officer looked up and exclaimed:

    “Good God! Bradshaw, do you know who you’ve got there?”

    The younger one said:

    “No. Who, sir?”

    “It’s Paul Jouperts!” exclaimed the colonel.

    “Paul Jouperts! Great Scott!”

    The older officer addressed himself to Sam. He said:

    “Well, we’ve got you once more, Paul. We shall have to be a little
    more careful this time.”

    The young officer said:

    “Shall I detail a squad, sir?”

    “We can’t shoot him without a court-martial,” replied the kind-faced
    senior.

    Then Sam interpolated:

    “Look ’ee ’ere, sir, I’m fair’ sick of all this. My name bean’t
    Paul. My name’s Sam. I was a-thinnin’ a loine o’ turnips—”

    Both officers burst out laughing, and the younger one said:

    “Good! Good! Isn’t it amazing, sir, the way they not only learn the
    language, but even take the trouble to learn a dialect!”

    The older man busied himself with some papers.

    “Well, Sam,” he remarked, “you shall be given a chance to prove your
    identity. Our methods are less drastic than those of your _Boche_
    masters. What part of England are you supposed to come from? Let’s
    see how much you can bluff us with your topographical knowledge.”

    “I was a-thinnin’ a loine o’ turnips this mornin’ at ’alf-past seven
    on Mr. Hodge’s farm at Halvesham when one o’ these ’ere airyplanes
    come down among the swedes. I tells ’e to get clear o’ that, when
    the feller what gets out o’ the car ’e drahs a revowlver and ’e
    says, ‘You must ’company I—’”

    “Yes, yes,” interrupted the senior officer; “that’s all very good.
    Now tell me—where is Halvesham? What is the name of the local vicar?
    I’m sure you’d know that.”

    Old Sam rubbed his chin.

    “I sits under the Reverend David Pryce, Mister, and a good,
    God-fearin’ man he be. I took him a cookin’ o’ runner beans on’y
    yesterday. I works for Mr. Hodge, what owns Greenway Manor and ’as a
    stud-farm at Newmarket, they say.”

    “Charles Hodge?” asked the young officer.

    “Aye, Charlie Hodge. You write and ask un if he knows old Sam
    Gates.”

    The two officers looked at each other, and the older one looked at
    Sam more closely.

    “It’s very extraordinary,” he remarked.

    “Everybody knows Charlie Hodge,” added the young officer.

    It was at that moment that a wave of genius swept over old Sam. He
    put his hand to his head, and suddenly jerked out:

    “What’s more, I can tell ’ee where this yere Paul is. He’s actin’ a
    gardener in a convent at—” He puckered up his brows, fumbled with
    his hat, and then got out, “Mighteno.”

    The older officer gasped.

    “Mailleton-en-haut! Good God! what makes you say that, old man?”

    Sam tried to give an account of his experience and the things he had
    heard said by the German officers; but he was getting tired, and he
    broke off in the middle to say:

    “Ye haven’t a bite o’ somethin’ to eat, I suppose, Mister; or a
    glass o’ beer? I usually ’as my dinner at twelve o’clock.”

    Both the officers laughed, and the older said:

    “Get him some food, Bradshaw, and a bottle of beer from the mess.
    We’ll keep this old man here. He interests me.”

    While the younger man was doing this, the chief pressed a button and
    summoned another junior officer.

    “Gateshead,” he remarked, “ring up the G.H.Q. and instruct them to
    arrest the gardener in that convent at the top of the hill and then
    to report.”

    The officer saluted and went out, and in a few minutes a tray of hot
    food and a large bottle of beer were brought to the old man, and he
    was left alone in the corner of the room to negotiate this welcome
    compensation. And in the execution he did himself and his county
    credit. In the meanwhile the officers were very busy. People were
    coming and going and examining maps, and telephone bells were
    ringing furiously. They did not disturb old Sam’s gastric
    operations. He cleaned up the mess tins and finished the last drop
    of beer. The senior officer found time to offer him a cigarette, but
    he replied:

    “Thank ’ee kindly, sir, but I’d rather smoke my pipe.”

    The colonel smiled and said:

    “Oh, all right; smoke away.”

    He lighted up, and the fumes of the shag permeated the room. Some
    one opened another window, and the young officer who had addressed
    him at first suddenly looked at him and exclaimed:

    “Innocent! You couldn’t get shag like that anywhere but in Norfolk.”

    It must have been an hour later when another officer entered and
    saluted.

    “Message from the G.H.Q., sir,” he said.

    “Well?”

    “They have arrested the gardener at the convent of St. Eloise, and
    they have every reason to believe that he is the notorious Paul
    Jouperts.”

    The colonel stood up, and his eyes beamed. He came over to old Sam
    and shook his hand.

    “Mr. Gates,” he said, “you are an old brick. You will probably hear
    more of this. You have probably been the means of delivering
    something very useful into our hands. Your own honor is vindicated.
    A loving Government will probably award you five shillings or a
    Victoria Cross or something of that sort. In the meantime, what can
    I do for you?”

    Old Sam scratched his chin.

    “I want to get back ’ome,” he said.

    “Well, even that might be arranged.”

    “I want to get back ’ome in toime for tea.”

    “What time do you have tea?”

    “Foive o’clock or thereabouts.”

    “I see.”

    A kindly smile came into the eyes of the colonel. He turned to
    another officer standing by the table and said:

    “Raikes, is any one going across this afternoon with dispatches?”

    “Yes, sir,” replied the other officer. “Commander Jennings is
    leaving at three o’clock.”

    “You might ask him if he could see me.”

    Within ten minutes a young man in a flight-commander’s uniform
    entered.

    “Ah, Jennings,” said the colonel, “here is a little affair which
    concerns the honor of the British army. My friend here, Sam Gates,
    has come over from Halvesham, in Norfolk, in order to give us
    valuable information. I have promised him that he shall get home to
    tea at five o’clock. Can you take a passenger?”

    The young man threw back his head and laughed.

    “Lord!” he exclaimed, “what an old sport! Yes, I expect I can manage
    it. Where is the forsaken place?”

    A large ordnance-map of Norfolk (which had been captured from a
    German officer) was produced, and the young man studied it closely.

    At three o’clock precisely old Sam, finding himself something of a
    hero and quite glad to escape from the embarrassment which this
    position entailed upon him, once more sped skyward in a “dratted
    airyplane.”

    At twenty minutes to five he landed once more among Mr. Hodge’s
    swedes. The breezy young airman shook hands with him and departed
    inland. Old Sam sat down and surveyed the familiar field of turnips.

    “A noice thing, I must say!” he muttered to himself as he looked
    along the lines of unthinned turnips. He still had twenty minutes,
    and so he went slowly along and completed a line which he had begun
    in the morning. He then deliberately packed up his dinner-things and
    his tools and started out for home.

    As he came round the corner of Stillway’s meadow and the cottage
    came in view, his niece stepped out of the copse with a basket on
    her arm.

    “Well, Uncle,” she said, “is there any noos?”

    It was then that old Sam really lost his temper.

    “Noos!” he said. “Noos! Drat the girl! What noos should there be?
    Sixty-nine year’ I live in these ’ere parts, hoein’ and weedin’ and
    thinnin’, and mindin’ Charlie Hodge’s sheep. Am I one o’ these ’ere
    story-book folk havin’ noos ’appen to me all the time? Ain’t it
    enough, ye silly, dab-faced zany, to earn enough to buy a bite o’
    some’at to eat and a glass o’ beer and a place to rest a’s head
    o’night without always wantin’ noos, noos, noos! I tell ’ee it’s
    this that leads ’ee to ’alf the troubles in the world. Devil take
    the noos!”

    And turning his back on her, he went fuming up the hill.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER
                           By RUDYARD KIPLING


    ONCE upon a time there was a coffee-planter in India who wished to
    clear some forest land for coffee-planting. When he had cut down all
    the trees and burned the underwood the stumps still remained.
    Dynamite is expensive and slow fire slow. The happy medium for
    stump-clearing is the lord of all beasts, who is the elephant. He
    will either push the stump out of the ground with his tusks, if he
    has any, or drag it out with ropes. The planter, therefore, hired
    elephants by ones and twos and threes, and fell to work. The very
    best of all the elephants belonged to the very worst of all the
    drivers or mahouts; and the superior beast’s name was Moti Guj. He
    was the absolute property of his mahout, which would never have been
    the case under native rule: for Moti Guj was a creature to be
    desired by kings; and his name, being translated, meant the Pearl
    Elephant. Because the British government was in the land, Deesa, the
    mahout, enjoyed his property undisturbed. He was dissipated. When he
    had made much money through the strength of his elephant, he would
    get extremely drunk and give Moti Guj a beating with a tent-peg over
    the tender nails of the forefeet. Moti Guj never trampled the life
    out of Deesa on these occasions, for he knew that after the beating
    was over, Deesa would embrace his trunk and weep and call him his
    love and his life and the liver of his soul, and give him some
    liquor. Moti Guj was very fond or liquor—arrack for choice, though
    he would drink palm-tree toddy if nothing better offered. Then Deesa
    would go to sleep between Moti Guj’s forefeet, and as Deesa
    generally chose the middle of the public road, and as Moti Guj
    mounted guard over him and would not permit horse, foot, or cart to
    pass by, traffic was congested till Deesa saw fit to wake up.

    There was no sleeping in the daytime on the planter’s clearing: the
    wages were too high to risk. Deesa sat on Moti Guj’s neck and gave
    him orders, while Moti Guj rooted up the stumps—for he owned a
    magnificent pair of tusks; or pulled at the end of a rope—for he had
    a magnificent pair of shoulders, while Deesa kicked him behind the
    ears and said he was the king of elephants. At evening time Moti Guj
    would wash down his three hundred pounds’ weight of green food with
    a quart of arrack, and Deesa would take a share and sing songs
    between Moti Guj’s legs till it was time to go to bed. Once a week
    Deesa led Moti Guj down to the river, and Moti Guj lay on his side
    luxuriously in the shallows, while Deesa went over him with a coir
    swab and a brick. Moti Guj never mistook the pounding blow of the
    latter for the smack of the former that warned him to get up and
    turn over on the other side. Then Deesa would look at his feet,
    examine his eyes, and turn up the fringes of his mighty ears in case
    of sores or budding ophthalmia. After inspection, the two would
    “come up with a song from the sea,” Moti Guj all black and shining,
    waving a torn tree branch twelve feet long in his trunk, and Deesa
    knotting up his own long wet hair.

    It was a peaceful, well-paid life till Deesa felt the return of the
    desire to drink deep. He wished for an orgy. The little draughts
    that led nowhere were taking the manhood out of him.

    He went to the planter, and “My mother’s dead,” said he, weeping.

    “She died on the last plantation two months ago, and she died once
    before that when you were working for me last year,” said the
    planter, who knew something of the ways of nativedom.

    “Then it’s my aunt, and she was just the same as a mother to me,”
    said Deesa, weeping more than ever. “She has left eighteen small
    children entirely without bread, and it is I who must fill their
    little stomachs,” said Deesa, beating his head on the floor.

    “Who brought you the news?” said the planter.

    “The post,” said Deesa.

    “There hasn’t been a post here for the past week. Get back to your
    lines!”

    “A devastating sickness has fallen on my village, and all my wives
    are dying,” yelled Deesa, really in tears this time.

    “Call Chihun, who comes from Deesa’s village,” said the planter.
    “Chihun, has this man got a wife?”

    “He!” said Chihun. “No. Not a woman of our village would look at
    him. They’d sooner marry the elephant.”

    Chihun snorted. Deesa wept and bellowed.

    “You will get into a difficulty in a minute,” said the planter. “Go
    back to your work!”

    “Now I will speak Heaven’s truth,” gulped Deesa, with an
    inspiration. “I haven’t been drunk for two months. I desire to
    depart in order to get properly drunk afar off and distant from this
    heavenly plantation. Thus I shall cause no trouble.”

    A flickering smile crossed the planter’s face. “Deesa,” said he,
    “you’ve spoken the truth, and I’d give you leave on the spot if
    anything could be done with Moti Guj while you’re away. You know
    that he will only obey your orders.”

    “May the light of the heavens live forty thousand years. I shall be
    absent but ten little days. After that, upon my faith and honor and
    soul, I return. As to the inconsiderable interval, have I the
    gracious permission of the heaven-born to call up Moti Guj?”

    Permission was granted, and in answer to Deesa’s shrill yell, the
    mighty tusker swung out of the shade of a clump of trees where he
    had been squirting dust over himself till his master should return.

    “Light of my heart, protector of the drunken, mountain of might,
    give ear!” said Deesa, standing in front of him.

    Moti Guj gave ear, and saluted with his trunk. “I am going away,”
    said Deesa.

    Moti Guj’s eyes twinkled. He liked jaunts as well as his master. One
    could snatch all manner of nice things from the roadside then.

    “But you, you fussy old pig, must stay behind and work.”

    The twinkle died out as Moti Guj tried to look delighted. He hated
    stump-hauling on the plantation. It hurt his teeth.

    “I shall be gone for ten days, O delectable one. Hold up your near
    forefoot and I’ll impress the fact upon it, warty toad of a dried
    mud-puddle.” Deesa took a tent-peg and banged Moti Guj ten times on
    the nails. Moti Guj grunted and shuffled from foot to foot.

    “Ten days,” said Deesa, “you will work and haul and root the trees
    as Chihun here shall order you. Take up Chihun and set him on your
    neck!” Moti Guj curled the tip of his trunk, Chihun put his foot
    there and was swung on to the neck. Deesa handed Chihun the heavy
    _ankus_—the iron elephant goad.

    Chihun thumped Moti Guj’s bald head as a paver thumps a curbstone.

    Moti Guj trumpeted.

    “Be still, hog of the backwoods! Chihun’s your mahout for ten days.
    And now bid me good-by, beast after mine own heart. Oh, my lord, my
    king! Jewel of all created elephants, lily of the herd, preserve
    your honored health; be virtuous. Adieu!”

    Moti Guj lapped his trunk round Deesa and swung him into the air
    twice. This was his way of bidding him good-by.

    “He’ll work now,” said Deesa to the planter. “Have I leave to go?”

    The planter nodded, and Deesa dived into the woods. Moti Guj went
    back to haul stumps.

    Chihun was very kind to him, but he felt unhappy and forlorn for all
    that. Chihun gave him a ball of spices, and tickled him under the
    chin, and Chihun’s little baby cooed to him after work was over, and
    Chihun’s wife called him a darling; but Moti Guj was a bachelor by
    instinct, as Deesa was. He did not understand the domestic emotions.
    He wanted the light of his universe back again—the drink and the
    drunken slumber, the savage beatings and the savage caresses.

    None the less he worked well, and the planter wondered. Deesa had
    wandered along the roads till he met a marriage procession of his
    own caste and, drinking, dancing, and tippling, had drifted with it
    past all knowledge of the lapse of time.

    The morning of the eleventh day dawned, and there returned no Deesa.
    Moti Guj was loosed from his ropes for the daily stint. He swung
    clear, looked round, shrugged his shoulders, and began to walk away,
    as one having business elsewhere.

    “Hi! ho! Come back, you,” shouted Chihun. “Come back and put me on
    your neck, misborn mountain! Return, splendor of the hillsides!
    Adornment of all India, heave to, or I’ll bang every toe off your
    fat forefoot!”

    Moti Guj gurgled gently, but did not obey. Chihun ran after him with
    a rope and caught him up. Moti Guj put his ears forward, and Chihun
    knew what that meant, though he tried to carry it off with high
    words.

    “None of your nonsense with me,” said he. “To your pickets,
    devil-son.”

    “Hrrump!” said Moti Guj, and that was all—that and the forebent
    ears.

    Moti Guj put his hands in his pockets, chewed a branch for a
    toothpick, and strolled about the clearing, making fun of the other
    elephants, who had just set to work.

    Chihun reported the state of affairs to the planter, who came out
    with a dog-whip and cracked it furiously. Moti Guj paid the white
    man the compliment of charging him nearly a quarter of a mile across
    the clearing and “Hrrumping” him into his veranda. Then he stood
    outside the house chuckling to himself, and shaking all over with
    the fun of it, as an elephant will.

    “We’ll thrash him,” said the planter. “He shall have the finest
    thrashing ever elephant received. Give Kala Nag and Nazim twelve
    foot of chain apiece, and tell them to lay on twenty blows.”

    Kala Nag—which means Black Snake—and Nazim were two of the biggest
    elephants in the lines, and one of their duties was to administer
    the graver punishments, since no man can beat an elephant properly.

    They took the whipping-chains and rattled them in their trunks as
    they sidled up to Moti Guj, meaning to hustle him between them. Moti
    Guj had never, in all his life of thirty-nine years, been whipped,
    and he did not intend to begin a new experience. So he waited,
    waving his head from right to left, and measuring the precise spot
    in Kala Nag’s fat hide where a blunt tusk would sink deepest. Kala
    Nag had no tusks; the chain was the badge of his authority; but for
    all that, he swung wide of Moti Guj at the last minute, and tried to
    appear as if he had brought the chain out for amusement. Nazim
    turned round and went home early. He did not feel fighting fit that
    morning, and so Moti Guj was left standing alone with his ears
    cocked.

    That decided the planter to argue no more, and Moti Guj rolled back
    to his inspection of the clearing. An elephant who will not work,
    and is not tied up, is about as manageable as an eighty-one-ton gun
    loose in a heavy seaway. He slapped old friends on the back and
    asked them if the stumps were coming away easily; he talked nonsense
    concerning labor and the inalienable rights of elephants to a long
    “nooning”; and, wandering to and fro, he thoroughly demoralized the
    garden till sundown, when he returned to his pickets for food.

    “If you won’t work, you shan’t eat,” said Chihun angrily. “You’re a
    wild elephant, and no educated animal at all. Go back to your
    jungle.”

    Chihun’s little brown baby was rolling on the floor of the hut, and
    stretching out its fat arms to the huge shadow in the doorway. Moti
    Guj knew well that it was the dearest thing on earth to Chihun. He
    swung out his trunk with a fascinating crook at the end, and the
    brown baby threw itself shouting upon it. Moti Guj made fast and
    pulled up till the brown baby was crowing in the air twelve feet
    above his father’s head.

    “Great Lord!” said Chihun. “Flour cakes of the best, twelve in
    number, two feet across, and soaked in rum, shall be yours on the
    instant, and two hundred pounds’ weight of fresh-cut young
    sugar-cane therewith. Deign only to put down safely that
    insignificant brat who is my heart and my life to me.”

    Moti Guj tucked the brown baby comfortably between his forefeet,
    that could have knocked into toothpicks all Chihun’s hut, and waited
    for his food. He ate it, and the brown baby crawled away. Moti Guj
    dozed, and thought of Deesa. One of many mysteries connected with
    the elephant is that his huge body needs less sleep than anything
    else that lives. Four or five hours in the night suffice—two just
    before midnight, lying down on one side; two just after one o’clock,
    lying down on the other. The rest of the silent hours are filled
    with eating and fidgeting and long grumbling soliloquies.

    At midnight, therefore, Moti Guj strode out of his pickets, for a
    thought had come to him that Deesa might be lying drunk somewhere in
    the dark forest with none to look after him. So all that night he
    chased through the undergrowth, blowing and trumpeting and shaking
    his ears. He went down to the river and blared across the shallows
    where Deesa used to wash him, and there was no answer. He could not
    find Deesa, but he disturbed all the other elephants in the lines,
    and nearly frightened to death some gypsies in the woods.

    At dawn Deesa returned to the plantation. He had been very drunk
    indeed, and he expected to get into trouble for outstaying his
    leave. He drew a long breath when he saw that the bungalow and the
    plantation were still uninjured, for he knew something of Moti Guj’s
    temper, and reported himself with many lies and salaams. Moti Guj
    had gone to his pickets for breakfast. The night exercise had made
    him hungry.

    “Call up your beast,” said the planter, and Deesa shouted in the
    mysterious elephant language, that some mahouts believe came from
    China at the birth of the world, when elephants and not men were
    masters. Moti Guj heard and came. Elephants do not gallop. They move
    from places at varying rates of speed. If an elephant wished to
    catch an express train he could not gallop, but he could catch the
    train. So Moti Guj was at the planter’s door almost before Chihun
    noticed that he had left his pickets. He fell into Deesa’s arms
    trumpeting with joy, and the man and beast wept and slobbered over
    each other, and handled each other from head to heel to see that no
    harm had befallen.

    “Now we will get to work,” said Deesa. “Lift me up, my son and my
    joy.”

    Moti Guj swung him up and the two went to the coffee-clearing to
    look for difficult stumps.

    The planter was too astonished to be very angry.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           GULLIVER THE GREAT
                           By WALTER A. DYER


    IT was a mild evening in early spring, and the magnolias were in
    bloom. We motored around the park, turned up a side street, and
    finally came to a throbbing standstill before the Churchwarden Club.

    There was nothing about its exterior to indicate that it was a
    clubhouse at all, but within there was an indefinable atmosphere of
    early Victorian comfort. There was something about it that suggested
    Mr. Pickwick. Old prints of horses and ships and battles hung upon
    the walls, and the oak was dark and old. There seemed to be no
    decorative scheme or keynote, and yet the atmosphere was utterly
    distinctive. It was my first visit to the Churchwarden Club, of
    which my quaint, old-fashioned Uncle Ford had long been a member,
    and I was charmed.

    We dined in the rathskeller, the walls of which were completely
    covered with long churchwarden pipes, arranged in the most intricate
    and marvelous patterns; and after our mutton-chop and ale and plum
    pudding, we filled with the choicest of tobaccos the pipes which the
    old major-domo brought us.

    Then came Jacob R. Enderby to smoke with us.

    Tall and spare he was, with long, straight, black hair, large,
    aquiline nose, and piercing eyes. I disgraced myself by staring at
    him. I didn’t know that such a man existed in New York, and yet I
    couldn’t decide whether his habitat should be Arizona or Cape Cod.

    Enderby and Uncle Ford were deep in a discussion of the
    statesmanship of James G. Blaine, when a waiter summoned my uncle to
    the telephone.

    I neglected to state that my uncle, in his prosaic hours, is a
    physician; and this was a call. I knew it the moment I saw the
    waiter approaching. I was disappointed and disgusted.

    Uncle Ford saw this and laughed.

    “Cheer up!” said he. “You needn’t come with me to visit the sick.
    I’ll be back in an hour, and meanwhile Mr. Enderby will take care of
    you; won’t you, Jake?”

    For answer Enderby arose, and refilling his pipe took me by the arm,
    while my uncle got into his overcoat. As he passed us on the way out
    he whispered in my ear:

    “Talk about dogs.”

    I heard and nodded.

    Enderby led me to the lounge or loafing-room, an oak-paneled
    apartment in the rear of the floor above, with huge leather chairs
    and a seat in the bay window. Save for a gray-haired old chap dozing
    over a copy of _Simplicissimus_, the room was deserted.

    But no sooner had Enderby seated himself on the window-seat than
    there was a rush and a commotion, and a short, glad bark, and
    Nubbins, the steward’s bull-terrier, bounded in and landed at
    Enderby’s side with canine expressions of great joy.

    I reached forward to pat him, but he paid absolutely no attention to
    me.

    At last his wriggling subsided, and he settled down with his head on
    Enderby’s knee, the picture of content. Then I recalled my uncle’s
    parting injunction.

    “Friend of yours?” I suggested.

    Enderby smiled. “Yes,” he said, “we’re friends, I guess. And the
    funny part of it is that he doesn’t pay any attention to any one
    else except his master. They all act that way with me, dogs do.” And
    he pulled Nubbins’s stubby ears.

    “Natural attraction, I suppose,” said I.

    “Yes, it is,” he answered, with the modest frankness of a big man.
    “It’s a thing hard to explain, though there’s a sort of reason for
    it in my case.”

    I pushed toward him a little tobacco-laden teak-wood stand
    hopefully. He refilled and lighted.

    “It’s an extraordinary thing, even so,” he said, puffing. “Every dog
    nowadays seems to look upon me as his long-lost master, but it
    wasn’t always so. I hated dogs and they hated me.”

    Not wishing to say “Really” or “Indeed” to this big, outdoor man, I
    simply grunted my surprise.

    “Yes, we were born enemies. More than that, I was afraid of dogs. A
    little fuzzy toy dog, ambling up to me in a room full of company,
    with his tail wagging, gave me the shudders. I couldn’t touch the
    beast. And as for big dogs outdoors, I feared them like the plague.
    I would go blocks out of my way to avoid one.

    “I don’t remember being particularly cowardly about other things,
    but I just couldn’t help this. It was in my blood, for some reason
    or other. It was the bane of my existence. I couldn’t see what the
    brutes were put into the world for, or how any one could have
    anything to do with them.

    “And the dogs reciprocated. They disliked and distrusted me. The
    most docile old Brunos would growl and show their teeth when I came
    near.”

    “Did the change come suddenly?” I asked.

    “Quite. It was in 1901. I accepted a commission from an importing
    and trading company to go to the Philippines to do a little quiet
    exploring, and spent four months in the sickly place. Then I got the
    fever, and when I recovered I couldn’t get out of there too soon.

    “I reached Manila just in time to see the mail steamer disappearing
    around the point, and I was mad. There would be another in six days,
    but I couldn’t wait. I was just crazy to get back home.

    “I made inquiries and learned of an old tramp steamer, named the
    _Old Squaw_, making ready to leave for Honolulu on the following day
    with a cargo of hemp and stuff, and a bunch of Moros for some show
    in the States, and I booked passage on that.

    “She was the worst old tub you ever saw. I didn’t learn much about
    her, but I verily believe her to have been a condemned excursion
    boat. She wouldn’t have been allowed to run to Coney Island.

    “She was battered and unpainted, and she wallowed horribly. I don’t
    believe she could have reached Honolulu much before the next regular
    boat, but I couldn’t wait, and I took her.

    “I made myself as comfortable as possible, bribed the cook to insure
    myself against starvation, and swung a hammock on the forward deck
    as far as possible from the worst of the vile smells.

    “But we hadn’t lost sight of Manila Bay when I discovered that there
    was a dog aboard—and such a dog! I had never seen one that sent me
    into such a panic as this one, and he had free range of the ship. A
    Great Dane he was, named Gulliver, and he was the pride of the
    captain’s rum-soaked heart.

    “With all my fear, I realized he was a magnificent animal, but I
    looked on him as a gigantic devil. Without exception, he was the
    biggest dog I ever saw, and as muscular as a lion. He lacked some
    points that show judges set store by, but he had the size and the
    build.

    “I have seen Vohl’s Vulcan and the Wurtemburg breed, but they were
    fox-terriers compared with Gulliver. His tail was as big around as
    my arm, and the cook lived in terror of his getting into the galley
    and wagging it; and he had a mouth that looked to me like the crater
    of Mauna Loa, and a voice that shook the planking when he spoke.

    “I first caught sight of him appearing from behind a huge coil of
    cordage in the stern. He stretched and yawned, and I nearly died of
    fright.

    “I caught up a belaying-pin, though little good that would have done
    me. I think he saw me do it, and doubtless he set me down for an
    enemy then and there.

    “We were well out of the harbor, and there was no turning back, but
    I would have given my right hand to be off that boat. I fully
    expected him to eat me up, and I slept with that belaying-pin
    sticking into my ribs in the hammock, and with my revolver loaded
    and handy.

    “Fortunately, Gulliver’s dislike for me took the form of sublime
    contempt. He knew I was afraid of him, and he despised me for it. He
    was a great pet with the captain and crew, and even the Moros
    treated him with admiring respect when they were allowed on deck. I
    couldn’t understand it. I would as soon have made a pet of a hungry
    boa-constrictor.

    “On the third day out the poor old boiler burst and the _Old Squaw_
    caught fire. She was dry and rotten inside and she burned like
    tinder. No attempt was made to extinguish the flames, which got into
    the hemp in the hold in short order.

    “The smoke was stifling, and in a jiffy all hands were struggling
    with the boats. The Moros came tumbling up from below and added to
    the confusion with their terrified yells.

    “The davits were old and rusty, and the men were soon fighting among
    themselves. One boat dropped stern foremost, filled, and sank
    immediately, and the _Old Squaw_ herself was visibly settling.

    “I saw there was no chance of getting away in the boats, and I
    recalled a life-raft on the deck forward near my hammock. It was a
    sort of catamaran—a double platform on a pair of hollow,
    water-tight, cylindrical buoys. It wasn’t twenty feet long and about
    half as broad, but it would have to do. I fancy it was a forgotten
    relic of the old excursion-boat days.

    “There was no time to lose, for the _Old Squaw_ was bound to sink
    presently. Besides, I was aft with the rest, and the flames were
    licking up the deck and running-gear in the waist of the boat.

    “The galley, which was amidships near the engine-room, had received
    the full force of the explosion, and the cook lay moaning in the lee
    scuppers with a small water-cask thumping against his chest. I
    couldn’t stop to help the man, but I did kick the cask away.

    “It seemed to be nearly full, and it occurred to me that I should
    need it. I glanced quickly around, and luckily found a tin of
    biscuits that had also been blown out of the galley. I picked this
    up, and rolling the cask of water ahead of me as rapidly as I could,
    I made my way through the hot, stifling smoke to the bow of the
    boat.

    “I kicked at the life-raft; it seemed to be sound, and I lashed the
    biscuits and water to it. I also threw on a coil of rope and a piece
    of sail-cloth. I saw nothing else about that could possibly be of
    any value to me. I abandoned my trunk for fear it would only prove
    troublesome.

    “Then I hacked the raft loose with my knife and shoved it over to
    the bulwark. Apparently no one had seen me, for there was no one
    else forward of the sheet of flame that now cut the boat in two.

    “The raft was a mighty heavy affair, but I managed to raise one end
    to the rail. I don’t believe I would ever have been able to heave it
    over under any circumstances, but I didn’t have to.

    “I felt a great upheaval, and the prow of the _Old Squaw_ went up
    into the air. I grabbed the ropes that I had lashed the food on with
    and clung to the raft. The deck became almost perpendicular, and it
    was a miracle that the raft didn’t slide down with me into the
    flames. Somehow it stuck where it was.

    “Then the boat sank with a great roar, and for about a thousand
    years, it seemed to me, I was under water. I didn’t do anything. I
    couldn’t think.

    “I was only conscious of a tremendous weight of water and a feeling
    that I would burst open. Instinct alone made me cling to the raft.

    “When it finally brought me to the surface I was as nearly dead as I
    care to be. I lay there on the thing in a half-conscious condition
    for an endless time. If my life had depended on my doing something,
    I would have been lost.

    “Then gradually I came to, and began to spit out salt water and gasp
    for breath. I gathered my wits together and sat up. My hands were
    absolutely numb, and I had to loosen the grip of my fingers with the
    help of my toes. Odd sensation.

    “Then I looked about me. My biscuits and water and rope were safe,
    but the sail-cloth had vanished. I remember that this annoyed me
    hugely at the time, though I don’t know what earthly good it would
    have been.

    “The sea was fairly calm, and I could see all about. Not a human
    being was visible, only a few floating bits of wreckage. Every man
    on board must have gone down with the ship and drowned, except
    myself.

    “Then I caught sight of something that made my heart stand still.
    The huge head of Gulliver was coming rapidly toward me through the
    water!

    “The dog was swimming strongly, and must have leaped from the _Old
    Squaw_ before she sank. My raft was the only thing afloat large
    enough to hold him, and he knew it.

    “I drew my revolver, but it was soaking wet and useless. Then I sat
    down on the cracker-tin and gritted my teeth and waited. I had been
    alarmed, I must admit, when the boiler blew up and the panic began,
    but that was nothing to the terror that seized me now.

    “Here I was all alone on the top of the Pacific Ocean with a
    horrible demon making for me as fast as he could swim. My mind was
    benumbed, and I could think of nothing to do. I trembled and my
    teeth rattled. I prayed for a shark, but no shark came.

    “Soon Gulliver reached the raft and placed one of his forepaws on it
    and then the other. The top of it stood six or eight inches above
    the water, and it took a great effort for the dog to raise himself.
    I wanted to kick him back, but I didn’t dare to move.

    “Gulliver struggled mightily. Again and again he reared his great
    shoulders above the sea, only to be cast back, scratching and
    kicking, at a lurch of the raft.

    “Finally a wave favored him, and he caught the edge of the under
    platform with one of his hind feet. With a stupendous effort he
    heaved his huge bulk over the edge and lay sprawling at my feet,
    panting and trembling.”

    Enderby paused and gazed out of the window with a big sigh, as
    though the recital of his story had brought back some of the horror
    of his remarkable experience.

    Nubbins looked up inquiringly, and then snuggled closer to his
    friend, while Enderby smoothed the white head.

    “Well,” he continued, “there we were. You can’t possibly imagine how
    I felt unless you, too, have been afflicted with dog-fear. It was
    awful. And I hated the brute so. I could have torn him limb from
    limb if I had had the strength. But he was vastly more powerful than
    I. I could only fear him.

    “By and by he got up and shook himself. I cowered on my cracker-tin,
    but he only looked at me contemptuously, went to the other end of
    the raft, and lay down to wait patiently for deliverance.

    “We remained this way until nightfall. The sea was comparatively
    calm, and we seemed to be drifting but slowly. We were in the path
    of ships likely to be passing one way or the other, and I would have
    been hopeful of the outcome if it had not been for my feared and
    hated companion.

    “I began to feel faint, and opened the cracker-tin. The biscuits
    were wet with salt water, but I ate a couple, and left the cover of
    the tin open to dry them. Gulliver looked around, and I shut the tin
    hastily. But the dog never moved. He was not disposed to ask any
    favors. By kicking the sides of the cask and prying with my knife, I
    managed to get the bung out and took a drink. Then I settled myself
    on the raft with my back against the cask, and longed for a smoke.

    “The gentle motion of the raft produced a lulling effect on my
    exhausted nerves, and I began to nod, only to awake with a start,
    with fear gripping at my heart. I dared not sleep. I don’t know what
    I thought Gulliver would do to me, for I did not understand dogs,
    but I felt that I must watch him constantly. In the starlight I
    could see that his eyes were open. Gulliver was watchful too.

    “All night long I kept up a running fight with drowsiness. I dozed
    at intervals, but never for long at a time. It was a horrible night,
    and I cannot tell you how I longed for day and welcomed it when it
    came.

    “I must have slept toward dawn, for I suddenly became conscious of
    broad daylight. I roused myself, stood up, and swung my arms and
    legs to stir up circulation, for the night had been chilly. Gulliver
    arose, too, and stood silently watching me until I ceased for fear.
    When he had settled down again I got my breakfast out of the
    cracker-tin. Gulliver was restless, and was evidently interested.

    “‘He must be hungry,’ I thought, and then a new fear caught me. I
    had only to wait until he became very hungry and then he would
    surely attack me. I concluded that it would be wiser to feed him,
    and I tossed him a biscuit.

    “I expected to see him grab it ravenously, and wondered as soon as I
    had thrown it if the taste of food would only serve to make him more
    ferocious. But at first he would not touch it. He only lay there
    with his great head on his paws and glowered at me. Distrust was
    plainly visible in his face. I had never realized before that a
    dog’s face could express the subtler emotions.

    “His gaze fascinated me, and I could not take my eyes from his. The
    bulk of him was tremendous as he lay there, and I noticed the big,
    swelling muscles of his jaw. At last he arose, sniffed suspiciously
    at the biscuit, and looked up at me again.

    “‘It’s all right; eat it!’ I cried.

    “The sound of my own voice frightened me. I had not intended to
    speak to him. But in spite of my strained tone he seemed somewhat
    reassured.

    “He took a little nibble, and then swallowed the biscuit after one
    or two crunches, and looked up expectantly. I threw him another and
    he ate that.

    “‘That’s all,’ said I. ‘We must be sparing of them.’

    “I was amazed to discover how perfectly he understood. He lay down
    again and licked his chops.

    “Late in the forenoon I saw a line of smoke on the horizon, and soon
    a steamer hove into view. I stood up and waved my coat frantically,
    but to no purpose. Gulliver stood up and looked from me to the
    steamer, apparently much interested.

    “‘Too far off,’ I said to Gulliver. ‘I hope the next one will come
    nearer.’

    “At midday I dined, and fed Gulliver. This time he took the two
    biscuits quite without reserve and whacked his great tail against
    the raft. It seemed to me that his attitude was less hostile, and I
    wondered at it.

    “When I took my drink from the cask, Gulliver showed signs of
    interest.

    “‘I suppose dogs get thirsty, too,’ I said aloud.

    “Gulliver rapped with his tail. I looked about for some sort of
    receptacle, and finally pulled off my shoe, filled it with water,
    and shoved it toward him with my foot. He drank gratefully.

    “During the afternoon I sighted another ship, but it was too distant
    to notice me. However, the sea remained calm and I did not despair.

    “After we had had supper, I settled back against my cask, resolved
    to keep awake, for still I did not trust Gulliver. The sun set
    suddenly and the stars came out, and I found myself strangely
    lonesome. It seemed as though I had been alone out there on the
    Pacific for weeks. The miles and miles of heaving waters, almost on
    a level with my eye, were beginning to get on my nerves. I longed
    for some one to talk to, and wished I had dragged the half-breed
    cook along with me for company. I sighed loudly, and Gulliver raised
    his head.

    “‘Lonesome out here, isn’t it?’ I said, simply to hear the sound of
    my own voice.

    “Then for the first time Gulliver spoke. He made a deep sound in his
    throat, but it wasn’t a growl, and with all my ignorance of dog
    language I knew it.

    “Then I began to talk. I talked about everything—the people back
    home and all that—and Gulliver listened. I know more about dogs now,
    and I know that the best way to make friends with a dog is to talk
    to him. He can’t talk back, but he can understand a heap more than
    you think he can.

    “Finally Gulliver, who had kept his distance all this time, arose
    and came toward me. My words died in my throat. What was he going to
    do? To my immense relief he did nothing but sink down at my feet
    with a grunt and curl his huge body into a semicircle. He had
    dignity, Gulliver had. He wanted to be friendly, but he would not
    presume. However, I had lost interest in conversation, and sat
    watching him and wondering.

    “In spite of my firm resolution, I fell asleep at length from sheer
    exhaustion, and never woke until daybreak. The sky was clouded and
    our craft was pitching. Gulliver was standing in the middle of the
    raft, looking at me in evident alarm. I glanced over my shoulder,
    and the blackness of the horizon told me that a storm was coming,
    and coming soon.

    “I made fast our slender provender, tied the end of a line about my
    own waist for safety, and waited.

    “In a short time the storm struck us in all its tropical fury. The
    raft pitched and tossed, now high up at one end, and now at the
    other, and sometimes almost engulfed in the waves.

    “Gulliver was having a desperate time to keep aboard. His blunt
    claws slipped on the wet deck of the raft, and he fell and slid
    about dangerously. The thought flashed across my mind that the storm
    might prove to be a blessing in disguise, and that I might soon be
    rid of the brute.

    “As I clung there to the lashings, I saw him slip down to the
    further end of the raft, his hind quarters actually over the edge. A
    wave swept over him, but still he clung, panting madly. Then the
    raft righted itself for a moment, and as he hung there he gave me a
    look I shall never forget—a look of fear, of pleading, of reproach,
    and yet of silent courage. And with all my stupidity I read that
    look. Somehow it told me that I was the master, after all, and he
    the dog. I could not resist it. Cautiously I raised myself and
    loosened the spare rope I had saved. As the raft tipped the other
    way Gulliver regained his footing and came sliding toward me.

    “Quickly I passed the rope around his body, and as the raft dived
    again I hung on to the rope with one hand, retaining my own hold
    with the other. Gulliver’s great weight nearly pulled my arm from
    its socket, but he helped mightily, and during the next moment of
    equilibrium I took another turn about his body and made the end of
    the rope fast.

    “The storm passed as swiftly as it had come, and though it left us
    drenched and exhausted, we were both safe.

[Illustration:

  Again and again Gulliver gave voice, deep, full, powerful
]

    “That evening Gulliver crept close to me as I talked, and I let him.
    Loneliness will make a man do strange things.

    “On the fifth day, when our provisions were nearly gone, and I had
    begun to feel the sinking dullness of despair, I sighted a steamer
    apparently coming directly toward us. Instantly I felt new life in
    my limbs and around my heart, and while the boat was yet miles away
    I began to shout and to wave my coat.

    “‘I believe she’s coming, old man!’ I cried to Gulliver; ‘I believe
    she’s coming!’

    “I soon wearied of this foolishness and sat down to wait. Gulliver
    came close and sat beside me, and for the first time I put my hand
    on him. He looked up at me and rapped furiously with his tail. I
    patted his head—a little gingerly, I must confess.

    “It was a big, smooth head, and it felt solid and strong. I passed
    my hand down his neck, his back, his flanks. He seemed to quiver
    with joy. He leaned his huge body against me. Then he bowed his head
    and licked my shoe.

    “A feeling of intense shame and unworthiness came over me, with the
    realization of how completely I had misunderstood him. Why should
    this great, powerful creature lick my shoe? It was incredible.

    “Then, somehow, everything changed. Fear and distrust left me, and a
    feeling of comradeship and understanding took their place. We two
    had been through so much together. A dog was no longer a frightful
    beast to me; he was a dog! I cannot think of a nobler word. And
    Gulliver had licked my shoe! Doubtless it was only the fineness of
    his perception that had prevented him from licking my hand. I might
    have resented that. I put my arms suddenly around Gulliver’s neck
    and hugged him. I loved that dog!

    “Slowly, slowly, the steamer crawled along, but still she kept to
    her course. When she was about a mile away, however, I saw that she
    would not pass as near to us as I had hoped; so I began once more my
    waving and yelling. She came nearer, nearer, but still showed no
    sign of observing us.

    “She was abreast of us and passing. I was in a frenzy!

    “She was so near that I could make out the figure of the captain on
    the bridge, and other figures on the deck below. It seemed as though
    they must see us, though I realized how low in the water we stood,
    and how pitifully weak and hoarse my voice was. I had been a fool to
    waste it. Then an idea struck me.

    “‘Speak!’ I cried to Gulliver, who stood watching beside me. ‘Speak,
    old man!’

    “Gulliver needed no second bidding. A roar like that of all the
    bulls of Bashan rolled out over the blue Pacific. Again and again
    Gulliver gave voice, deep, full, powerful. His great sides heaved
    with the mighty effort, his red, cavernous mouth open, and his head
    raised high.

    “‘Good, old man!’ I cried. ‘Good!’ And again that magnificent voice
    boomed forth.

    “Then something happened on board the steamer. The figures came to
    the side. I waved my coat and danced. Then they saw us.

    “I was pretty well done up when they took us aboard, and I slept for
    twenty-four hours straight. When I awoke there sat Gulliver by my
    bunk, and when I turned to look at him he lifted a great paw and put
    it on my arm.”

    Enderby ceased, and there was silence in the room save for the light
    snoring of Nubbins.

    “You took him home with you, I suppose?” I asked.

    Enderby nodded.

    “And you have him still?” I certainly wanted to have a look at that
    dog.

    But he did not answer. I saw an expression of great sadness come
    into his eyes as he gazed out of the window, and I knew that Jacob
    Enderby had finished his story.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                           SONNY’S SCHOOLIN’
                         By RUTH McENERY STUART

                              A Monologue


    WELL, sir, we’re tryin’ to edjercate him—good ez we can. Th’ ain’t
    never been a edjercational advantage come in reach of us but we’ve
    give it to him. Of co’se he’s all we’ve got, that one boy is, an’
    wife an’ me, why, we feel the same way about it.

    They’s three schools in the county, an’ we send him to all three.

    Sir? Oh, yas, sir; he b’longs to all three schools—to _fo’_, for
    that matter, countin’ the home school.

    You see, Sonny he’s purty ticklish to handle, an’ a person has to
    know thess how to tackle him. Even wife an’ me, thet’s been knowin’
    him f’om the beginnin’, not only knowin’ his traits, but how he
    _come_ by ’em,—though some is hard to trace to their so’ces,—why,
    sir, even we have to study sometimes to keep in with him, an’ of
    co’se a teacher—why, it’s thess hit an’ miss whether he’ll take the
    right tack with him or not; an’ sometimes one teacher’ll strike it
    one day, an’ another nex’ day; so by payin’ schoolin’ for him right
    along in all three, why, of co’se, ef he don’t feel like goin’ to
    one, why, he’ll go to another.

    Once-t in a while he’ll git out with the whole of ’em, an’ that was
    how wife come to open the home school for him. She was determined
    his edjercation shouldn’t be interrupted ef she could help it. She
    don’t encour’ge him much to go to her school, though, ’cause it
    interrupts her in her housekeepin’ consider’ble, an’ she’s had extry
    quilt-patchin’ on hand ever since he come. She’s patchin’ him a set
    ’ginst the time he’ll marry.

    An’ then I reckon he frets her a good deal in school. Somehow, seems
    like he thess picks up enough in the other schools to be able to
    conterdic’ her ways o’ teachin’.

    F’ instance, in addin’ up a colume o’ figgers, ef she comes to a
    aught—which some calls ’em naughts—she’ll say, “Aught’s a aught,”
    an’ Sonny ain’t been learned to say it that a-way; an’ so maybe when
    she says, “Aught’s a aught,” he’ll say, “Who said it wasn’t?” an’
    that puts her out in countin’.

    He’s been learned to thess pass over aughts an’ not call their
    names; and once-t or twice-t, when wife called ’em out that a-way,
    why, he got so fretted he thess gethered up his things an’ went to
    another school. But seem like she’s added aughts that a-way so long
    she can’t think to add ’em no other way.

    I notice nights after she’s kept school for Sonny all day she talks
    consider’ble in her sleep, an’ she says, “Aught’s a aught” about ez
    often ez she says anything else.

    Oh, yas, sir; he’s had consider’ble fusses with his teachers, one
    way an’ another, but they ever’ one declare they think a heap of
    ’im.

    Sir? Oh, yas, sir; of co’se they all draw their reg’lar pay whether
    he’s a day in school du’in’ the month or not. That’s right enough,
    ’cause you see they don’t know what day he’s li’ble to drop in on
    ’em, an’ it’s worth the money thess a-keepin’ their nerves strung
    for ’im.

    Well, yas, sir; ’t is toler’ble expensive, lookin’ at it one way,
    but lookin’ at it another, it don’t cost no mo’ ’n what it would to
    edjercate three child’en, which many poor families have to do—_an’
    more_—which in our united mind Sonny’s worth ’em all.

    Yas, sir; ’t is confusin’ to him in some ways, goin’ to all three
    schools at once-t.

    F’ instance, Miss Alviry Sawyer, which she’s a single-handed maiden
    lady ’bout wife’s age, why, of co’se, she teaches accordin’ to the
    old rules; an’ in learnin’ the child’en subtraction, f’ instance,
    she’ll tell ’em, ef they run short to borry one f’om the nex’ lef’
    han’ top figur’, an’ pay it back to the feller underneath him.

    Well, this didn’t suit Sonny’s sense o’ jestice _no way_, borryin’
    from one an’ payin’ back to somebody else; so he thess up an’ argued
    about it—told her thet fellers thet borried nickels f’om one another
    couldn’t pay back that a-way; an’ of co’se she told him they was
    heap o’ difference ’twix’ money and ’rithmetic——which I wish’t they
    was more in my experience; an’ so they had it hot and heavy for a
    while, till at last she explained to him thet that way of doin’
    subtraction _fetched the answer_, which, of co’se, ought to satisfy
    any school-boy; an’ I reckon Sonny would soon ’a’ settled into that
    way ’ceptin’ thet he got out o’ patience with that school in sev’al
    ways, an’ he left an’ went out to Sandy Crik school, and it thess
    happened that he struck a subtraction class there the day he got in,
    an’ they was workin’ it the _other_ way—borry one from the top
    figur’ an’ never pay it back at all, thess count it off (that’s the
    way I’ve worked my lifelong subtraction, though wife does hers
    payin’ back), an’ of co’se Sonny was ready to dispute this way, an’
    he didn’t have no mo’ tac’ than to th’ow up Miss Alviry’s way to the
    teacher, which of co’se he wouldn’t stand, particular ez Miss
    Alviry’s got the biggest school. So they broke up in a row,
    immejate, and Sonny went right along to Miss Kellog’s school down
    here at the cross-roads.

    She’s a sort o’ reformed teacher, I take it; an’ she gets at her
    subtraction by a new route altogether—like ez ef the first feller
    thet had any surplus went sort o’ security for them thet was short,
    an’ passed the loan down the line. But I noticed he never got his
    money back, for when they come to him, why, they docked him. I
    reckon goin’ security is purty much the same in an out o’ books. She
    passes the borryin’ along some way till it gits to headquarters, an’
    writes a new row o’ figur’s over the heads o’ the others. Well, my
    old brain got so addled watchin’ Sonny work it thet I didn’t seem to
    know one figur’ f’om another ’fo’ he got thoo; but when I see the
    answer come, why, I was satisfied. Ef a man can thess git his
    answers right all his life, why nobody ain’t a-goin’ to pester him
    about how he worked his figur’s.

    I did try to get Sonny to stick to one school for each rule in
    ’rithmetic, an’ havin’ thess fo’ schools, why he could learn each o’
    the fo’ rules by one settled plan. But he won’t promise nothin’.
    He’ll quit for lessons one week, and maybe next week somethin’
    else’ll decide him. (He’s quit ever’ one of ’em in turn when they
    come to long division.) He went thoo a whole week o’ disagreeable
    lessons once-t at one school ’cause he was watchin’ a bird-nest on
    the way to that school. He was determined them young birds was to be
    allowed to leave that nest without bein’ pestered, an’ they stayed
    so long they purty nigh run him into long division ’fo’ they did
    fly. Ef he’d ’a’ missed school one day he knowed two sneaky chaps
    thet would ’a’ robbed that nest, either goin’ or comin’.

    Of co’se Sonny goes to the exhibitions an’ picnics of all the
    schools. Last summer we had a time of it when it come picnic season.
    Two schools set the same day for theirs, which of co’se wasn’t no
    ways fair to Sonny. He payin’ right along in all the schools, of
    co’se he was entitled to all the picnics; so I put on my Sunday
    clo’es, an’ I went down an’ had it fixed right. They all wanted
    Sonny, too, come down to the truth, ’cause besides bein’ fond of
    him, they knowed thet Sonny always fetched a big basket.

    Trouble with Sonny is thet he don’t take nothin’ on nobody’s say-so,
    don’t keer who it is. He even commenced to dispute Moses one Sunday
    when wife was readin’ the Holy Scriptures to him, tell of co’se she
    made him understand thet that wouldn’t do. Moses didn’t intend to
    _be_ conterdicted.

    An’ ez to secular lessons, he ain’t got no respec’ for ’em
    whatsoever. F’ instance, when the teacher learned him thet the world
    was round, why he up an’ told him _’t warn’t so_, less’n we was on
    the inside an’ it was blue-lined, which of co’se teacher he insisted
    thet we was _on the outside_, walkin’ over it, all feet todes the
    center—a thing I’ve always thought myself was mo’ easy said than
    proved.

    Well, sir, Sonny didn’t hesitate to deny it, an’ of co’se teacher he
    commenced by givin’ him a check—which is a bad mark—for
    conterdictin’. An’ then Sonny he ’lowed thet he didn’t conterdic’ to
    _be_ a-conterdictin’, but he _knowed_ ’t warn’t so. He had walked
    the whole len’th o’ the road ’twix’ the farm an’ the school-house,
    an’ they warn’t _no bulge in it_; an’ besides, he hadn’t never saw
    over the edges of it.

    An’ with that teacher he give him another check for speakin’ out o’
    turn. An’ then Sonny, says he, “Ef a man was tall enough he could
    see around the edges, couldn’t he?” “No,” says the teacher; “a man
    couldn’t grow that tall,” says he; “he’d be deformed.”

    An’ Sonny, why, he spoke up again, an’ says he, “But I’m thess
    a-sayin’ _ef_,” says he. “An’ teacher,” says he, “we ain’t
    a-studyin’ _efs_; we’re studyin’ geoger’phy.” And then Sonny they
    say he kep’ still a minute, an’ then he says, says he, “Oh, maybe he
    couldn’t see over the edges, teacher, ’cause ef he was tall enough
    his head might reach up into the flo’ o’ heaven.” And with that
    teacher he give him another check, an’ told him not to dare to mix
    up geoger’phy an’ religion, which was a sackerlege to both studies;
    an’ with that Sonny gethered up his books an’ set out to another
    school.

    I think myself it ’u’d be thess ez well ef Sonny wasn’t quite so
    quick to conterdic’; but it’s thess his way of holdin’ his p’int.

    Why, one day he faced one o’ the teachers down thet two an’ two
    didn’t _haf_ to make _fo’_, wh’er or no.

    This seemed to tickle the teacher mightily, an’ so he laughed an’
    told him he was goin’ to give him rope enough to hang hisself now,
    an’ then he dared him to show him any two an’ two thet didn’t make
    fo’, and Sonny says, says he, “Heap o’ two an’ twos don’t make four,
    ’cause they’re kep’ sep’rate,” says he.

    “An’ then,” says he, “I don’t want my two billy-goats harnessed up
    with nobody else’s two billys to make fo’ billys.”

    “But,” says the teacher, “suppose I _was_ to harness up yo’ two
    goats with Tom Deems’s two, there’d be fo’ goats, I reckon, whether
    you wanted ’em there or not.”

    “No they wouldn’t,” says Sonny. “They wouldn’t be but two. ’T
    wouldn’t take my team more ’n half a minute to butt the life out o’
    Tom’s team.”

    An’ with that little Tommy Deems, why, he commenced to cry, an’
    ’stid o’ punishin’ him for bein’ sech a cry-baby, what did the
    teacher do but give Sonny another check, for castin’ slurs on
    Tommy’s animals, an’ gettin’ Tommy’s feelin’s hurted! Which I ain’t
    a-sayin’ it on account o’ Sonny bein’ my boy, but it seems to me was
    a mighty unfair advantage.

    No boy’s feelin’s ain’t got no right to be that tender—an’ a goat is
    the last thing on earth thet could be injured by a word of mouth.

    Sonny’s pets an’ beasts has made a heap o’ commotion in school one
    way an’ another, somehow. Ef ’t ain’t his goats it’s somethin’ else.

    Sir? Sonny’s pets? Oh, they’re all sorts. He ain’t no ways
    partic’lar thess so a thing is po’ an’ miser’ble enough. That’s
    about all he seems to require of anything.

    He don’t never go to school hardly ’thout a garter-snake or two or a
    lizard or a toad-frog somewheres about him. He’s got some o’ the
    little girls at school that nervous thet if he thess shakes his
    little sleeve at ’em they’ll squeal, not knowin’ what sort o’ live
    critter’ll jump out of it.

    Most of his pets is things he’s got by their bein’ hurted some way.

    One of his toad-frogs is blind of a eye. Sonny rescued him from the
    old red rooster one day after he had nearly pecked him to death, an’
    he had him hoppin’ round the kitchen for about a week with one eye
    bandaged up.

    When a hurted critter gits good an’ strong he gen’ally turns it
    loose ag’in; but ef it stays puny, why he reg’lar ’dopts it an’
    names it Jones. That’s thess a little notion o’ his, namin’ his pets
    the family name.

    The most outlandish thing he ever ’dopted, to my mind, is that old
    yaller cat. That was a miser’ble low-down stray cat thet hung round
    the place a whole season, an’ Sonny used to vow he was goin’ to kill
    it, ’cause it kep’ a-ketchin’ the birds.

    Well, one day he happened to see him thess runnin’ off with a young
    mockin’-bird in his mouth, an’ he took a brickbat an’ he let him
    have it, an’ of co’se he dropped the bird an’ tumbled over—stunted.
    The bird it got well, and Sonny turned him loose after a few days;
    but that cat was hurted fatal. He couldn’t never no mo’ ’n drag
    hisself around from that day to this; an’ I reckon ef Sonny was
    called on to give up every pet he’s got, that cat would be ’bout the
    last thing he’d surrender. He named him Tommy Jones, an’ he never
    goes to school of a mornin’, rain or shine, till Tommy Jones is fed
    f’om his own plate with somethin’ he’s left for him special.

    Of co’se Sonny he’s got his faults, which anybody’ll tell you; but
    th’ ain’t a dumb brute on the farm but’ll foller him around—an’
    Dicey, why, she thinks they never was such another boy born into the
    world—that is, not no human child.

    An’ wife an’ me—

    But of co’se he’s ours.

    I don’t doubt thet he ain’t constructed thess exac’ly ez the
    school-teachers would have him, ef they had their way. Sometimes I
    have thought I’d like his disposition eased up a little, myself,
    when he taken a stand ag’in my jedgment or wife’s.

    Takin’ ’em all round, though, the teachers has been mighty patient
    with him.

    At one school the teacher did take him out behind the school-house
    one day to whup him; an’ although teacher is a big strong man,
    Sonny’s mighty wiry an’ quick, an’ some way he slipped his holt, an’
    ’fo’ teacher could ketch him ag’in he had clumb up the lightnin’-rod
    on to the roof thess like a cat. An’ teacher he felt purty shore of
    him then, ’cause he ’lowed they wasn’t no other way to git down
    (which they wasn’t, the school bein’ a steep-sided buildin’), an’
    he’d wait for him.

    So teacher he set down close-t to the lightnin’-rod to wait. He
    wouldn’t go back in school without him, cause he didn’t want the
    child’en to know he’d got away. So down he set; but he hadn’t no mo’
    ’n took his seat sca’cely when he heerd the child’en in school
    roa’in’ out loud, laughin’ fit to kill theirselves.

    He ’lowed at first thet like ez not the monitor was cuttin’ up some
    sort o’ didoes, the way monitors does gen’ally, so he waited
    a-while; but it kep’ a-gittin’ worse, so d’rectly he got up, an’ he
    went in to see what the excitement was about; an’ lo and beholt!
    Sonny had slipped down the open chimbly right in amongst ’em—come
    out a-grinnin’, with his face all sooted over, an’, says he, “Say,
    fellers,” says he, “I run up the lightnin’-rod, an’ he’s a-waitin’
    for me to come down.” An’ with that he went an’ gethered up his
    books, deliberate, an’ fetched his hat, an’ picked up a nest o’
    little chimbly-swallows he had dislodged in comin’ down (all this
    here it happened thess las’ June), an’ he went out an’ harnessed up
    his goat-wagon, an’ got in. An’ thess ez he driv’ out the
    school-yard into the road the teacher come in, an’ he see how things
    was.

    Of co’se sech conduct ez that is worrisome, but I don’t see no, to
    say, bad principle in it. Sonny ain’t got a bad habit on earth, not
    a-one. They’ll ever’ one o’ the teachers tell you that. He ain’t
    never been knowed to lie, an’ ez for improper language, why he
    wouldn’t know how to select it. An’ ez to tattlin’ at home about
    what goes on in school, why, he never has did it. The only way we
    knowed about him comin’ down the school-house chimbly was wife went
    to fetch his dinner to him, an’ she found it out.

    She knowed he had went to that school in the mornin’, an’ when she
    got there at twelve o’clock, why he wasn’t there, an’ of co’se she
    questioned the teacher, an’ he thess told her thet Sonny had been
    present at the mornin’ session, but thet he was now absent. An’ the
    rest of it she picked out o’ the child’en.

    Oh, no, sir; she don’t take his dinner to him reg’lar—only some days
    when she happens to have somethin’ extry good, or maybe when she
    ’magines he didn’t eat hearty at breakfast. The school-child’en they
    always likes to see her come, because she gen’ally takes a extry lot
    o’ fried chicken thess for him to give away. He don’t keer much for
    nothin’ but livers an’ gizzards, so we have to kill a good many to
    get enough for him; an’ of co’se the fryin’ o’ the rest of it is
    mighty little trouble.

    Sonny is a bothersome child one way: he don’t never want to take his
    dinner to school with him. Of co’se thess after eatin’ breakfas’ he
    don’t feel hungry, an’ when wife does coax him to take it, he’ll
    seem to git up a appetite walkin’ to school, an’ he’ll eat it up
    ’fo’ he gits there.

    Sonny’s got a mighty noble disposition, though, take him all round.

    Now, the day he slipped down that chimbly an’ run away he wasn’t a
    bit flustered, an’ he didn’t play hookey the balance of the day
    neither. He thess went down to the crik, an’ washed the soot off his
    face, though they say he didn’t no more ’n smear it round, an’ then
    he went down to Miss Phœbe’s school, an’ stayed there till it was
    out. An’ she took him out to the well, an’ washed his face good for
    him. But nex’ day he up an’ went back to Mr. Clark’s school—walked
    in thess ez pleasant an’ kind, an’ taken his seat an’ said his
    lessons—never th’owed it up to teacher at all. Now, some child’en,
    after playin’ off on a teacher that a-way would a’ took advantage,
    but he never. It was a fair fight, an’ Sonny whupped, an’ that’s all
    there was to it; an’ he never put on no air about it.

    Wife did threaten to go herself an’ make the teacher apologize for
    gittin’ the little feller all sooted up an’ sp’ilin’ his clo’es; but
    she thought it over, an’ she decided thet she wouldn’t disturb
    things ez long ez they was peaceful. An’, after all, he didn’t
    exac’ly send him down the chimbly nohow, though he provoked him to
    it.

    Ef Sonny had ’a’ fell an’ hurted hisself, though, in that chimbly,
    I’d ’a’ helt that teacher responsible, shore.

    Sonny says hisself thet the only thing he feels bad about in that
    chimbly business is thet one o’ the little swallers’ wings was broke
    by the fall. Sonny’s got him yet, an’ he’s li’ble to keep him, cause
    he’ll never fly. Named him Swally Jones, an’ reg’lar ’dopted him
    soon ez he see how his wing was.

    Sonny’s the only child I ever see in my life thet could take young
    chimbly-swallers after their fall an’ make ’em live. But he does it
    reg’lar. They ain’t a week passes sca’cely but he fetches in some
    hurted critter an’ works with it. Dicey says thet half the time
    she’s afeered to step around her cookstove less’n she’ll step on
    some critter thet’s crawled back to life where he’s put it under the
    stove to hatch or thaw out, which she bein’ bare-feeted, I don’t
    wonder at.

    An’ he has did the same way at school purty much. It got so for
    a-while at one school thet not a child in school could be hired to
    put his hand in the wood-box, not knowin’ ef any piece o’ bark or
    old wood in it would turn out to be a young alligator or toad-frog
    thawin’ out. Teacher hisself picked up a chip, reckless, one day,
    an’ it hopped up, and knocked off his spectacles. Of co’se it wasn’t
    no chip. Hopper-toad frog an’ wood-bark chips, why, they favors
    consider’ble—lay ’em same side up.

    It was on account o’ her takin’ a interest in all his little beasts
    an’ varmints thet he first took sech a notion to Miss Phœbe Kellog’s
    school. Where any other teacher would scold about sech things ez
    he’d fetch in, why, she’d encourage him to bring ’em to her; an’
    she’d fix a place for ’em, an’ maybe git out some book tellin’ all
    about ’em, an’ showin’ pictures of ’em.

    She’s had squir’l-books, an’ bird-books, an’ books on nearly every
    sort o’ wild critter you’d think too mean to _put_ into a book, at
    that school, an’ give the child’en readin’-lessons on ’em an’
    drawin’-lessons an’ clay-moldin’ lessons.

    Why, Sonny has did his alligator so nach’l in clay thet you’d most
    expec’ to see it creep away. An’ you’d think mo’ of alligators
    forever afterward, too. An’ ez to readin’, he never did take no
    interest in learnin’ how to read out ’n them school-readers, which
    he declares don’t no more ’n git a person interested in one thing
    befo’ they start on another, an’ maybe start _that_ in the middle.

    The other teachers, they makes a heap o’ fun o’ Miss Phœbe’s way o’
    school-teachin’, ’cause she lets the child’en ask all sorts of
    outlandish questions, an’ make pictures in school hours, an’ she
    don’t requi’ ’em to fold their arms in school, neither.

    Maybe she is foolin’ their time away. I can’t say ez I exac’ly see
    how she’s a workin’ it to edjercate ’em that a-way. I had to set
    with my arms folded eight hours a day in school when I was a boy, to
    learn the little I know, an’ wife she got her edjercation the same
    way. An’ we went clean thoo f’om the _a-b abs_ an’ _e-b ebs_ clair
    to the end o’ the blue-back speller.

    An’ we learned to purnounce a heap mo’ words than either one of us
    has ever needed to know, though there has been times, sech ez when
    my wife’s mother took the phthisic an’ I had the asthma, thet I was
    obligated to write to the doctor about it, thet I was thankful for
    my experience in the blue-back speller. Them was our brag-words,
    phthisic and asthma was. They’s a few other words I’ve always hoped
    to have a chance to spell in the reg’lar co’se of life, sech ez
    y-a-c-h-t, yacht, but I suppose, livin’ in a little inland town,
    which a yacht is a boat, a person couldn’t be expected to need sech
    a word—less’n he went travelin’.

    I’ve often thought thet ef at the Jedgment the good Lord would only
    examine me an’ all them thet went to school in my day, in the old
    blue-back speller ’stid o’ tacklin’ us on the weak p’ints of our
    pore mortal lives, why, we’d stand about ez good a chance o’ gettin’
    to heaven ez anybody else. An’ maybe He will—who knows?

    But ez for book-readin’, wife an’ me ain’t never felt called on to
    read no book save an’ exceptin’ the Holy Scriptures—an’, of co’se,
    the seed catalogues.

    An’ here Sonny, not quite twelve year old, has read five books thoo,
    an’ some of ’em twice-t an’ three times over. His _Robinson Crusoe_
    shows mo’ wear ’n tear ’n what my Testament does, I’m ashamed to
    say. I’ve done give Miss Phœbe free license to buy him any book she
    wants him to have, an’ he’s got ’em all ’ranged in a row on the end
    o’ the mantel-shelf.

    Quick ez he’d git thoo readin’ a book, of co’se wife she’d be for
    dustin’ it off and puttin’ up on the top closet shelf where a book
    nach’ally belongs; but seem like Sonny he wants to keep ’em in
    sight. So wife she’s worked a little lace shelf-cover to lay under
    ’em, an’ we’ve hung our framed marriage-c’tificate above ’em, an’
    the corner looks right purty, come to see it fixed up.

    Sir? Oh, no; we ain’t took him from none o’ the other schools yet.
    He’s been goin’ to Miss Phœbe’s reg’lar now—all but the exhibition
    an’ picnic days in the other schools—for nearly five months, not
    countin’ off-an’-on days he went to her befo’ he settled down to it
    stiddy.

    He says he’s a-goin’ there reg’lar from this time on, an’ I b’lieve
    he will; but wife an’ me we talked it over, an’ we decided we’d let
    things stand, an’ keep his name down on all the books till sech a
    time ez he come to long division with Miss Kellog.

    An’ ef he stays thoo that, we’ll feel free to notify the other
    schools thet he’s quit.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          HER FIRST HORSE SHOW
                             By DAVID GRAY


    SHE folded the program carefully for preservation in her
    memory-book, and devoured the scene with her eyes. It was hard to
    believe, but unquestionably Angelica Stanton, in the flesh, was in
    Madison Square Garden at the horse show. The great arena was
    crowded; the band was playing, and a four-in-hand was swinging
    around the tan-bark ring.

    What had been her dream since she put away her dolls and the
    flea-bitten pony was realized. The pony had been succeeded by Lady
    Washington, and with Lady Washington opened the epoch when she began
    to hunt with the grown-up people and to reflect upon the outside
    world. From what she had gathered from the men in the hunting-field,
    the outside world seemed to center in the great horse show, and most
    of what was interesting and delightful in life took place there.

    Besides the obvious profit of witnessing this institution, there had
    arisen, later on, more serious considerations which led Angelica to
    take an interest in it. Since the disappearance of Lady Washington
    and the failure to trace her, Angelica’s hope was in the show.

    One of the judges who had visited Jim had unwittingly laid the bases
    of this hope. “All the best performers in America are exhibited
    there,” he had said in the course of an interminable discussion upon
    the great subject. And was not Lady Washington probably the best?
    Clearly, therefore, soon or late Lady Washington would be found
    winning blue ribbons at Madison Square Garden.

    To this cheering conclusion the doubting Thomas within her replied
    that so desirable a miracle could never be; and she cherished the
    doubt, though rather to provoke contrary fate into refuting it than
    because it embodied her convictions. She knew that some day Lady
    Washington must come back.

    After Jim had sold Lady Washington, he had been informed by Chloe,
    the parlor-maid, how Angelica felt, and he repented his act. He had
    tried to buy the mare back, but the man to whom he had sold her had
    sold her to a dealer, and he had sold her to somebody who had gone
    abroad, and no one knew what this person had done with her. So Lady
    Washington had disappeared, and Angelica mourned for her. Two years
    passed, two years that were filled with doubt and disappointment.
    Each autumn Jim went North with his horses, but never suggested
    taking Angelica. As for Angelica, the subject was too near her heart
    for her to broach it. Thus it seemed that life was slipping away,
    harshly withholding opportunity.

    That November, for reasons of his own, Jim decided to take Angelica
    along with him. When he told her of his intention, she gasped, but
    made no demonstration. On the threshold of fulfilling her hope she
    was afraid to exult: she knew how things are snatched away the
    moment one begins to count upon them; but inwardly she was happy to
    the point of apprehension. On the trip North she “knocked wood”
    scrupulously every time she was lured into a day-dream which
    pictured the finding of Lady Washington, and thus she gave the evil
    forces of destiny no opening.

    The first hour of the show overwhelmed her. It was too splendid and
    mystifying to be comprehended immediately, or to permit a divided
    attention. Even Lady Washington dropped out of her thoughts, but
    only until the jumping classes began. The first hunter that trotted
    across the tan-bark brought her back to her quest.

    But after two days the mystery was no more a mystery, and the
    splendor had faded out. The joy of it had faded out, too. For two
    days she had pored over the entry-lists and had studied every horse
    that entered the ring; but the search for Lady Washington had been a
    vain one. Furthermore, all the best horses by this time had appeared
    in some class, and the chances of Lady Washington’s turning up
    seemed infinitesimal. Reluctantly she gave up hope. She explained it
    to herself that probably there had been a moment of vainglorious
    pride when she had neglected to “knock wood.” She would have liked
    to discuss it with somebody; but Chloe and her colored mammy, who
    understood such matters, were at the “Pines” in Virginia, and Jim
    would probably laugh at her; so she maintained silence and kept her
    despair to herself.

    It was the evening of the third day, and she was at the show again,
    dressed in her habit, because she was going to ride. Her brother was
    at the other end of the Garden, hidden by a row of horses. He was
    waiting to show in a class of park hacks. There was nothing in it
    that looked like Lady Washington, and she turned her eyes away from
    the ring with a heavy heart. The band had stopped playing, and there
    was no one to talk to but her aunt’s maid, and this maid was not
    companionable. She fell to watching the people in the boxes; she
    wished that she knew some of them. There was a box just below her
    which looked attractive. There were two pretty women in it, and some
    men who looked as if they were nice; they were laughing and seemed
    to be having a good time. She wished she was with them, or home, or
    anywhere else than where she was.

    Presently the music struck up again; the hum of the innumerable
    voices took a higher pitch. The ceaseless current of promenaders
    staring and bowing at the boxes went slowly around and around.
    Nobody paid any attention to the horses, but all jostled and
    chattered and craned their necks to see the people. When her
    brother’s Redgauntlet took the blue ribbon in the heavy-weight
    green-hunter class, not a person in the whole Garden applauded
    except herself. She heard a man ask, “What took the blue?” And she
    heard his friend answer, “Southern horse, I believe; don’t know the
    owner.” They didn’t even know Jim! She would have left the place and
    gone back to her aunt’s for a comfortable cry, but she was going to
    ride Hilda in the ladies’ saddle class, which came toward the end of
    the evening.

    The next thing on the program were some qualified hunters which
    might be expected to show some good jumping. This was something to
    be thankful for, and she turned her attention to the ring.

    “I think I’ll go down on the floor,” she said to the maid. “I’m
    tired of sitting still.”

    In theory Miss Angelica Stanton was at the horse show escorted by
    her brother; but in fact she was in the custody of Caroline, the
    maid of her aunt Henrietta Cushing, who lived in Washington Square.
    Miss Cushing was elderly, and she disapproved of the horse show
    because her father had been a charter member of the Society for the
    Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and because to go to it in the
    afternoon interfered with her drive and with her tea, while to go to
    it in the evening interfered with her whist, and that was not to be
    thought of. Consequently, when Angelica arrived, the horse show
    devolved upon Caroline, who accepted the situation not altogether
    with resignation. She had done Miss Cushing’s curls for twenty
    years, and had absorbed her views.

    Angelica would have preferred stopping at the hotel with Jim; but
    that, he said, was out of the question. Jim admitted that Aunt
    Henrietta was never intentionally entertaining, but he said that
    Angelica needed her womanly influence. Jim had brought up Angelica,
    and the problem sometimes seemed a serious one. She was now sixteen,
    and he was satisfied that she was going to be a horsewoman, but at
    times he doubted whether his training was adequate in other
    respects, and that was why he had brought her to the horse show and
    had incarcerated her at Aunt Henrietta’s.

    The girl led Caroline through the crowd, and took a position at the
    end, between the first and last jumps. As the horses were shown,
    they went round the ring, came back, and finished in front of them.
    It was the best place from which to watch, if one wished to see the
    jumping.

    Angelica admitted to herself that some of the men rode pretty well,
    but not as well as some of the men rode at their out-of-door shows
    at home; and the tan-bark was not as good as turf. It was a large
    class, and after eight or ten had been shown, a striking-looking
    black mare came out of the line and started plunging and rearing
    toward the first jump. Her rider faced her at the bars, and she
    minced reluctantly forward. Just before they reached the wings the
    man struck her. She stopped short and whirled back into the ring.

    From the time the black mare appeared Angelica’s heart almost
    stopped beating. “I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it!” she gasped.
    “Three white feet and the star. Caroline,” she said, “that’s Lady
    Washington. He oughtn’t to strike her. He mustn’t!”

    “Hush, miss,” said Caroline. “We’ll be conspicuous.”

    The man was bringing the mare back toward the jump. As before, he
    used his whip, intending to drive her into the wings, and, as
    before, she stopped, reared angrily, wheeled about, and came back
    plunging. The man quieted her after a little, and turned her again
    toward the hurdle. It was his last chance. She came up sulkily,
    tossing her head and edging away from the bars. As he got near the
    wings he raised his whip again. Then the people in that part of the
    Garden heard a girl’s shrill, excited voice cry out: “You mustn’t
    hit her! Steady, Lady Washington! Drop your curb!” The black mare’s
    ears went forward at the sound of the voice. The young man on her
    back put down his uplifted whip and loosened the rein on the bit. He
    glanced around with an embarrassed smile, and the next instant he
    was over the jump, and the mare was galloping for the hurdle beyond.

    Suddenly Angelica became conscious that several thousand people were
    staring at her with looks of wonder and amusement. Caroline clutched
    her arm and dragged her away from the rail. The girl colored, and
    shook herself free.

    “I don’t care,” she said. “He shouldn’t have hit her. She can jump
    anything if she’s ridden right. I knew we’d find her,” she muttered
    excitedly. “I knew it!”

    Caroline struggled desperately through the crowd with her charge.

    “Whatever will Miss Cushing say!” she gasped.

    Angelica forgot the crowd. “I don’t care,” she said. “If Aunt
    Henrietta had ever owned Lady Washington she’d have done the same
    thing. And if you tell her I’ll pay you back. She’ll know that you
    let me leave my seat, and she told you not to.” This silenced
    Caroline.

    “There! He’s fussed her mouth again,” she went on. The black mare
    had refused, and was rearing at the jump next the last. The girl
    stood on tiptoe and watched impatiently for a moment.

    “There she goes,” she murmured, with a sigh. The judges had ordered
    the horse out.

    Angelica tagged along disconsolately through the crowd till a
    conversation between two men who were leaning against the rail
    caught her ear.

    “I wonder who that little girl was,” said one. “The mare seemed to
    know her voice, but Reggie doesn’t call her Lady Washington.”

    “No—Hermione,” said the other. “He may have changed it, though,” he
    added. “He gives them all names beginning with H.”

    “You’ll have an easy time beating him in the five-foot-six jumps,”
    said the first man. “It’s a good mare, but he can’t ride her.”

    Angelica wondered who they were, but they turned around just then,
    and she dropped her eyes and hurried after Caroline.

    As they made their way through the crowd, a nudge from the maid took
    her thoughts from Lady Washington. She had been wondering how she
    would find the young man who had ridden her. She looked up and saw
    that a man was bowing to her. It was Mr. “Billy” Livingstone. Mr.
    Livingstone was nearly sixty, but he had certain qualities of
    permanent youth which made him “Billy” to three generations.

    “Hello, Angelica!” he exclaimed. “When did you turn up? How you’ve
    grown!”

    “I came up North with Jim,” she replied.

    “You should have let me know,” he said. “You know Jim never writes
    any one. This is the first time I’ve been here. I’m just back from
    the country. Where’s your box—that is, who are you with?”

    “I’m here with my maid,” said Angelica, with a somewhat conscious
    dignity. “Jim is with the horses.”

    Livingstone looked from the slender girl to the substantial
    Caroline, and the corners of his mouth twitched.

    “I prefer to be alone this way,” she explained. “It’s more
    independent.”

    Mr. Livingstone thought a moment. “Of course that’s so,” he said.
    “But I think I’ve got a better plan; let’s hunt up Mrs. Dicky
    Everett.”

    “Is she an old woman?” asked Angelica.

    “Not so terribly old,” said Mr. Livingstone. “I suppose you’d call
    her middle-aged.”

    “Thirty?” asked Angelica.

    “Near it, I’m afraid,” he answered.

    “Well, I don’t know,” said Angelica. “That’s pretty old. She won’t
    have anything to say to me.”

    “She knows something about a horse,” said Livingstone, “though, of
    course, she can’t ride the way you do. If you find her stupid, I’ll
    take you away; but I want you to come because she will be very nice
    to me for bringing you.”

    He turned to Caroline. “I’m a friend of Miss Stanton’s brother. Go
    to your seat, and I’ll bring Miss Stanton back to you.”

    Then he led the way up the stairs, and Angelica followed, wondering
    what sort of person Mrs. “Dicky” Everett might be.

    She cheered herself with the thought that she could not be any older
    or more depressing than Aunt Henrietta, and if she was fond of
    horses she might know who owned Lady Washington.

    Livingstone consulted his program. “It’s down on this side,” he
    said. She followed him mechanically, with her eyes wandering toward
    the ring, till presently they stopped.

    “Hello!” she heard them call to Livingstone, as he stepped in ahead
    of her, and the next moment she realized that she was in the very
    box which she had watched from her seat among the chairs.

    “I want to present you to my friend Miss Stanton,” Livingstone said.
    He repeated the names, but they made no impression upon her, because
    there, standing in front of her, was the young man who had ridden
    Lady Washington.

    “You seem to know each other,” said Livingstone. “Am I wasting my
    breath? Is this a joke?”

    He looked at Angelica. She was speechless with mixed joy and
    embarrassment.

    “Come here, my dear,” said one of the two pretty women, “and sit
    down beside me. Miss Stanton,” she went on to Livingstone, “very
    kindly tried to teach Reggie how to ride Hermione, and we are glad
    to have the chance to thank her.”

    “I don’t understand at all,” said Livingstone. “But there are so
    many things that I shall never understand that one more makes no
    difference.”

    Angelica’s self-confidence began to come back.

    “Why, he was riding Lady Washington with a whip,” she explained.
    “And I just called out to him not to. You remember Lady
    Washington,—she was a four-year-old when you were at the Pines,—and
    you know you never could touch her with a whip.”

    “I remember very well,” said Livingstone. “You flattered me by
    offering to let me ride her, an offer which, I think, I declined.
    When did you sell her?”

    “Two years ago,” said Angelica.

    Then the other young woman spoke. “But how did you recognize the
    horse?” she asked. “You haven’t seen it for two years.”

    “Recognize her!” exclaimed Angelica. “I guess if you had ever owned
    Lady Washington you would have recognized her. I broke her as a
    two-year-old, and schooled her myself. Jim says she’s the best mare
    we ever had.” Angelica looked at the woman pityingly. She was
    sweet-looking and had beautiful clothes, but she was evidently a
    goose.

    “Miss Stanton won the high jump with the mare,” Livingstone
    remarked, “at their hunt show down in Virginia.”

    “It was only six feet,” said the girl, “but she can do better than
    that. Jim wouldn’t let me ride her at anything bigger.”

    “I should hope not,” said the lady by whose side she was sitting.
    Then she asked suddenly, “You are not Jimmie Stanton’s sister?”

    “Yes,” said Angelica.

    “I’d like to know why he hasn’t brought you to see me!”

    “He’s awfully busy with the horses,” the girl replied. “He has to
    stop at the Waldorf and see about the show with the men, and he
    makes me stay with Aunt Henrietta Cushing.” She stopped abruptly.
    She was afraid that what she had said might sound disloyal. “I like
    to stop with Aunt Henrietta,” she added solemnly. “Besides, I’ve
    been busy looking for Lady Washington.”

    The young man whom they called Reggie, together with Mr. Livingstone
    and the lady beside Angelica, laughed openly at this allusion to
    Miss Cushing.

    “Do you know her?” asked Angelica.

    “Oh, everybody knows your Aunt Henrietta,” said the lady.

    “And loves her,” added Livingstone, solemnly.

    The lady laughed a little. “You see, she’s connected with nearly
    everybody. She’s a sort of connection of Reggie’s and mine, so I
    suppose we’re sort of cousins of yours. I hope you will like us.”

    “I don’t know much about my relations on my mother’s side,” Angelica
    observed. The distinction between connections and relatives had
    never been impressed upon her. She was about to add that Jim said
    that his New York relatives tired him, but caught herself. She
    paused uneasily.

    “Please excuse me,” she said, “but I didn’t hear Mr. Livingstone
    introduce me to you.”

    “Why,” said Livingstone, who overheard, “this is Mrs. Everett. I
    told you we were coming into her box.

    “I thought she must have stepped out,” said Angelica. “You told me
    she was middle-aged.”

    A peal of laughter followed.

    “Angelica! Angelica!” Livingstone exclaimed.

    “But you did,” said Angelica. “I asked you if she was an old lady,
    and you said, ‘Not so terribly old—middle-aged.’ And she’s not;
    she’s young.”

    “Things can never be as they were before,” said Livingstone,
    mournfully, as the laughter died away.

    “No,” said Mrs. Everett.

    There was a pause, and one of the men turned to Reggie. “What are
    you going to do about the five-foot-six jumps?”

    “Let it go,” said Reggie.

    “It’s a pity,” said the other. “If you had met Miss Stanton earlier
    in the evening, I think she could have taught you to ride that mare.
    I wanted to see you win your bet.”

    “Bet?” said Livingstone.

    “Reggie’s such an idiot,” said Mrs. Everett. “He bet Tommy Post that
    Hermione would beat his chestnut in the five-foot-six jumps, and
    Reggie can’t make Hermione jump at all, so he’s lost.”

    “Not yet; I’ve got a chance,” said Reggie, good-naturedly. “Perhaps
    I’ll go in, after all.” The other men laughed.

    “I should think you had made monkey enough of yourself for one
    evening,” observed Palfrey, who was his best friend and could say
    such things.

    “Five feet six would be easy for Lady Washington,” said Angelica. “I
    can’t get used to calling her by that new name.” She hesitated a
    moment with embarrassment, and then she stammered: “Why don’t you
    let _me_ ride her?”

    The people in the box looked aghast.

    “I’m afraid it wouldn’t do,” said Reggie, seriously. “It’s awfully
    good of you, but, you see, it wouldn’t look well to put a lady on
    that horse. Suppose something should happen?”

    “Good of me!” the girl exclaimed. “I’d love it! I want to ride her
    again so much!”

    “Well,” said Reggie, “I’ll have her at the park for you tomorrow
    morning. You can ride her whenever you like.”

    A low cry of alarm ran through the Garden, and the conversation in
    the box hushed. A tandem cart had tipped over, and the wheeler was
    kicking it to pieces.

    “I don’t like that sort of thing,” said Mrs. Everett, with a
    shudder.

    They finally righted the trap, and the driver limped off to show
    that he was not hurt. The great crowd seemed to draw a long breath
    of relief, and the even hum of voices went on again. The judges
    began to award the ribbons, and Angelica looked down at her program.

    “Dear me!” she exclaimed. “The saddle class I’m going to ride in is
    next. I’m afraid I’ll be late. Good-by.”

    “Good-by,” they all replied.

    “Don’t you come,” she said to Livingstone. “It’s just a step.”

    “I must keep my word with Caroline,” he answered, and he took her to
    her seat.

    “She’s immense, isn’t she?” he said, as he came back. “I’m glad
    Reggie didn’t let her ride that brute. She will be killed one of
    these days.”

    “She’s going to be a great beauty,” said Mrs. Everett.

    “She looks like her blessed mother,” said Livingstone. “I was very
    fond of her mother. I think that if it hadn’t been for Stanton—”

    “Stop!” interrupted Mrs. Everett. “Your heart-tragedies are too
    numerous. Besides, if you _had_ married her you wouldn’t be here
    trying to tell us why you didn’t.” And they all laughed, and
    cheerfully condemned the judging of the tandem class.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    The negro groom who had come up with the Stanton horses met Angelica
    as she was going down-stairs into the basement where the stalls
    were. Jim had not appeared, so Angelica and Caroline had started off
    alone.

    “Hilda’s went lame behind, Miss Angie,” the man said. “She must have
    cast huhself. They ain’t no use to show huh.”

    Ordinarily this calamity would have disturbed Angelica, but the
    discovery of Lady Washington was a joy which could not be dimmed.

    “Have you told my brother?” she asked.

    “Yes, Miss Angie,” said the man. “He was gwine to tell you.”

    “I want to see her,” said Angelica, and they went on toward the
    stall. But what Angelica most wanted was to get among the horses and
    look for a certain black mare.

    Hilda was very lame, and there was fever in the hock. Angelica
    patted her neck, and turned away with a side glance at Caroline,
    who, she feared, would rebel at being led through the horses’
    quarters. She walked down the row of stalls till she came to the
    corner, then up through another passage till she stopped at a big
    box-stall over the side of which stretched a black head set on a
    long, thoroughbred-looking neck.

    The small, fine ears, the width between the eyes, the square little
    muzzle, were familiar; and there was a white star on the forehead.
    But Angelica did not enumerate these things. Horses to her had
    personalities and faces, just as people had them. She recognized
    Lady Washington as she had recognized Mr. Livingstone. She made a
    little exclamation, and, standing on tiptoe, put her arms about the
    mare’s neck, and kissed it again and again.

    “The dear! She remembers me!” the girl said, wiping her eyes. “It’s
    Lady Washington,” she explained to Caroline. She reached up to
    fondle the little muzzle, and the mare nipped playfully.

    “Look out, miss,” called the stable-boy, who was sitting on a
    soap-box; “she’s mean.”

    “She’s no such thing,” said the girl.

    “Oh, ain’t she?” said the boy.

    “Well, if she is, you made her so,” retorted Angelica.

    The boy grinned. “I ain’t only been in the stable two weeks,” he
    said. “She caught me on the second day and nigh broke me leg. You
    see her act in the ring? Mr. Haughton says he won’t ride her no
    more, and she’s entered in the five-foot-six jumps.”

    The girl looked thoughtfully at the boy and then at the horse. An
    idea had come to her. She was reflecting upon the last words Mr.
    Haughton had spoken before she left the box: “_You can ride her
    whenever you like_.”

    “I know,” she said aloud. “I’m going to ride her in that class. I’m
    Miss Stanton. I used to own her, you know. My saddle is down there
    with Mr. Stanton’s horses, and I want you to go and get it.”

    “Oh, never, Miss Angelica!” exclaimed Caroline. “Dear me, not that!”

    “You hush,” said Angelica.

    The stable-boy looked at her incredulously. “I ain’t had no orders,
    miss,” he said. “I’ll have to see William. Did Mr. Haughton say you
    might?”

    “Of course he said I might,” she replied.

    The boy said no more and went off after William.

    “Of course he said I might,” she repeated half aloud. “Didn’t he say
    I might ride her ‘whenever I wanted to’? ‘Whenever’ is any time, and
    I want to now.” She fortified herself behind this sophistry, but she
    was all in a flutter lest Jim or Mr. Haughton should appear. The
    thought, however, of being on Lady Washington’s back, and showing
    people that she wasn’t sulky and bad-tempered, was a temptation too
    strong to be resisted.

    The boy came back with the head groom, to whom he had explained the
    matter.

    “Why, miss,” said William, “she’d kill you. I wouldn’t want to show
    her myself. Mr. Haughton, miss, must have been joking. Honest, miss,
    you couldn’t ride Hermione.” The man was respectful but firm.

    “Think what Miss Cushing would say,” said Caroline.

    “But I tell you I can,” retorted Angelica. She paid no attention to
    Caroline; her temper flashed up. “You don’t seem to understand. I
    owned that mare when she was Lady Washington, and broke her all
    myself, and schooled her, too. Mr. Haughton hasn’t any ‘hands,’ and
    he ought to know better than to raise a whip on her.”

    William grinned at the unvarnished statement about his master’s
    “hands.”

    “Are you the young lady what called out to him in the ring?” he
    asked.

    “Yes, I am,” said Angelica. “And if he’d done what I told him to she
    would have won. Here’s our Emanuel,” she went on. “He’ll tell you I
    can ride her. Emanuel,” she demanded, as the negro approached,
    “haven’t I ridden Lady Washington?”

    “You jest have, Miss Angie,” said Emanuel. “Why,” said he, turning
    to William, “this heah young lady have rode that maah ovah six feet.
    She done won the high jump at ouah hunt show. That’s Lady Washington
    all right,” he went on, looking at the head poked out over the
    stall. “I got huh maahk on mah ahm foh to remembah huh.”

    The stable-boy grinned.

    “Well, she never bit me,” said Angelica.

    “The young lady,” said William, doubtfully, “wants to ride her in
    the five-foot-six class. She says Mr. Haughton said she might.”

    “Oh, Miss Angelica,” interposed Caroline, “you’ll be kilt!”

    “You’re a goose,” said Angelica. “I’ve ridden her hundreds of
    times.”

    “I don’t know how Mistah Jim would like it,” said Emanuel; “but she
    could ride that maah all right, you jest bet.”

    William was getting interested. He was not so concerned about Mr.
    Stanton’s likes as he was that his stable should take some ribbons.

    “Mr. Haughton said you might ride her?” he repeated.

    “Of course he did,” said Angelica; “I just left him in Mrs.
    Everett’s box, and I’ve got my own saddle and everything.”

    “All right, miss,” said William. “Get the saddle, Tim.”

    William did not believe that Mr. Haughton had given any such orders,
    but he had gotten into trouble not long before by refusing to give a
    mount to a friend of Haughton’s whom he did not know and who came
    armed only with verbal authority. He knew that if any harm was done
    he could hide behind that occurrence.

    “I want a double-reined snaffle,” said Angelica. “Emanuel,” she
    added, “you have the bit I used to ride her with. Bring my own
    bridle.”

    “I’m afraid you won’t be able to hold her, miss,” muttered William;
    “but it’s as you say. Hurry up with that saddle,” he called to the
    stable-boy. “We ain’t got no time to lose. They’re callin’ the class
    now. You’re number two, miss; I’ll get your number for you.”

    “You’ll be kilt! You’ll be kilt!” said Caroline, dolefully. “Think
    what Miss Cushing will say!”

    “Caroline,” said Angelica, “you don’t know anything about horses, so
    you hush.” And then she added under her breath, “If I can only get
    started before Jim sees me!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

    In the Everett box they were waiting for the five-foot-six class to
    begin. They called it the five-foot-six class because there were
    four jumps that were five feet six inches high; the others were an
    even five feet. It was the “sensational event” of the evening. Thus
    far the show had been dull.

    “Those saddle-horses were an ordinary lot,” observed Reggie.

    “This isn’t opening very well, either,” said Palfrey. The first
    horse had started out by refusing. Then he floundered into the jump
    and fell.

    “Let’s not wait,” said Mrs. Everett. But the words were hardly
    spoken when, with a quick movement, she turned her glasses on the
    ring. Something unusual was going on at the farther end. A ripple of
    applause came down the sides of the Garden, and then she saw a black
    horse, ridden by a girl, come cantering toward the starting-place.

    “It’s that child on Hermione! You must stop it, Reggie!” she
    exclaimed excitedly.

    Before any one could move, Angelica had turned the horse toward the
    first jump. It looked terribly high to Mrs. Everett. It was almost
    even with the head of the man who was standing on the farther side
    ready to replace the bars if they should be knocked down.

    Tossing her head playfully, the black mare galloped steadily for the
    wings, took off in her stride, and swept over the jump in a long
    curve. She landed noiselessly on the tan-bark, and was on again.
    Around the great ring went the horse and the girl, steadily, not too
    fast, and taking each jump without a mistake. The great crowd
    remained breathless and expectant. Horse and rider finished in front
    of the Everett box, and pulled up to a trot, the mare breathing hard
    with excitement, but well-mannered.

    Then a storm of cheers and hand-clapping burst, the like of which
    was never heard at a New York horse show before.

    As the applause died away, Reggie rose and hurried out. “Let’s all
    go,” said Mrs. Everett.

    Before they got through the crowd the judges had awarded the
    ribbons. There were only three other horses that went over all the
    jumps, and none of them made a clean score. There was no question
    about which was first. The judges ran their hands down the mare’s
    legs in a vain search for lumps. She was short-coupled, with a
    beautiful shoulder and powerful quarters. She had four crosses of
    thoroughbred, and showed it.

    “She’s a picture mare,” said one of the judges, and he tied the blue
    rosette to her bridle himself. Then the great crowd cheered and
    clapped again, and Angelica rode down to the entrance as calmly as
    if she were in the habit of taking blue ribbons daily. But inside
    she was not calm.

    “I’ve got to cry or something,” she thought.

    At the gate some one came out of the crowd and took the mare by the
    head. Angelica looked down, and there were her brother and Reggie
    and Mrs. Everett’s party. The Garden began to swim.

    “Oh, Jim!” she murmured, “help me down. It’s Lady Washington.” Then
    she threw her arms around his neck and wept.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    They were at supper in the old Waldorf Palm Room before Angelica was
    quite certain whether actual facts had been taking place or whether
    she had been dreaming. It seemed rather too extraordinary and too
    pleasant to be true. Still, she was sure that she was there, because
    the people stared at her when she came in dressed in her habit, and
    whispered to each other about her. Furthermore, a party of judges
    came over and asked Mrs. Everett to present them.

    There never before was quite such an evening. It was after twelve,
    at least, and nobody had suggested that she ought to be in bed. One
    pleasant thing followed another in quick succession, and there
    seemed no end to them. She was absorbed in an edible rapture which
    Mrs. Everett called a “café parfait” when she became aware that
    Reggie’s friend, Mr. Palfrey, had started to address the party. She
    only half listened, because she was wondering why every one except
    Mrs. Everett and herself had denied himself this delightful sweet.
    Grown-up people had strange tastes.

    Mr. Palfrey began by saying that he thought it was time to propose a
    toast in honor of Miss Stanton, which might also rechristen Reggie’s
    mare by her first and true name, “Lady Washington.” He said that it
    was plain to him that the mare had resented a strange name out of
    Greek mythology, and in future would go kindly, particularly if
    Reggie never tried to ride her again.

    He went on with his remarks, and from time to time the people
    interrupted with laughter; but it was only a meaningless sound in
    Angelica’s ears. The words “Reggie’s mare” had come like a blow in
    the face. She had forgotten about that. Her knees grew weak and a
    lump swelled in her throat. It was true, of course, but for the time
    being it had passed out of her mind. And now that Lady Washington
    had won the five-foot-six class and was so much admired, probably
    Jim could not afford to buy her back. It was doubtful if Mr.
    Haughton would sell her at any price.

    Presently she was aroused by a remark addressed directly to her.

    “I think that’s a good idea,” said Reggie. “Don’t you?”

    She nodded; but she did not know what the idea was, and she did not
    trust her voice to ask.

    “Only,” he continued, turning to Palfrey, “it isn’t my mare any
    more; it’s Miss Stanton’s. Put that in, Palfrey.”

    Angelica’s mouth opened in wonderment and her heart stood still. She
    looked about the table blankly.

    “It’s so,” said Reggie; “she’s yours.”

    “But I can’t take her,” she said falteringly. “She’s too valuable.
    Can I, Jim?”

    “But Jim’s bought her,” said Reggie, hurriedly.

    Angelica’s eyes settled on her brother’s face; he said nothing, but
    began to smile; Reggie was kicking him under the table.

    “Yes,” said Reggie; “when I saw you ride Lady Washington, that
    settled it with me. I’m too proud to stand being beaten by a girl;
    so I made Jim buy her back and promise to give her to you.”

    “Do you mean it?” said Angelica. “Is Lady Washington really mine?”

    “Yes,” he said.

    She dropped her hands in her lap and sighed wearily. “It doesn’t
    seem possible,” she murmured. She paused and seemed to be running
    over the situation in her mind. Presently she spoke as if unaware
    that the others were listening. “I knew it would happen, though,”
    she said. “I knew it. I reckon I prayed enough.” She smiled as a
    great thrill of happiness ran through her, and glancing up, saw that
    all the rest were smiling, too.

    “I’m so happy,” she said apologetically. Then she bethought herself,
    and furtively reached down and tapped the frame of her chair with
    her knuckles.

    “Well, here’s the toast,” said Mr. Palfrey, rising. “To the lady and
    Lady Washington.” And they all rose and drank it standing.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          MY HUSBAND’S BOOK[7]
                        By James Matthew Barrie


Footnote 7:

      From _Two of Them_. Copyright, 1893, by the United States Book Co.

    LONG before I married George I knew that he was dreadfully
    ambitious. We were not yet engaged when he took me into his
    confidence about his forthcoming great book, which was to take the
    form of an inquiry into the Metaphysics of Ethics. “I have not begun
    it yet,” he always said, “but I shall be at it every night once the
    winter sets in.” In the daytime George is only a clerk, though a
    much-valued one, so that he has to give the best hours of his life
    to a ledger.

    “If you only had more time at your disposal,” I used to say, when he
    told me of the book that was to make his name.

    “I don’t complain,” he said, heartily, like the true hero he always
    is, except when he has to take medicine. “Indeed, you will find that
    the great books have nearly always been written by busy men. I am
    firmly of opinion that if a man has original stuff in him it will
    come out.”

    He glowed with enthusiasm while he spoke in this inspiriting strain,
    and some of his ardor passed into me. When we met we talked of
    nothing but his future; at least he talked while I listened with
    clasped hands. It was thus that we became engaged. George was no
    ordinary lover. He did not waste his time telling me that I was
    beautiful, or saying “Beloved!” at short intervals. No, when we were
    alone he gave me his hand to hold, and spoke fervently of the
    Metaphysics of Ethics.

    Our engagement was not of a very long duration, for George coaxed me
    into marriage thus—“I cannot settle down to my book,” he said,
    “until we are married.”

    His heart was so set on that book that I yielded. We wandered all
    over London together buying the furniture. There was a settee that I
    particularly wanted, but George, with his usual thoughtfulness,
    said:

    “Let us rather buy a study table. It will help me at my work, and
    once the book is out we shall be able to afford half a dozen
    settees.”

    Another time he went alone to buy some pictures for the
    drawing-room.

    “I got a study chair instead,” he told me in the evening. “I knew
    you would not mind, my darling, for the chair is the very thing for
    writing a big book in.”

    He even gave thought to the ink-bottle.

    “In my room,” he said, “I am constantly discovering that my
    ink-bottle is empty, and it puts me out of temper to write with
    water and soot. I therefore think we ought to buy one of those large
    ink-stands with two bottles.”

    “We shall,” I replied, with the rapture of youth, “and mine will be
    the pleasant task of seeing that the bottles are kept full.”

    “Dearest!” he said, fondly, for this was the sort of remark that
    touched him most.

    “Every evening,” I continued, encouraged by his caressing tones,
    “you will find your manuscripts lying on the table waiting for you,
    and a pen with a new nib in it.”

    “What a wife you will make!” he exclaimed.

    “But you mustn’t write too much,” I said. “You must have fixed
    hours, and at a certain time, say at ten o’clock, I shall insist on
    your ceasing to write for the night.”

    “That seems a wise arrangement. But sometimes I shall be too
    entranced in the work, I fancy, to leave it without an effort.”

    “Ah,” I said, “I shall come behind you, and snatch the pen from your
    hand!”

    “Every Saturday night,” he said, “I shall read to you what I have
    written during the week.”

    No wonder I loved him.

    We were married on a September day, and the honeymoon passed
    delightfully in talk about the book. Nothing proved to me the depth
    of George’s affection so much as his not beginning the great work
    before the honeymoon was over. So I often told him, and he smiled
    fondly in reply. The more, indeed, I praised him the better pleased
    he seemed to be. The name for this is sympathy.

    Conceive us at home in our dear little house in Clapham.

    “Will you begin the book at once?” I asked George the day after we
    arrived.

    “I have been thinking that over,” he said. “I needn’t tell you that
    there is nothing I should like so much, but, on the whole, it might
    be better to wait a week.”

    “Don’t make the sacrifice for my sake,” I said, anxiously.

    “Of course it is for your sake,” he replied.

    “But it is such a pity to waste any more time,” I said.

    “There is no such hurry,” he answered, rather testily.

    I looked at him in surprise.

    “What I mean,” he said, “is that I can be thinking the arrangement
    of the book over.”

    We had, of course, a good many callers at this time, and I told most
    of them about the book. For reasons to be seen by and by I regret
    this now.

    When the week had become a fortnight, I insisted on leaving George
    alone in the study after dinner. He looked rather gloomy, but I
    filled the ink-bottles, and put the paper on the desk, and handed
    him his new pen. He took it, but did not say “thank you.”

    An hour afterward I took him a cup of tea. He was still sitting by
    the fire, but the pen had fallen from his hands.

    “You are not sleeping, George?” I asked.

    “Sleeping!” he cried, as indignantly as if I had charged him with
    crime. “No, I’m thinking.”

    “You haven’t written any yet?”

    “I was just going to begin when you came in. I’ll begin as soon as
    I’ve drunk this tea.”

    “Then I’ll leave you to your work, dear.”

    I returned to the study at nine o’clock. He was still in the same
    attitude.

    “I wish you would bring me a cup of tea,” he said.

    “I brought you one hours ago.”

    “Eh? Why didn’t you tell me?”

    “Oh, George! I talked with you about it. Why, here it is on the
    table, untouched.”

    “I declare you never mentioned it to me. I must have been thinking
    so deeply that I never noticed you. You should have spoken to me.”

    “But I did speak, and you answered.”

    “My dear, I assure you I did nothing of the sort. This is very
    vexing, for it has spoiled my evening’s work.”

    The next evening George said that he did not feel in the mood for
    writing, and I suppose I looked disappointed, for he flared up.

    “I can’t be eternally writing,” he growled.

    “But you haven’t done anything at all yet.”

    “That is a rather ungenerous way of expressing it.”

    “But you spoke as if the work would be a pleasure.”

    “Have I said that it is not a pleasure? If you knew anything of
    literary history, you would be aware that there are occasions when
    the most industrious writers cannot pen a line.”

    “They must make a beginning some time, though!”

    “Well, I shall make a beginning to-morrow.”

    Next evening he seemed in no hurry to go into the study.

    “I’ll hang the bedroom pictures,” he said.

    “No, no, you must get begone to your book.”

    “You are in a desperate hurry to see me at that book.”

    “You spoke as if you were so anxious to begin it.”

    “So I am. Did I say I wasn’t?”

    He marched off to the study, banging the drawing-room door. An hour
    or so afterward I took him his tea. He had left his study door open
    so that I could see him on the couch before I entered the room. When
    he heard the rattle of the tea-things he jumped up and strode to the
    study table, where, when I entered, he pretended to be busy writing.

    “How are you getting on, dear?” I asked, with a sinking at the
    heart.

    “Excellently, my love, excellently.”

    I looked at him so reproachfully that he blushed.

    “I think,” said he, when he had drunk the tea, “that I have done
    enough for one night. I mustn’t overdo it.”

    “Won’t you let me hear what you have written?”

    He blushed again.

    “Wait till Saturday,” he said.

    “Then let me put your papers away,” I said, for I was anxious to see
    whether he had written anything at all.

    “I couldn’t think of it,” he replied, covering the paper with his
    elbows.

    Next morning I counted the clean sheets of paper. They were just as
    I had put them on the table. So it went on for a fortnight or more,
    with this difference. He either suspected that I counted the sheets,
    or thought that I might take it into my head to do so. To allay my
    suspicions, therefore, he put away what he called his manuscript in
    a drawer, which he took care to lock. I discovered that one of my
    own keys opened this drawer, and one day I examined the manuscripts.
    They consisted of twenty-four pages of paper, without a word written
    on them. Every evening he added two more clean pages to the contents
    of the drawer. This discovery made me so scornful that I taxed him
    with the deceit. At first he tried to brazen it out, but I was
    merciless, and then he said:

    “The fact is that I can’t write by gas-light. I fear I shall have to
    defer beginning the work until spring.”

    “But you used to say that the winter was the best season for
    writing.”

    “I thought so at the time, but I find I was wrong. It will be a
    great blow to me to give up the work for the present, but there is
    no help for it.”

    When spring came I reminded him that now was his opportunity to
    begin the book.

    “You are eternally talking about that book,” he snarled.

    “I haven’t mentioned it for a month.”

    “Well, you are always looking at me as if I should be at it.”

    “Because you used to speak so enthusiastically about it.”

    “I am as enthusiastic as ever, but I can’t be forever writing at the
    book.”

    “We have now been married seven months, and you haven’t written a
    line yet.”

    He banged the doors again, and a week afterward he said that spring
    was a bad time for writing a book.

    “One likes to be out-of-doors,” he said, “in spring, watching the
    trees become green again. Wait till July, when one is glad to be
    indoors. Then I’ll give four hours to the work every evening.”

    Summer came, and then he said:

    “It is too hot to write books. Get me another bottle of iced
    soda-water. I’ll tackle the book in the autumn.”

    We have now been married more than five years, but the book is not
    begun yet. As a rule, we now shun the subject, but there are times
    when he still talks hopefully of beginning. I wonder if there are
    any other husbands like mine.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                                  WAR
                             By JACK LONDON


    HE was a young man, not more than twenty-four or five, and he might
    have sat his horse with the careless grace of his youth had he not
    been so catlike and tense. His black eyes roved everywhere, catching
    the movements of twigs and branches where small birds hopped,
    questing ever onward through the changing vistas of trees and brush,
    and returning always to the clumps of undergrowth on either side.
    And as he watched, so did he listen, though he rode on in silence,
    save for the boom of heavy guns from far to the west. This had been
    sounding monotonously in his ears for hours, and only its cessation
    would have aroused his notice. For he had business closer to hand.
    Across his saddle-bow was balanced a carbine.

    So tensely was he strung, that a bunch of quail, exploding into
    flight from under his horse’s nose, startled him to such an extent
    that automatically, instantly, he had reined in and fetched the
    carbine half-way to his shoulder. He grinned sheepishly, recovered
    himself, and rode on. So tense was he, so bent upon the work he had
    to do, that the sweat stung his eyes unwiped, and unheeded rolled
    down his nose and spattered his saddle pommel. The band of his
    cavalryman’s hat was fresh-stained with sweat. The roan horse under
    him was likewise wet. It was high noon of a breathless day of heat.
    Even the birds and squirrels did not dare the sun, but sheltered in
    shady hiding places among the trees.

    Man and horse were littered with leaves and dusted with yellow
    pollen, for the open was ventured no more than was compulsory. They
    kept to the brush and trees, and invariably the man halted and
    peered out before crossing a dry glade or naked stretch of upland
    pasturage. He worked always to the north, though his way was
    devious, and it was from the north that he seemed most to apprehend
    that for which he was looking. He was no coward, but his courage was
    only that of the average civilized man, and he was looking to live,
    not die.

    Up a small hillside he followed a cowpath through such dense scrub
    that he was forced to dismount and lead his horse. But when the path
    swung around to the west, he abandoned it and headed to the north
    again along the oak-covered top of the ridge.

    The ridge ended in a steep descent—so steep that he zigzagged back
    and forth across the face of the slope, sliding and stumbling among
    the dead leaves and matted vines and keeping a watchful eye on the
    horse above that threatened to fall down upon him. The sweat ran
    from him, and the pollen-dust, settling pungently in mouth and
    nostrils, increased his thirst. Try as he would, nevertheless the
    descent was noisy, and frequently he stopped, panting in the dry
    heat and listening for any warning from beneath.

    At the bottom he came out on a flat, so densely forested that he
    could not make out its extent. Here the character of the woods
    changed, and he was able to remount. Instead of the twisted hillside
    oaks, tall straight trees, big-trunked and prosperous, rose from the
    damp fat soil. Only here and there were thickets, easily avoided,
    while he encountered winding, park-like glades where the cattle had
    pastured in the days before war had run them off.

    His progress was more rapid now, as he came down into the valley,
    and at the end of half an hour he halted at an ancient rail fence on
    the edge of a clearing. He did not like the openness of it, yet his
    path lay across to the fringe of trees that marked the banks of the
    stream. It was a mere quarter of a mile across that open, but the
    thought of venturing out in it was repugnant. A rifle, a score of
    them, a thousand, might lurk in that fringe by the stream.

    Twice he essayed to start, and twice he paused. He was appalled by
    his own loneliness. The pulse of war that beat from the west
    suggested the companionship of battling thousands; here was naught
    but silence, and himself, and possible death-dealing bullets from a
    myriad ambushes. And yet his task was to find what he feared to
    find. He must go on, and on, till somewhere, some time, he
    encountered another man, or other men, from the other side,
    scouting, as he was scouting, to make report, as he must make
    report, of having come in touch.

    Changing his mind, he skirted inside the woods for a distance, and
    again peeped forth. This time, in the middle of the clearing, he saw
    a small farmhouse. There were no signs of life. No smoke curled from
    the chimney, not a barnyard fowl clucked and strutted. The kitchen
    door stood open, and he gazed so long and hard into the black
    aperture that it seemed almost that a farmer’s wife must emerge at
    any moment.

    He licked the pollen and dust from his dry lips, stiffened himself,
    mind and body, and rode out into the blazing sunshine. Nothing
    stirred. He went on past the house, and approached the wall of trees
    and bushes by the river’s bank. One thought persisted maddeningly.
    It was of the crash into his body of a high-velocity bullet. It made
    him feel very fragile and defenseless, and he crouched lower in the
    saddle.

    Tethering his horse in the edge of the wood, he continued a hundred
    yards on foot till he came to the stream. Twenty feet wide it was,
    without perceptible current, cool and inviting, and he was very
    thirsty. But he waited inside his screen of leafage, his eyes fixed
    on the screen on the opposite side. To make the wait endurable, he
    sat down, his carbine resting on his knees. The minutes passed, and
    slowly his tenseness relaxed. At last he decided there was no
    danger; but just as he prepared to part the bushes and bend down to
    the water, a movement among the opposite bushes caught his eye.

    It might be a bird. But he waited. Again there was an agitation of
    the bushes, and then, so suddenly that it almost startled a cry from
    him, the bushes parted and a face peered out. It was a face covered
    with several weeks’ growth of ginger-colored beard. The eyes were
    blue and wide apart, with laughter-wrinkles in the corners that
    showed despite the tired and anxious expression of the whole face.

    All this he could see with microscopic clearness, for the distance
    was no more than twenty feet. And all this he saw in such brief
    time, that he saw it as he lifted his carbine to his shoulder. He
    glanced along the sights, and knew that he was gazing upon a man who
    was as good as dead. It was impossible to miss at such point blank
    range.

    But he did not shoot. Slowly he lowered the carbine and watched. A
    hand, clutching a water-bottle, became visible and the ginger beard
    bent downward to fill the bottle. He could hear the gurgle of the
    water. Then arm and bottle and ginger beard disappeared behind the
    closing bushes. A long time he waited, when, with thirst unslaked,
    he crept back to his horse, rode slowly across the sun-washed
    clearing, and passed into the shelter of the woods beyond.


                                   II

    Another day, hot and breathless. A deserted farmhouse, large, with
    many outbuildings and an orchard, standing in a clearing. From the
    woods, on a roan horse, carbine across pommel, rode the young man
    with the quick black eyes. He breathed with relief as he gained the
    house. That a fight had taken place here earlier in the season was
    evident. Clips and empty cartridges, tarnished with verdigris, lay
    on the ground, which, while wet, had been torn up by the hoofs of
    horses. Hard by the kitchen garden were graves, tagged and numbered.
    From the oak tree by the kitchen door, in tattered, weather-beaten
    garments, hung the bodies of two men. The faces, shriveled and
    defaced, bore no likeness to the faces of men. The roan horse
    snorted beneath them, and the rider caressed and soothed it and tied
    it farther away.

    Entering the house, he found the interior a wreck. He trod on empty
    cartridges as he walked from room to room to reconnoiter from the
    windows. Men had camped and slept everywhere, and on the floor of
    one room he came upon stains unmistakable where the wounded had been
    laid down.

    Again outside, he led the horse around behind the barn and invaded
    the orchard. A dozen trees were burdened with ripe apples. He filled
    his pockets, eating while he picked. Then a thought came to him, and
    he glanced at the sun, calculating the time of his return to camp.
    He pulled off his shirt, tying the sleeves and making a bag. This he
    proceeded to fill with apples.

    As he was about to mount his horse, the animal suddenly pricked up
    its ears. The man, too, listened, and heard, faintly, the thud of
    hoofs on soft earth. He crept to the corner of the barn and peered
    out. A dozen mounted men, strung out loosely, approaching from the
    opposite side of the clearing, were only a matter of a hundred yards
    or so away. They rode on to the house. Some dismounted, while others
    remained in the saddle as an earnest that their stay would be short.
    They seemed to be holding a council, for he could hear them talking
    excitedly in the detested tongue of the alien invader. The time
    passed, but they seemed unable to reach a decision. He put the
    carbine away in its boot, mounted, and waited impatiently, balancing
    the shirt of apples on the pommel.

    He heard footsteps approaching, and drove his spurs so fiercely into
    the roan as to force a surprised groan from the animal as it leaped
    forward. At the corner of the barn he saw the intruder, a mere boy
    of nineteen or twenty for all of his uniform, jump back to escape
    being run down. At the same moment the roan swerved, and its rider
    caught a glimpse of the aroused men by the house. Some were
    springing from their horses, and he could see the rifles going to
    their shoulders. He passed the kitchen door and the dried corpses
    swinging in the shade, compelling his foes to run around the front
    of the house. A rifle cracked, and a second, but he was going fast,
    leaning forward, low in the saddle, one hand clutching the shirt of
    apples, the other guiding the horse.

    The top bar of the fence was four feet high, but he knew his roan
    and leaped it at full career to the accompaniment of several
    scattered shots. Eight hundred yards straight away were the woods,
    and the roan was covering the distance with mighty strides. Every
    man was now firing. They were pumping their guns so rapidly that he
    no longer heard individual shots. A bullet went through his hat, but
    he was unaware, though he did know when another tore through the
    apples on the pommel. And he winced and ducked even lower when a
    third bullet, fired low, struck a stone between his horse’s legs and
    ricochetted off through the air, buzzing and humming like some
    incredible insect.

    The shots died down as the magazines were emptied, until, quickly,
    there was no more shooting. The young man was elated. Through that
    astonishing fusillade he had come unscathed. He glanced back. Yes,
    they had emptied their magazines. He could see several reloading.
    Others were running back behind the house for their horses. As he
    looked, two already mounted, came back into view around the corner,
    riding hard. And at the same moment, he saw the man with the
    unmistakable ginger beard kneel down on the ground, level his gun,
    and coolly take his time for the long shot.

    The young man threw his spurs into the horse, crouched very low, and
    swerved in his flight in order to distract the other’s aim. And
    still the shot did not come. With each jump of the horse, the woods
    sprang nearer. They were only two hundred yards away, and still the
    shot was delayed.

    And then he heard it, the last thing he was to hear, for he was dead
    ere he hit the ground in the long crashing fall from the saddle. And
    they, watching at the house, saw him fall, saw his body bounce when
    it struck the earth, and saw the burst of red-cheeked apples that
    rolled about him. They laughed at the unexpected eruption of apples,
    and clapped their hands in applause of the long shot by the man with
    the ginger beard.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS
                          By Morgan Robertson


    EXTRACT from hospital record of the case of John Anderson, patient
    of Dr. Brown, Ward 3, Room 6:

        August 3. Arrived at hospital in extreme mental distress,
        having been bitten on the wrist three hours previously by
        dog known to have been rabid. Large, strong man,
        full-blooded and well nourished. Sanguine temperament. Pulse
        and temperature higher than normal, due to excitement.
        Cauterized wound at once (2 P.M.) and inoculated with
        antitoxin.

        As patient admits having recently escaped, by swimming
        ashore, from lately arrived cholera ship, now at quarantine,
        he has been isolated and clothing disinfected. Watch for
        symptoms of cholera.

        August 3, 6 P.M. Microscopic examination of blood
        corroborative of Metschnikoff’s theory of fighting
        leucocytes. White corpuscles gorged with bacteria.

                                  ---

    He was an amphibian, and, as such, undeniably beautiful; for the
    sunlight, refracted and diffused in the water, gave his translucent,
    pearl-blue body all the shifting colors of the spectrum. Vigorous
    and graceful of movement, in shape he resembled a comma of three
    dimensions, twisted, when at rest, to a slight spiral curve; but in
    traveling he straightened out with quick successive jerks, each one
    sending him ahead a couple of lengths. Supplemented by the
    undulatory movement of a long continuation of his tail, it was his
    way of swimming, good enough to enable him to escape his enemies;
    this, and riding at anchor in a current by his cable-like appendage,
    constituting his main occupation in life. The pleasure of eating was
    denied him; nature had given him a mouth, but he used it only for
    purposes of offense and defense, absorbing his food in a most
    unheard-of manner—through the soft walls of his body.

    Yet he enjoyed a few social pleasures. Though the organs of the five
    senses were missing in his economy, he possessed an inner sixth
    sense which answered for all and also gave him power of speech. He
    would converse, swap news and views, with creatures of his own and
    other species, provided that they were of equal size and prowess;
    but he wasted no time on any but his social peers. Smaller creatures
    he pursued when they annoyed him; larger ones pursued him.

    The sunlight, which made him so beautiful to look at, was
    distasteful to him; it also made him too visible. He preferred a
    half-darkness and less fervor to life’s battle—time to judge of
    chances, to figure on an enemy’s speed and turning-circle, before
    beginning flight or pursuit. But his dislike of it really came of a
    stronger animus—a shuddering recollection of three hours once passed
    on dry land in a comatose condition, which had followed a
    particularly long and intense period of bright sunlight. He had
    never been able to explain the connection, but the awful memory
    still saddened his life.

    And now it seemed, as he swam about, that this experience might be
    repeated. The light was strong and long-continued, the water
    uncomfortably warm, and the crowd about him denser—so much so as to
    prevent him from attending properly to a social inferior who had
    crossed his bow. But just as his mind grasped the full imminence of
    the danger, there came a sudden darkness, a crash and vibration of
    the water, then a terrible, rattling roar of sound. The social
    inferior slipped from his mouth, and with his crowding neighbors was
    washed far away, while he felt himself slipping along, bounding and
    rebounding against the projections of a corrugated wall which showed
    white in the gloom. There was an unpleasant taste to the water, and
    he became aware of creatures in his vicinity unlike any he had
    known,—quickly darting little monsters about a tenth as large as
    himself,—thousands of them, black and horrid to see, each with
    short, fish-like body and square head like that of a dog; with
    wicked mouth that opened and shut nervously; with hooked flippers on
    the middle part, and a bunch of tentacles on the fore that spread
    out ahead and around. A dozen of them surrounded him menacingly; but
    he was young and strong, much larger than they, and a little
    frightened. A blow of his tail killed two, and the rest drew off.

    The current bore them on until the white wall rounded off and was
    lost to sight beyond the mass of darting creatures. Here was slack
    water, and with desperate effort he swam back, pushing the small
    enemies out of his path, meeting some resistance and receiving a few
    bites, until, in a hollow in the wall, he found temporary refuge and
    time to think. But he could not solve the problem. He had not the
    slightest idea where he was or what had happened—who and what were
    the strange black creatures, or why they had threatened him.

    His thoughts were interrupted. Another vibrant roar sounded, and
    there was pitch-black darkness; then he was pushed and washed away
    from his shelter, jostled, bumped, and squeezed, until he found
    himself in a dimly lighted tunnel, which, crowded as it was with
    swimmers, was narrow enough to enable him to see both sides at once.
    The walls were dark brown and blue, broken up everywhere into
    depressions or caves, some of them so deep as to be almost like
    blind tunnels. The dog-faced creatures were there—as far as he could
    see; but besides them, now, were others, of stranger shape—of
    species unknown to him.

    A slow current carried them on, and soon they entered a larger
    tunnel. He swam to the opposite wall, gripped a projection, and
    watched in wonder and awe the procession gliding by. He soon noticed
    the source of the dim light. A small creature with barrel-like body
    and innumerable legs or tentacles, wavering and reaching, floated
    past. Its body swelled and shrank alternately, with every swelling
    giving out a phosphorescent glow, with every contraction darkening
    to a faint red color. Then came a group of others; then a second
    living lamp; later another and another: they were evenly
    distributed, and illumined the tunnel.

    There were monstrous shapes, living but inert, barely pulsing with
    dormant life, as much larger than himself as the dog-headed kind
    were smaller—huge, unwieldy, disk-shaped masses of tissue, light
    gray at the margins, dark red in the middle. They were in the
    majority, and blocked the view. Darting and wriggling between and
    about them were horrible forms, some larger than himself, others
    smaller. There were serpents, who swam with a serpent’s motion. Some
    were serpents in form, but were curled rigidly into living
    cork-screws, and by sculling with their tails screwed their way
    through the water with surprising rapidity. Others were barrel-or
    globe-shaped, with swarming tentacles. With these they pulled
    themselves along, in and out through the crowd, or, bringing their
    squirming appendages rearward,—each an individual snake,—used them
    as propellers, and swam. There were creatures in the form of long
    cylinders, some with tentacles by which they rolled along like a log
    in a tide-way; others, without appendages, were as inert and
    helpless as the huge red-and-gray disks. He saw four ball-shaped
    creatures float by, clinging together; then a group of eight, then
    one of twelve. All these, to the extent of their volition, seemed to
    be in a state of extreme agitation and excitement.

    The cause was apparent. The tunnel from which he had come was still
    discharging the dog-faced animals by the thousand, and he knew now
    the business they were on. It was war—war to the death. They flung
    themselves with furious energy into the parade, fighting and biting
    all they could reach. A hundred at a time would pounce on one of the
    large red-and-gray creatures, almost hiding it from view; then, and
    before they had passed out of sight, they would fall off and
    disperse, and the once living victim would come with them, in parts.
    The smaller, active swimmers fled, but if one was caught, he
    suffered; a quick dart, a tangle of tentacles, an embrace of the
    wicked flippers, a bite—and a dead body floated on.

    And now into the battle came a ponderous engine of vengeance and
    defense. A gigantic, lumbering, pulsating creature, white and
    translucent but for the dark, active brain showing through its
    walls, horrible in the slow, implacable deliberation of its
    movements, floated down with the current. It was larger than the
    huge red-and-gray creatures. It was formless, in the full irony of
    the definition—for it assumed all forms. It was long—barrel-shaped;
    it shrank to a sphere, then broadened laterally, and again extended
    above and below. In turn it was a sphere, a disk, a pyramid, a
    pentahedron, a polyhedron. It possessed neither legs, flippers, nor
    tentacles; but out from its heaving, shrinking body it would send,
    now from one spot, now from another, an active arm, or feeler, with
    which it swam, pulled, or pushed. An unlucky invader which one of
    them touched made few more voluntary movements; for instantly the
    whole side of the whitish mass bristled with arms. They seized,
    crushed, killed it, and then pushed it bodily through the living
    walls to the animal’s interior to serve for food. And the gaping
    fissure healed at once, like the wounds of Milton’s warring angels.

    The first white monster floated down, killing as he went; then came
    another, pushing eagerly into the fray; then came two, then three,
    then dozens. It seemed that the word had been passed, and the army
    of defense was mustering.

    Sick with horror, he watched the grim spectacle from the shelter of
    the projection, until roused to an active sense of danger to
    himself—but not from the fighters. He was anchored by his tail,
    swinging easily in the eddy, and now felt himself touched from
    beneath, again from above. A projection down-stream was extending
    outward and toward him. The cave in which he had taken refuge was
    closing on him like a great mouth—as though directed by an
    intelligence behind the wall. With a terrified flirt of his tail he
    flung himself out, and as he drifted down with the combat the walls
    of the cave crunched together. It was well for him that he was not
    there.

    The current was clogged with fragments of once living creatures, and
    everywhere, darting, dodging, and biting, were the fierce black
    invaders. But they paid no present attention to him or to the small
    tentacled animals. They killed the large, helpless red-and-gray
    kind, and were killed by the larger white monsters, each moment
    marking the death and rending to fragments of a victim, and the
    horrid interment of fully half his slayers. The tunnel grew larger,
    as mouth after mouth of tributary tunnels was passed; but as each
    one discharged its quota of swimming and drifting creatures, there
    was no thinning of the crowd.

    As he drifted on with the inharmonious throng, he noticed what
    seemed the objective of the war. This was the caves which lined the
    tunnel. Some were apparently rigid, others were mobile. A large
    red-and-gray animal was pushed into the mouth of one of the latter,
    and the walls instantly closed; then they opened, and the creature
    drifted out, limp and colorless, but alive; and with him came
    fragments of the wall, broken off by the pressure. This happened
    again and again, but the large creature was never quite
    killed—merely squeezed. The tentacled non-combatants and the large
    white fighters seemed to know the danger of these tunnel mouths,
    possibly from bitter experiences, for they avoided the walls; but
    the dog-faced invaders sought this death, and only fought on their
    way to the caves. Sometimes two, often four or more, would launch
    themselves together into a hollow, but to no avail; their united
    strength could not prevent the closing in of the mechanical maw, and
    they were crushed and flung out, to drift on with other debris.

    Soon the walls could not be seen for the pushing, jostling crowd,
    but everywhere the terrible, silent war went on until there came a
    time when fighting ceased; for each must look out for himself. They
    seemed to be in an immense cave, and the tide was broken into
    cross-currents rushing violently to the accompaniment of rhythmical
    thunder. They were shaken, jostled, pushed about and pushed
    together, hundreds of the smaller creatures dying from the pressure.
    Then there was a moment of comparative quiet, during which fighting
    was resumed, and there could be seen the swiftly flying walls of a
    large tunnel. Next they were rushed through a labyrinth of small
    caves with walls of curious, branching formation, sponge-like and
    intricate. It required energetic effort to prevent being caught in
    the meshes, and the large red-and-gray creatures were sadly torn and
    crushed, while the white ones fought their way through by main
    strength. Again the flying walls of a tunnel, again a mighty cave,
    and the cross-currents, and the rhythmical thunder, and now a wild
    charge down an immense tunnel, the wall of which surged outward and
    inward, in unison with the roaring of the thunder.

    The thunder died away in the distance, though the walls still
    surged—even those of a smaller tunnel which divided the current and
    received them. Down-stream the tunnel branched again and again, and
    with the lessening of the diameter was a lessening of the current’s
    velocity, until, in a maze of small, short passages, the invaders,
    content to fight and kill in the swifter tide, again attacked the
    caves.

    But to the never-changing result: they were crushed, mangled, and
    cast out, the number of suicides, in this neighborhood, largely
    exceeding those killed by the white warriors. And yet, in spite of
    the large mortality among them, the attacking force was increasing.
    Where one died two took his place; and the reason was soon made
    plain—they were reproducing. A black fighter, longer than his
    fellows, a little sluggish of movement, as though from the
    restrictive pressure of a large, round protuberance in his middle,
    which made him resemble a snake which had swallowed an egg, was
    caught by a white monster and instantly embraced by a multitude of
    feelers. He struggled, bit, and broke in two; then the two parts
    escaped the grip of the astonished captor, and wriggled away, the
    protuberance becoming the head of the rear portion, which
    immediately joined the fight, snapping and biting with unmistakable
    jaws. This phenomenon was repeated.

    And on went the battle. Illumined by the living lamps, and watched
    by terrified noncombatants, the horrid carnival continued with
    never-slacking fury and ever-changing background—past the mouths of
    tributary tunnels which increased the volume and velocity of the
    current and added to the fighting strength, on through widening
    archways to a repetition of the cross-currents, the thunder, and the
    sponge-like maze, down past the heaving walls of larger tunnels to
    branched passages, where, in comparative slack water, the siege of
    the caves was resumed. For hour after hour this went on, the
    invaders dying by hundreds, but increasing by thousands and ten
    thousands, as the geometrical progression advanced, until, with
    swimming-spaces nearly choked by their bodies, living and dead,
    there came the inevitable turn in the tide of battle. A white
    monster was killed.

    Glutted with victims, exhausted and sluggish, he was pounced upon by
    hundreds, hidden from view by a living envelop of black, which
    pulsed and throbbed with his death-throes. A feeler reached out, to
    be bitten off; then another, to no avail. His strength was gone, and
    the assailants bit and burrowed until they reached a vital part,
    when the great mass assumed a spherical form and throbbed no more.
    They dropped off, and, as the mangled ball floated on, charged on
    the next enemy with renewed fury and courage born of their victory.
    This one died as quickly.

    And as though it had been foreseen, and a policy arranged to meet
    it, the white army no longer fought in the open, but lined up along
    the walls to defend the immovable caves. They avoided the working
    jaws of the other kind, which certainly needed no garrison, and
    drifting slowly in the eddies, fought as they could, with decreasing
    strength and increasing death-rate. And thus it happened that our
    conservative noncombatant, out in midstream, found himself
    surrounded by a horde of black enemies who had nothing better to do
    than attack him.

    And they did. As many as could crowd about him closed their wicked
    jaws in his flesh. Squirming with pain, rendered trebly strong by
    his terror, he killed them by twos and threes as he could reach them
    with his tail. He shook them off with nervous contortions, only to
    make room for more. He plunged, rolled, launched himself forward and
    back, up and down, out and in, bending himself nearly double, then
    with lightning rapidity throwing himself far into the reverse curve.
    He was fighting for his life, and knew it. When he could, he used
    his jaws, only once to an enemy. He saw dimly at intervals that the
    white monsters were watching him; but none offered to help, and he
    had not time to call.

    He thought that he must have become the object of the war; for from
    all sides they swarmed, crowding about him, seeking a place on which
    to fasten their jaws. Little by little the large red-and-gray
    creatures, the noncombatants, and the phosphorescent animals were
    pushed aside, and he, the center of an almost solid black mass,
    fought, in utter darkness, with the fury of extreme fright. He had
    no appreciation of the passing of time, no knowledge of his distance
    from the wall, or the destination of this never-pausing current. But
    finally, after an apparently interminable period, he heard dimly,
    with failing consciousness, the reverberations of the thunder, and
    knew momentary respite as the violent cross-currents tore his
    assailants away. Then, still in darkness, he felt the crashing and
    tearing of flesh against obstructing walls and sharp corners, the
    repetition of thunder and the roar of the current which told him he
    was once more in a large tunnel. An instant of light from a
    venturesome torch showed him to his enemies, and again he fought,
    like a whale in his last flurry, slowly dying from exhaustion and
    pain, but still potential to kill—terrible in his agony. There was
    no counting of scalps in that day’s work; but perhaps no devouring
    white monster in all the defensive army could have shown a
    death-list equal to this. From the surging black cloud there was a
    steady outflow of the dead, pushed back by the living.

    Weaker and weaker, while they mangled his flesh, and still in
    darkness, he fought them down through branching passages to another
    network of small tunnels, where he caught a momentary view of the
    walls and the stolid white guard, thence on to what he knew was open
    space. And here he felt that he could fight no more. They had
    covered him completely, and, try as he might with his failing
    strength, he could not dislodge them. So he ceased his struggles;
    and numb with pain, dazed with despair, he awaited the end.

    But it did not come. He was too exhausted to feel surprise or joy
    when they suddenly dropped away from him; but the instinct of
    self-preservation was still in force, and he swam toward the wall.
    The small creatures paid him no attention; they scurried this way
    and that, busy with troubles of their own, while he crept stupidly
    and painfully between two white sentries floating in the eddies,—one
    of whom considerately made room for him,—and anchored to a
    projection, luckily choosing a harbor that was not hostile.

    “Any port in a storm, eh, neighbor?” said the one who had given him
    room, and who seemed to notice his dazed condition. “You’ll feel
    better soon. My, but you put up a good fight, that’s what you did!”

    He could not answer, and the friendly guard resumed his vigil. In a
    few moments, however, he could take cognizance of what was going on
    in the stream. There was a new army in the fight, and reinforcements
    were still coming. A short distance above him was a huge rent in the
    wall, and the caves around it, crushed and distorted, were grinding
    fiercely. Protruding through the rent and extending half-way across
    the tunnel was a huge mass of some strange substance, roughly shaped
    to a cylindrical form. It was hollow, and out of it, by thousands
    and hundred thousands, was pouring the auxiliary army, from which
    the black fighters were now fleeing for dear life.

    The newcomers, though resembling in general form the creatures they
    pursued, were much larger and of two distinct types. Both were light
    brown in color; but while one showed huge development of head and
    jaw, with small flippers, the other kind reversed these attributes,
    their heads being small, but their flippers long and powerful. They
    ran their quarry down in the open, and seized them with outreaching
    tentacles. No mistakes were made—no feints or false motions; and
    there was no resistance by the victims. Where one was noticed he was
    doomed. The tentacles gathered him in—to a murderous bite or a
    murderous embrace.

    At last, when the inflow had ceased,—when there must have been
    millions of the brown killers in the tunnel,—the great hollow
    cylinder turned slowly on its axis and backed out through the rent
    in the wall, which immediately closed, with a crushing and
    scattering of fragments. Though the allies were far down-stream now,
    the war was practically ended; for the white defenders remained near
    the walls, and the black invaders were in wildest panic, each one,
    as the resistless current rushed him past, swimming against the
    stream, to put distance between himself and the destroyer below. But
    before long an advance-guard of the brown enemy shot out from the
    tributaries above, and the tide of retreat swung backward. Then came
    thousands of them, and the massacre was resumed.

    “Hot stuff, eh?” said his friendly neighbor to him.

    “Y-y-y-es—I guess so,” he answered, rather vacantly; “I don’t know.
    I don’t know anything about it. I never saw such doings. What is it
    all for? What does it mean?”

    “Oh, this is nothing; it’s all in a lifetime. Still, I admit it
    might ha’ been serious for us—and you, too—if we hadn’t got help.”

    “But who are they, and what? They all seem of a family, and are
    killing each other.”

    “Immortal shade of Darwin!” exclaimed the other sentry, who had not
    spoken before. “Where were you brought up? Don’t you know that
    variations from type are the deadliest enemies of the parent stock?
    These two brown breeds are the hundredth or two-hundredth cousins of
    the black kind. When they’ve killed off their common relative, and
    get to competing for grub, they’ll exterminate each other, and we’ll
    be rid of ’em all. Law of nature. Understand?”

    “Oh, y-yes, I understand, of course; but what did the black kind
    attack me for? And what do they want, anyway?”

    “To follow out their destiny, I s’pose. They’re the kind of folks
    who have missions. Reformers, we call ’em—who want to enforce their
    peculiar ideas and habits on other people. Sometimes we call them
    expansionists—fond of colonizing territory that doesn’t belong to
    them. They wanted to get through the cells to the lymph-passages,
    thence on to the brain and spinal marrow. Know what that means?
    Hydrophobia.”

    “What’s that?”

    “Oh, say, now! You’re too easy.”

    “Come, come,” said the other, good-naturedly; “don’t guy him. He
    never had our advantages. You see, neighbor, we get these points
    from the subjective brain, which knows all things and gives us our
    instructions. We’re the white corpuscles,—phagocytes, the scientists
    call us,—and our work is to police the blood-vessels, and kill off
    invaders that make trouble. Those red-and-gray chumps can’t take
    care of themselves, and we must protect ’em. Understand? But this
    invasion was too much for us, and we had to have help from outside.
    You must have come in with the first crowd—think I saw you—in at the
    bite. Second crowd came in through an inoculation tube, and just in
    time to pull you through.”

    “I don’t know,” answered our bewildered friend. “In at the bite?
    What bite? I was swimming round comfortable-like, and there was a
    big noise, and then I was alongside of a big white wall, and then—”

    “Exactly; the dog’s tooth. You got into bad company, friend, and
    you’re well out of it. That first gang is the microbe of rabies, not
    very well known yet, because a little too small to be seen by most
    microscopes. All the scientists seem to have learned about ’em is
    that a colony a few hundred generations old—which they call a
    culture, or serum—is death on the original bird; and that’s what
    they sent in to help out. Pasteur’s dead, worse luck, but sometime
    old Koch’ll find out what we’ve known all along—that it’s only
    variation from type.”

    “Koch!” he answered eagerly and proudly. “Oh, I know Koch; I’ve met
    him. And I know about microscopes, too. Why, Koch had me under his
    microscope once. He discovered my family, and named us—the comma
    bacilli—the Spirilli of Asiatic Cholera.”

    In silent horror they drew away from him, and then conversed
    together. Other white warriors drifting along stopped and joined the
    conference, and when a hundred or more were massed before him, they
    spread out to a semi-spherical formation and closed in.

    “What’s the matter?” he asked nervously. “What’s wrong? What are you
    going to do? I haven’t done anything, have I?”

    “It’s not what you’ve done, stranger,” said his quondam friend, “or
    what we’re going to do. It’s what you’re going to do. You’re going
    to die. Don’t see how you got past quarantine, anyhow?”

    “What—why—I don’t want to die. I’ve done nothing. All I want is
    peace and quiet, and a place to swim where it isn’t too light nor
    too dark. I mind my own affairs. Let me alone—you hear me—let me
    alone!”

    They answered him not. Slowly and irresistibly the hollow formation
    contracted—individuals slipping out when necessary—until he was
    pushed, still protesting, into the nearest movable cave. The walls
    crashed together and his life went out. When he was cast forth he
    was in five pieces.

    And so our gentle, conservative, non-combative cholera microbe, who
    only wanted to be left alone to mind his own affairs, met this
    violent death, a martyr to prejudice and an unsympathetic
    environment.

                  *       *       *       *       *

    Extract from hospital record of the case of John Anderson:

        August 18. As period of incubation for both cholera and
        hydrophobia has passed and no initial symptoms of either
        disease have been noticed, patient is this day discharged,
        cured.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                               A DILEMMA
                          By S. WEIR MITCHELL


    I WAS just thirty-seven when my Uncle Philip died. A week before
    that event he sent for me; and here let me say that I had never set
    eyes on him. He hated my mother, but I do not know why. She told me
    long before his last illness that I need expect nothing from my
    father’s brother. He was an inventor, an able and ingenious
    mechanical engineer, and had made much money by his improvement in
    turbine-wheels. He was a bachelor; lived alone, cooked his own
    meals, and collected precious stones, especially rubies and pearls.
    From the time he made his first money he had this mania. As he grew
    richer, the desire to possess rare and costly gems became stronger.
    When he bought a new stone, he carried it in his pocket for a month
    and now and then took it out and looked at it. Then it was added to
    the collection in his safe at the trust company.

    At the time he sent for me I was a clerk, and poor enough.
    Remembering my mother’s words, his message gave me, his sole
    relative, no new hopes; but I thought it best to go.

    When I sat down by his bedside, he began, with a malicious grin:

    “I suppose you think me queer. I will explain.” What he said was
    certainly queer enough. “I have been living on an annuity into which
    I put my fortune. In other words, I have been, as to money,
    concentric half of my life to enable me to be as eccentric as I
    pleased the rest of it. Now I repent of my wickedness to you all,
    and desire to live in the memory of at least one of my family. You
    think I am poor and have only my annuity. You will be profitably
    surprised. I have never parted with my precious stones; they will be
    yours. You are my sole heir. I shall carry with me to the other
    world the satisfaction of making one man happy.

    “No doubt you have always had expectations, and I desire that you
    should continue to expect. My jewels are in my safe. There is
    nothing else left.”

    When I thanked him he grinned all over his lean face, and said:

    “You will have to pay for my funeral.”

    I must say that I never looked forward to any expenditure with more
    pleasure than to what it would cost me to put him away in the earth.
    As I rose to go, he said:

    “The rubies are valuable. They are in my safe at the trust company.
    Before you unlock the box, be very careful to read a letter which
    lies on top of it; and be sure not to shake the box.” I thought this
    odd. “Don’t come back. It won’t hasten things.”

    He died that day week, and was handsomely buried. The day after, his
    will was found, leaving me his heir. I opened his safe and found in
    it nothing but an iron box, evidently of his own making, for he was
    a skilled workman and very ingenious. The box was heavy and strong,
    about ten inches long, eight inches wide and ten inches high. On it
    lay a letter to me. It ran thus:

        “DEAR TOM: This box contains a large number of very fine
        pigeon-blood rubies and a fair lot of diamonds; one is
        blue—a beauty. There are hundreds of pearls—one the famous
        green pearl and a necklace of blue pearls, for which any
        woman would sell her soul—or her affections.” I thought of
        Susan. “I wish you to continue to have expectations and
        continuously to remember your dear uncle. I would have left
        these stones to some charity, but I hate the poor as much as
        I hate your mother’s son,—yes, rather more.

        “The box contains an interesting mechanism, which will act
        with certainty as you unlock it, and explode ten ounces of
        my improved, supersensitive dynamite—no, to be accurate,
        there are only nine and a half ounces. Doubt me, and open
        it, and you will be blown to atoms. Believe me, and you will
        continue to nourish expectations which will never be
        fulfilled. As a considerate man, I counsel extreme care in
        handling the box. Don’t forget your affectionate

                                                            “UNCLE.”

    I stood appalled, the key in my hand. Was it true? Was it a lie? I
    had spent all my savings on the funeral, and was poorer than ever.

    Remembering the old man’s oddity, his malice, his cleverness in
    mechanic arts, and the patent explosive which had helped to make him
    rich, I began to feel how very likely it was that he had told the
    truth in this cruel letter.

    I carried the iron box away to my lodgings, set it down with care in
    a closet, laid the key on it, and locked the closet.

    Then I sat down, as yet hopeful, and began to exert my ingenuity
    upon ways of opening the box without being killed. There must be a
    way.

    After a week of vain thinking I bethought me, one day, that it would
    be easy to explode the box by unlocking it at a safe distance, and I
    arranged a plan with wires, which seemed as if it would answer. But
    when I reflected on what would happen when the dynamite scattered
    the rubies, I knew that I should be none the richer. For hours at a
    time I sat looking at that box and handling the key.

    At last I hung the key on my watch-guard; but then it occurred to me
    that it might be lost or stolen. Dreading this, I hid it, fearful
    that some one might use it to open the box. This state of doubt and
    fear lasted for weeks, until I became nervous and began to dread
    that some accident might happen to that box. A burglar might come
    and boldly carry it away and force it open and find it was a wicked
    fraud of my uncle’s. Even the rumble and vibration caused by the
    heavy vans in the street became at last a terror.

    Worst of all, my salary was reduced, and I saw that marriage was out
    of the question.

    In my despair I consulted Professor Clinch about my dilemma, and as
    to some safe way of getting at the rubies. He said that, if my uncle
    had not lied, there was none that would not ruin the stones,
    especially the pearls, but that it was a silly tale and altogether
    incredible. I offered him the biggest ruby if he wished to test his
    opinion. He did not desire to do so.

    Dr. Schaff, my uncle’s doctor, believed the old man’s letter, and
    added a caution, which was entirely useless, for by this time I was
    afraid to be in the room with that terrible box.

    At last the doctor kindly warned me that I was in danger of losing
    my mind with too much thought about my rubies. In fact, I did
    nothing else but contrive wild plans to get at them safely. I spent
    all my spare hours at one of the great libraries reading about
    dynamite. Indeed, I talked of it until the library attendants,
    believing me a lunatic or a dynamite fiend, declined to humor me,
    and spoke to the police. I suspect that for a while I was “shadowed”
    as a suspicious, and possibly criminal, character. I gave up the
    libraries, and, becoming more and more fearful, set my precious box
    on a down pillow, for fear of its being shaken; for at this time
    even the absurd possibility of its being disturbed by an earthquake
    troubled me. I tried to calculate the amount of shake needful to
    explode my box.

    The old doctor, when I saw him again, begged me to give up all
    thought of the matter, and, as I felt how completely I was the slave
    of one despotic idea, I tried to take the good advice thus given me.

    Unhappily, I found, soon after, between the leaves of my uncle’s
    Bible, a numbered list of the stones with their cost and much
    beside. It was dated two years before my uncle’s death. Many of the
    stones were well known, and their enormous value amazed me.

    Several of the rubies were described with care, and curious
    histories of them were given in detail. One was said to be the
    famous “Sunset ruby,” which had belonged to the Empress-Queen Maria
    Theresa. One was called the “Blood ruby,” not, as was explained,
    because of the color, but on account of the murders it had
    occasioned. Now, as I read, it seemed again to threaten death.

    The pearls were described with care as an unequalled collection.
    Concerning two of them my uncle had written what I might call
    biographies,—for, indeed, they seemed to have done much evil and
    some good. One, a black pearl, was mentioned in an old bill of sale
    as—She—which seemed queer to me.

    It was maddening. Here, guarded by a vision of sudden death, was
    wealth “beyond the dreams of avarice.” I am not a clever or
    ingenious man; I know little beyond how to keep a ledger, and so I
    was, and am, no doubt, absurd about many of my notions as to how to
    solve this riddle.

    At one time I thought of finding a man who would take the risk of
    unlocking the box, but what right had I to subject any one else to
    the trial I dared not face? I could easily drop the box from a
    height somewhere, and if it did not explode could then safely unlock
    it; but if it did blow up when it fell, good-by to my rubies.
    _Mine_, indeed! I was rich, and I was not. I grew thin and morbid,
    and so miserable that, being a good Catholic, I at last carried my
    troubles to my father confessor. He thought it simply a cruel jest
    of my uncle’s, but was not so eager for another world as to be
    willing to open my box. He, too, counselled me to cease thinking
    about it. Good heavens! I dreamed about it. Not to think about it
    was impossible. Neither my own thought nor science nor religion had
    been able to assist me.

    Two years have gone by, and I am one of the richest men in the city,
    and have no more money than will keep me alive.

    Susan said I was half cracked like Uncle Philip, and broke off her
    engagement. In my despair I have advertised in the “Journal of
    Science,” and have had absurd schemes sent me by the dozen. At last,
    as I talked too much about it, the thing became so well known that
    when I put the horror in a safe, in bank, I was promptly desired to
    withdraw it. I was in constant fear of burglars, and my landlady
    gave me notice to leave, because no one would stay in the house with
    that box. I am now advised to print my story and await advice from
    the ingenuity of the American mind.

    I have moved into the suburbs and hidden the box and changed my name
    and my occupation. This I did to escape the curiosity of the
    reporters. I ought to say that when the government officials came to
    hear of my inheritance, they very reasonably desired to collect the
    succession tax on my uncle’s estate.

    I was delighted to assist them. I told the collector my story, and
    showed him Uncle Philip’s letter. Then I offered him the key, and
    asked for time to get half a mile away. That man said he would think
    it over and come back later.

    This is all I have to say. I have made a will and left my rubies and
    pearls to the Society for the Prevention of Human Vivisection. If
    any man thinks this account a joke or an invention, let him coldly
    imagine the situation:

    Given an iron box, known to contain wealth, said to contain
    dynamite, arranged to explode when the key is used to unlock it—what
    would any sane man do? What would he advise?


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                        THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE[8]
                           By A. CONAN DOYLE


Footnote 8:

      By permission of Harper & Brothers.

    I HAD called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the
    autumn of last year, and found him in deep conversation with a very
    stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman, with fiery red hair. With an
    apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when Holmes pulled
    me abruptly into the room and closed the door behind me.

    “You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear Watson,”
    he said, cordially.

    “I was afraid that you were engaged.”

    “So I am. Very much so.”

    “Then I can wait in the next room.”

    “Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and
    helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no doubt that
    he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also.”

    The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of
    greeting, with a quick, little, questioning glance from his small,
    fat-encircled eyes.

    “Try the settee,” said Holmes, relapsing into his arm-chair and
    putting his finger-tips together, as was his custom when in judicial
    moods. “I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that
    is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of
    everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm
    which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my
    saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little
    adventures.”

    “Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me,” I
    observed.

    “You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we
    went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary Sutherland,
    that for strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go
    to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of
    the imagination.”

    “A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting.”

    “You did, doctor, but none the less you must come round to my view,
    for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you, until
    your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to be right.
    Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call upon me this
    morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to be one of the
    most singular which I have listened to for some time. You have heard
    me remark that the strangest and most unique things are very often
    connected not with the larger but with the smaller crimes, and
    occasionally, indeed, where there is room for doubt whether any
    positive crime has been committed. As far as I have heard it is
    impossible for me to say whether the present case is an instance of
    crime or not, but the course of events is certainly among the most
    singular that I have ever listened to. Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you
    would have the great kindness to recommence your narrative. I ask
    you, not merely because my friend Dr. Watson has not heard the
    opening part, but also because the peculiar nature of the story
    makes me anxious to have every possible detail from your lips. As a
    rule, when I have heard some slight indication of the course of
    events, I am able to guide myself by the thousands of other similar
    cases which occur to my memory. In the present instance I am forced
    to admit that the facts are, to the best of my belief, unique.”

    The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some
    little pride, and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the
    inside pocket of his great-coat. As he glanced down the
    advertisement column, with his head thrust forward, and the paper
    flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man, and
    endeavored, after the fashion of my companion, to read the
    indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance.

    I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor
    bore every mark of being an average commonplace British tradesman,
    obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy gray shepherd’s check
    trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, unbuttoned in the
    front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy Albert chain, and a
    square pierced bit of metal dangling down as an ornament. A frayed
    top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a wrinkled velvet collar lay
    upon a chair beside him. Altogether, look as I would, there was
    nothing remarkable about the man save his blazing red head, and the
    expression of extreme chagrin and discontent upon his features.

    Sherlock Holmes’s quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook his
    head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. “Beyond the
    obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he
    takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and
    that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can
    deduce nothing else.”

    Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger upon
    the paper, but his eyes upon my companion.

    “How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr.
    Holmes?” he asked. “How did you know, for example, that I did manual
    labor? It’s as true as gospel, for I began as a ship’s carpenter.”

    “Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger
    than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more
    developed.”

    “Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?”

    “I won’t insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that,
    especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you
    use an arc-and-compass breastpin.”

    “Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?”

    “What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for
    five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the elbow
    where you rest it upon the desk?”

    “Well, but China?”

    “The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right wrist
    could only have been done in China. I have made a small study of
    tattoo marks, and have even contributed to the literature of the
    subject. That trick of staining the fishes’ scales a delicate pink
    is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I see a Chinese coin
    hanging from your watch-chain, the matter becomes even more simple.”

    Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. “Well, I never!” said he. “I
    thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see that
    there was nothing in it, after all.”

    “I begin to think, Watson,” said Holmes, “that I make a mistake in
    explaining. ‘_Omne ignotum pro magnifico_,’ you know, and my poor
    little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I am so
    candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?”

    “Yes, I have got it now,” he answered, with his thick, red finger
    planted half-way down the column. “Here it is. This is what began it
    all. You just read it for yourself, sir.”

    I took the paper from him, and read as follows:

        “TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the
        late Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pa., U.S.A., there is now
        another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League
        to a salary of £4 a week for purely nominal services. All
        red-headed men who are sound in body and mind, and above the
        age of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on
        Monday, at eleven o’clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of
        the League, 7 Pope’s Court, Fleet Street.”

    “What on earth does this mean?” I ejaculated, after I had twice read
    over the extraordinary announcement.

    Holmes chuckled, and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in
    high spirits. “It is a little off the beaten track, isn’t it?” said
    he. “And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch, and tell us all
    about yourself, your household, and the effect which this
    advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note,
    doctor, of the paper and the date.”

    “It is _The Morning Chronicle_, of April 27, 1890. Just two months
    ago.”

    “Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?”

    “Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes,”
    said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; “I have a small
    pawnbroker’s business at Coburg Square, near the city. It’s not a
    very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than just
    give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, but now
    I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him, but that he is
    willing to come for half wages, so as to learn the business.”

    “What is the name of this obliging youth?” asked Sherlock Holmes.

    “His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he’s not such a youth, either.
    It’s hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter assistant, Mr.
    Holmes; and I know very well that he could better himself, and earn
    twice what I am able to give him. But, after all, if he is
    satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?”

    “Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employé who comes
    under the full market price. It is not a common experience among
    employers in this age. I don’t know that your assistant is not as
    remarkable as your advertisement.”

    “Oh, he has his faults, too,” said Mr. Wilson. “Never was such a
    fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought to
    be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar like a
    rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his main
    fault; but, on the whole, he’s a good worker. There’s no vice in
    him.”

    “He is still with you, I presume?”

    “Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple
    cooking, and keeps the place clean—that’s all I have in the house,
    for I am a widower, and never had any family. We live very quietly,
    sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads, and pay our
    debts, if we do nothing more.

    “The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. Spaulding,
    he came down into the office just this day eight weeks, with this
    very paper in his hand, and he says:

    “‘I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.’

    “‘Why that?’ I asks.

    “‘Why,’ says he, ‘here’s another vacancy in the League of the
    Red-headed Men. It’s worth quite a little fortune to any man who
    gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than there
    are men, so that the trustees are at their wits’ end what to do with
    the money. If my hair would only change color, here’s a nice little
    crib all ready for me to step into.’

    “‘Why, what is it, then?’ I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a very
    stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of my having
    to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting my foot over
    the door-mat. In that way I didn’t know much of what was going on
    outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news.

    “‘Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?’ he
    asked, with his eyes open.

    “‘Never.’

    “‘Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one of
    the vacancies.’

    “‘And what are they worth?’ I asked.

    “‘Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, and
    it need not interfere very much with one’s other occupations.’

    “Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, for
    the business has not been over-good for some years, and an extra
    couple of hundred would have been very handy.

    “‘Tell me all about it,’ said I.

    “‘Well,’ said he, showing me the advertisement, ‘you can see for
    yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address
    where you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out,
    the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah Hopkins,
    who was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself red-headed, and he
    had a great sympathy for all red-headed men; so, when he died, it
    was found that he had left his enormous fortune in the hands of
    trustees, with instructions to apply the interest to the providing
    of easy berths to men whose hair is of that color. From all I hear
    it is splendid pay, and very little to do.’

    “‘But,’ said I, ‘there would be millions of red-headed men who would
    apply.’

    “‘Not so many as you might think,’ he answered. ‘You see it is
    really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had
    started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the old
    town a good turn. Then, again, I have heard it is no use your
    applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but
    real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr.
    Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be worth
    your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a few
    hundred pounds.’

    “Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, that
    my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed to me
    that, if there was to be any competition in the matter, I stood as
    good a chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent Spaulding
    seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might prove
    useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for the day,
    and to come right away with me. He was very willing to have a
    holiday, so we shut the business up, and started off for the address
    that was given us in the advertisement.

    “I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From
    north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in his
    hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. Fleet
    Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope’s Court looked like
    a coster’s orange barrow. I should not have thought there were so
    many in the whole country as were brought together by that single
    advertisement. Every shade of color they were—straw, lemon, orange,
    brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; but, as Spaulding said, there were
    not many who had the real vivid flame-colored tint. When I saw how
    many were waiting, I would have given it up in despair; but
    Spaulding would not hear of it. How he did it I could not imagine,
    but he pushed and pulled and butted until he got me through the
    crowd, and right up to the steps which led to the office. There was
    a double stream upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some
    coming back dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could, and soon
    found ourselves in the office.”

    “Your experience has been a most entertaining one,” remarked Holmes,
    as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge pinch of
    snuff. “Pray continue your very interesting statement.”

    “There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs and a
    deal table, behind which sat a small man, with a head that was even
    redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate as he came
    up, and then he always managed to find some fault in them which
    would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem to be such a
    very easy matter, after all. However, when our turn came, the little
    man was much more favorable to me than to any of the others, and he
    closed the door as we entered, so that he might have a private word
    with us.

    “‘This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,’ said my assistant, ‘and he is willing
    to fill a vacancy in the League.’

    “‘And he is admirably suited for it,’ the other answered. ‘He has
    every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so
    fine.’ He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and
    gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he
    plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my
    success.

    “‘It would be injustice to hesitate,’ said he. ‘You will, however, I
    am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.’ With that he
    seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I yelled with the
    pain. ‘There is water in your eyes,’ said he, as he released me. ‘I
    perceive that all is as it should be. But we have to be careful, for
    we have twice been deceived by wigs and once by paint. I could tell
    you tales of cobbler’s wax which would disgust you with human
    nature.’ He stepped over to the window, and shouted through it at
    the top of his voice that the vacancy was filled. A groan of
    disappointment came up from below, and the folk all trooped away in
    different directions, until there was not a red head to be seen
    except my own and that of the manager.

    “‘My name,’ said he, ‘is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of the
    pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are you a
    married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?’

    “I answered that I had not.

    “His face fell immediately.

    “‘Dear me!’ he said, gravely, ‘that is very serious indeed! I am
    sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the
    propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their
    maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a
    bachelor.’

    “My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was
    not to have the vacancy after all; but, after thinking it over for a
    few minutes, he said that it would be all right.

    “‘In the case of another,’ said he, ‘the objection might be fatal,
    but we must stretch a point in favor of a man with such a head of
    hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your new
    duties?’

    “‘Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,’ said
    I.

    “‘Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!’ said Vincent Spaulding. ‘I
    shall be able to look after that for you.’

    “‘What would be the hours?’ I asked.

    “‘Ten to two.’

    “Now a pawnbroker’s business is mostly done of an evening, Mr.
    Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just before
    pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in the
    mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, and that
    he would see to anything that turned up.

    “‘That would suit me very well,’ said I. ‘And the pay?’

    “‘Is £4 a week.’

    “‘And the work?’

    “‘Is purely nominal.’

    “‘What do you call purely nominal?’

    “‘Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the building,
    the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole position
    forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You don’t comply
    with the conditions if you budge from the office during that time.’

    “‘It’s only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,’
    said I.

    “‘No excuse will avail,’ said Mr. Duncan Ross; ‘neither sickness nor
    business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose your
    billet.’

    “‘And the work?’

    “‘Is to copy out the “Encyclopædia Britannica.” There is the first
    volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and
    blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be
    ready to-morrow?’

    “‘Certainly,’ I answered.

    “‘Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you once
    more on the important position which you have been fortunate enough
    to gain.’ He bowed me out of the room, and I went home with my
    assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased at my
    own good fortune.

    “Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in
    low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the whole
    affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its object
    might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past belief that
    any one could make such a will, or that they would pay such a sum
    for doing anything so simple as copying out the ‘Encyclopædia
    Britannica.’ Vincent Spaulding did what he could to cheer me up, but
    by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the whole thing. However, in
    the morning I determined to have a look at it anyhow, so I bought a
    penny bottle of ink, and with a quill-pen, and seven sheets of
    foolscap paper, I started off for Pope’s Court.

    “Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as
    possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross
    was there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off upon
    the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from time to
    time to see that all was right with me. At two o’clock he bade me
    good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I had written, and
    locked the door of the office after me.

    “This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the manager
    came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my week’s work.
    It was the same next week, and the same the week after. Every
    morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I left at two. By
    degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only once of a morning,
    and then, after a time, he did not come in at all. Still, of course,
    I never dared to leave the room for an instant, for I was not sure
    when he might come, and the billet was such a good one, and suited
    me so well, that I would not risk the loss of it.

    “Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about Abbots
    and Archery and Armor and Architecture and Attica, and hoped with
    diligence that I might get on to the B’s before very long. It cost
    me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly filled a shelf
    with my writings. And then suddenly the whole business came to an
    end.”

    “To an end?”

    “Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as
    usual at ten o’clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a
    little square of card-board hammered on to the middle of the panel
    with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself.”

    He held up a piece of white card-board about the size of a sheet of
    note-paper. It read in this fashion:


                           “THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE

                                     is

                                 DISSOLVED.

                            _October 9, 1890._”


    Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful
    face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely
    overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a
    roar of laughter.

    “I cannot see that there is anything very funny,” cried our client,
    flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. “If you can do nothing
    better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere.”

    “No, no,” cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from which
    he had half risen. “I really wouldn’t miss your case for the world.
    It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you will excuse my
    saying so, something just a little funny about it. Pray what steps
    did you take when you found the card upon the door?”

    “I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called at
    the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything about
    it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant living on
    the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me what had
    become of the Red-headed League. He said that he had never heard of
    any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan Ross was. He answered
    that the name was new to him.

    “‘Well,’ said I, ‘the gentleman at No. 4.’

    “‘What, the red-headed man?’

    “‘Yes.’

    “‘Oh,’ said he, ‘his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor,
    and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new
    premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.’

    “‘Where could I find him?’

    “‘Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 King
    Edward Street, near St. Paul’s.’

    “I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was a
    manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever heard
    of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross.”

    “And what did you do then?” asked Holmes.

    “I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my
    assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say
    that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite good
    enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place without a
    struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough to give
    advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right away to
    you.”

    “And you did very wisely,” said Holmes. “Your case is an exceedingly
    remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. From what you
    have told me I think that it is possible that graver issues hang
    from it than might at first sight appear.”

    “Grave enough!” said Mr. Jabez Wilson. “Why, I have lost four pound
    a week.”

    “As far as you are personally concerned,” remarked Holmes, “I do not
    see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary league.
    On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some £30, to
    say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have gained on every
    subject which comes under the letter A. You have lost nothing by
    them.”

    “No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, and
    what their object was in playing this prank—if it was a prank—upon
    me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it cost them two
    and thirty pounds.”

    “We shall endeavor to clear up these points for you. And, first, one
    or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who first
    called your attention to the advertisement—how long had he been with
    you?”

    “About a month then.”

    “How did he come?”

    “In answer to an advertisement.”

    “Was he the only applicant?”

    “No, I had a dozen.”

    “Why did you pick him?”

    “Because he was handy, and would come cheap.”

    “At half wages, in fact.”

    “Yes.”

    “What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?”

    “Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face,
    though he’s not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon his
    forehead.”

    Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. “I thought as
    much,” said he. “Have you ever observed that his ears are pierced
    for earrings?”

    “Yes, sir. He told me that a gypsy had done it for him when he was a
    lad.”

    “Hum!” said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. “He is still with
    you?”

    “Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him.”

    “And has your business been attended to in your absence?”

    “Nothing to complain of, sir. There’s never very much to do of a
    morning.”

    “That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an opinion
    upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is Saturday,
    and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion.”

    “Well, Watson,” said Holmes, when our visitor had left us, “what do
    you make of it all?”

    “I make nothing of it,” I answered, frankly. “It is a most
    mysterious business.”

    “As a rule,” said Holmes, “the more bizarre a thing is the less
    mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless
    crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the
    most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this matter.”

    “What are you going to do, then?” I asked.

    “To smoke,” he answered. “It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I
    beg that you won’t speak to me for fifty minutes.” He curled himself
    up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose,
    and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe
    thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the
    conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding
    myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his chair with the gesture of
    a man who has made up his mind, and put his pipe down upon the
    mantel-piece.

    “Sarasate plays at the St. James’s Hall this afternoon,” he
    remarked. “What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you
    for a few hours?”

    “I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing.”

    “Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the city first,
    and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a
    good deal of German music on the program which is rather more to my
    taste than Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to
    introspect. Come along!”

    We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short
    walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story
    which we had listened to in the morning. It was a pokey, little,
    shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick
    houses looked out into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of
    weedy grass and a few clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard
    fight against a smoke-laden and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt
    balls and a brown board with “JABEZ WILSON” in white letters, upon a
    corner house, announced the place where our red-headed client
    carried on his business. Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with
    his head on one side, and looked it all over, with his eyes shining
    brightly between puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street,
    and then down again to the corner, still looking keenly at the
    houses. Finally he returned to the pawnbroker’s, and, having thumped
    vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he
    went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a
    bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step in.

    “Thank you,” said Holmes, “I only wished to ask you how you would go
    from here to the Strand.”

    “Third right, fourth left,” answered the assistant, promptly,
    closing the door.

    “Smart fellow, that,” observed Holmes, as we walked away. “He is, in
    my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring I am
    not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known something
    of him before.”

    “Evidently,” said I, “Mr. Wilson’s assistant counts for a good deal
    in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you
    inquired your way merely in order that you might see him.”

    “Not him.”

    “What then?”

    “The knees of his trousers.”

    “And what did you see?”

    “What I expected to see.”

    “Why did you beat the pavement?”

    “My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We
    are spies in an enemy’s country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg
    Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it.”

    The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the corner
    from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a contrast to
    it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was one of the
    main arteries which convey the traffic of the city to the north and
    west. The roadway was blocked with the immense stream of commerce
    flowing in a double tide inward and outward, while the foot-paths
    were black with the hurrying swarm of pedestrians. It was difficult
    to realize as we looked at the line of fine shops and stately
    business premises that they really abutted on the other side upon
    the faded and stagnant square which we had just quitted.

    “Let me see,” said Holmes, standing at the corner, and glancing
    along the line, “I should like just to remember the order of the
    houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of
    London. There is Mortimer’s, the tobacconist, the little newspaper
    shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, the
    Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane’s carriage-building depot. That
    carries us right on to the other block. And now, doctor, we’ve done
    our work, so it’s time we had some play. A sandwich and a cup of
    coffee, and then off to violin-land, where all is sweetness and
    delicacy and harmony, and there are no red-headed clients to vex us
    with their conundrums.”

    My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a
    very capable performer, but a composer of no ordinary merit. All the
    afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect
    happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the
    music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes
    were as unlike those of Holmes, the sleuth-hound, Holmes the
    relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was
    possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature
    alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and
    astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction
    against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally
    predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from extreme
    languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was never so
    truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in
    his arm-chair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions.
    Then it was that the lust of the chase would suddenly come upon him,
    and that his brilliant reasoning power would rise to the level of
    intuition, until those who were unacquainted with his methods would
    look askance at him as on a man whose knowledge was not that of
    other mortals. When I saw him that afternoon so enwrapped in the
    music at St. James’s Hall I felt that an evil time might be coming
    upon those whom he had set himself to hunt down.

    “You want to go home, no doubt, doctor,” he remarked, as we emerged.

    “Yes, it would be as well.”

    “And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This
    business at Coburg Square is serious.”

    “Why serious?”

    “A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to
    believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being
    Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help
    to-night.”

    “At what time?”

    “Ten will be early enough.”

    “I shall be at Baker Street at ten.”

    “Very well. And, I say, doctor, there may be some little danger, so
    kindly put your army revolver in your pocket.” He waved his hand,
    turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the crowd.

    I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbors, but I was always
    oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with
    Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what
    he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw
    clearly not only what had happened, but what was about to happen,
    while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque. As
    I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought over it all, from
    the extraordinary story of the red-headed copier of the
    “Encyclopædia” down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg Square, and the
    ominous words with which he had parted from me. What was this
    nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? Where were we
    going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from Holmes that this
    smooth-faced pawnbroker’s assistant was a formidable man—a man who
    might play a deep game. I tried to puzzle it out, but gave it up in
    despair, and set the matter aside until night should bring an
    explanation.

    It was a quarter past nine when I started from home and made my way
    across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker Street. Two
    hansoms were standing at the door, and, as I entered the passage, I
    heard the sound of voices from above. On entering his room I found
    Holmes in animated conversation with two men, one of whom I
    recognized as Peter Jones, the official police agent, while the
    other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a very shiny hat and
    oppressively respectable frock-coat.

    “Ha! our party is complete,” said Holmes, buttoning up his
    pea-jacket, and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack.
    “Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me
    introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in
    to-night’s adventure.”

    “We’re hunting in couples again, doctor, you see,” said Jones, in
    his consequential way. “Our friend here is a wonderful man for
    starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do the
    running down.”

    “I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase,”
    observed Mr. Merryweather, gloomily.

    “You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir,” said the
    police agent, loftily. “He has his own little methods, which are, if
    he won’t mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical and
    fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It is not
    too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of the
    Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly correct
    than the official force.”

    “Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right,” said the stranger,
    with deference. “Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the
    first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had
    my rubber.”

    “I think you will find,” said Sherlock Holmes, “that you will play
    for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that
    the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, the stake
    will be some £30,000, and for you, Jones, it will be the man upon
    whom you wish to lay your hands.”

    “John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He’s a young
    man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his profession, and
    I would rather have my bracelets on him than on any criminal in
    London. He’s a remarkable man, is young John Clay. His grandfather
    was a royal duke, and he himself has been to Eton and Oxford. His
    brain is as cunning as his fingers, and though we meet signs of him
    at every turn, we never know where to find the man himself. He’ll
    crack a crib in Scotland one week, and be raising money to build an
    orphanage in Cornwall the next. I’ve been on his track for years,
    and have never set eyes on him yet.”

    “I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night.
    I’ve had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I
    agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is past
    ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two will take
    the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the second.”

    Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive,
    and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the
    afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit
    streets until we emerged into Farringdon Street.

    “We are close there now,” my friend remarked. “This fellow
    Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the
    matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is not a
    bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. He has
    one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bull-dog, and as tenacious
    as a lobster if he gets his claws upon any one. Here we are, and
    they are waiting for us.”

    We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had found
    ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, following
    the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a narrow passage
    and through a side door, which he opened for us. Within there was a
    small corridor, which ended in a very massive iron gate. This also
    was opened, and led down a flight of winding stone steps, which
    terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. Merryweather stopped to
    light a lantern, and then conducted us down a dark, earth-smelling
    passage, and so, after opening a third door, into a huge vault or
    cellar, which was piled all round with crates and massive boxes.

    “You are not very vulnerable from above,” Holmes remarked, as he
    held up the lantern and gazed about him.

    “Nor from below,” said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon the
    flags which lined the floor. “Why, dear me, it sounds quite hollow!”
    he remarked, looking up in surprise.

    “I must really ask you to be a little more quiet,” said Holmes,
    severely. “You have already imperilled the whole success of our
    expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit down
    upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?”

    The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a
    very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his
    knees upon the floor, and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens,
    began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few
    seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again,
    and put his glass in his pocket.

    “We have at least an hour before us,” he remarked; “for they can
    hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed.
    Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their work
    the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at present,
    doctor—as no doubt you have divined—in the cellar of the city branch
    of one of the principal London banks. Mr. Merryweather is the
    chairman of directors, and he will explain to you that there are
    reasons why the more daring criminals of London should take a
    considerable interest in this cellar at present.”

    “It is our French gold,” whispered the director. “We have had
    several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it.”

    “Your French gold?”

    “Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources,
    and borrowed, for that purpose, 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of
    France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to
    unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The
    crate upon which I sit contains 2000 napoleons packed between layers
    of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at present than
    is usually kept in a single branch office, and the directors have
    had misgivings upon the subject.”

    “Which were very well justified,” observed Holmes. “And now it is
    time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an hour
    matters will come to a head. In the mean time, Mr. Merryweather, we
    must put the screen over that dark lantern.”

    “And sit in the dark?”

    “I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and I
    thought that, as we were a _partie carrée_, you might have your
    rubber after all. But I see that the enemy’s preparations have gone
    so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, first of
    all, we must choose our positions. These are daring men, and though
    we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us some harm
    unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate, and do you
    conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a light upon
    them, close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no compunction
    about shooting them down.”

    I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind
    which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his
    lantern, and left us in pitch darkness—such an absolute darkness as
    I have never before experienced. The smell of hot metal remained to
    assure us that the light was still there, ready to flash out at a
    moment’s notice. To me, with my nerves worked up to a pitch of
    expectancy, there was something depressing and subduing in the
    sudden gloom, and in the cold, dank air of the vault.

    “They have but one retreat,” whispered Holmes. “That is back through
    the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have done what I
    asked you, Jones?”

    “I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door.”

    “Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent and
    wait.”

    What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but an
    hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must have
    almost gone, and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs were weary
    and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my nerves were
    worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my hearing was so
    acute that I could not only hear the gentle breathing of my
    companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, heavier in-breath of
    the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note of the bank director.
    From my position I could look over the case in the direction of the
    floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint of a light.

    At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then it
    lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, without any
    warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand appeared; a
    white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the center of the
    little area of light. For a minute or more the hand, with its
    writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then it was withdrawn
    as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark again save the single
    lurid spark which marked a chink between the stones.

    Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending,
    tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon its
    side, and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed the
    light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, boyish
    face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand on either
    side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and waist-high,
    until one knee rested upon the edge. In another instant he stood at
    the side of the hole, and was hauling after him a companion, lithe
    and small like himself, with a pale face and a shock of very red
    hair.

    “It’s all clear,” he whispered. “Have you the chisel and the bags?
    Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I’ll swing for it!”

    Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the
    collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of
    rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed
    upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes’s hunting crop came down
    on the man’s wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone floor.

    “It’s no use, John Clay,” said Holmes, blandly. “You have no chance
    at all.”

    “So I see,” the other answered, with the utmost coolness. “I fancy
    that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his coat-tails.”

    “There are three men waiting for him at the door,” said Holmes.

    “Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I must
    compliment you.”

    “And I you,” Holmes answered. “Your red-headed idea was very new and
    effective.”

    “You’ll see your pal again presently,” said Jones. “He’s quicker at
    climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the
    derbies.”

    “I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands,” remarked
    our prisoner, as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. “You may
    not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have the goodness,
    also, when you address me always to say ‘sir’ and ‘please.’”

    “All right,” said Jones, with a stare and a snigger. “Well, would
    you please, sir, march up-stairs, where we can get a cab to carry
    your highness to the police-station?”

    “That is better,” said John Clay, serenely. He made a sweeping bow
    to the three of us, and walked quietly off in the custody of the
    detective.

    “Really Mr. Holmes,” said Mr. Merryweather, as we followed them from
    the cellar, “I do not know how the bank can thank you or repay you.
    There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated in the most
    complete manner one of the most determined attempts at bank robbery
    that have ever come within my experience.”

    “I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr.
    John Clay,” said Holmes. “I have been at some small expense over
    this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond
    that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in many
    ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of the
    Red-headed League.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

    “You see, Watson,” he explained, in the early hours of the morning,
    as we sat over a glass of whiskey-and-soda in Baker Street, “it was
    perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible object of
    this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of the League,
    and the copying of the ‘Encyclopædia,’ must be to get this not
    over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of hours every
    day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, really, it would be
    difficult to suggest a better. The method was no doubt suggested to
    Clay’s ingenious mind by the color of his accomplice’s hair. The £4
    a week was a lure which must draw him, and what was it to them, who
    were playing for thousands? They put in the advertisement, one rogue
    has the temporary office, the other rogue incites the man to apply
    for it, and together they manage to secure his absence every morning
    in the week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come
    for half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive
    for securing the situation.”

    “But how could you guess what the motive was?”

    “Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a mere
    vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The man’s
    business was a small one, and there was nothing in his house which
    could account for such elaborate preparations, and such an
    expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something out of the
    house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant’s fondness for
    photography, and his trick of vanishing into the cellar. The cellar!
    There was the end of this tangled clue. Then I made inquiries as to
    this mysterious assistant, and found that I had to deal with one of
    the coolest and most daring criminals in London. He was doing
    something in the cellar—something which took many hours a day for
    months on end. What could it be, once more? I could think of nothing
    save that he was running a tunnel to some other building.

    “So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I
    surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was
    ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. It
    was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the
    assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had never
    set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his face. His
    knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have remarked how
    worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of those hours of
    burrowing. The only remaining point was what they were burrowing
    for. I walked round the corner, saw that the City and Suburban Bank
    abutted on our friend’s premises, and felt that I had solved my
    problem. When you drove home after the concert I called upon
    Scotland Yard, and upon the chairman of the bank directors, with the
    result that you have seen.”

    “And how could you tell that they would make their attempt
    to-night?” I asked.

    “Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that
    they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson’s presence—in other
    words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential
    that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the
    bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than any
    other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. For all
    these reasons I expected them to come to-night.”

    “You reasoned it out beautifully,” I exclaimed, in unfeigned
    admiration. “It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings true.”

    “It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I already
    feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to
    escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little problems
    help me to do so.”

    “And you are a benefactor of the race,” said I.

    He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some
    little use,” he remarked. “_‘L’homme c’est rien—l’œuvre c’est
    tout_,’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to Georges Sand.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                        ONE HUNDRED IN THE DARK
                            By Owen Johnson


    THEY were discussing languidly, as such groups do, seeking from each
    topic a peg on which to hang a few epigrams that might be retold in
    the lip currency of the club—Steingall, the painter, florid of
    gesture, and effete, foreign in type, with black-rimmed glasses and
    trailing ribbon of black silk that cut across his cropped beard and
    cavalry mustaches; De Gollyer, a critic, who preferred to be known
    as a man about town, short, feverish, incisive, who slew platitudes
    with one adjective and tagged a reputation with three; Rankin, the
    architect, always in a defensive, explanatory attitude, who held his
    elbows on the table, his hands before his long sliding nose, and
    gestured with his fingers; Quinny, the illustrator, long and gaunt,
    with a predatory eloquence that charged irresistibly down on any
    subject, cut it off, surrounded it, and raked it with enfilading wit
    and satire; and Peters, whose methods of existence were a mystery, a
    young man of fifty, who had done nothing and who knew every one by
    his first name, the club postman, who carried the tittle-tattle, the
    _bon mots_ and the news of the day, who drew up a petition a week
    and pursued the house committee with a daily grievance.

    About the latticed porch, which ran around the sanded yard with its
    feeble fountain and futile evergreens, other groups were eying one
    another, or engaging in desultory conversation, oppressed with the
    heaviness of the night.

    At the round table, Quinny alone, absorbing energy as he devoured
    the conversation, having routed Steingall on the Germans and
    archæology and Rankin on the origins of the Lord’s Prayer, had
    seized a chance remark of De Gollyer’s to say:

    “There are only half a dozen stories in the world. Like everything
    that’s true it isn’t true.” He waved his long, gouty fingers in the
    direction of Steingall, who, having been silenced, was regarding him
    with a look of sleepy indifference. “What is more to the point, is
    the small number of human relations that are so simple and yet so
    fundamental that they can be eternally played upon, redressed, and
    reinterpreted in every language, in every age, and yet remain
    inexhaustible in the possibility of variations.”

    “By George, that is so,” said Steingall, waking up. “Every art does
    go back to three or four notes. In composition it is the same thing.
    Nothing new—nothing new since a thousand years. By George, that is
    true! We invent nothing, nothing!”

    “Take the eternal triangle,” said Quinny hurriedly, not to surrender
    his advantage, while Rankin and De Gollyer in a bored way continued
    to gaze dreamily at a vagrant star or two. “Two men and a woman, or
    two women and a man. Obviously it should be classified as the first
    of the great original parent themes. Its variations extend into the
    thousands. By the way, Rankin, excellent opportunity, eh, for some
    of our modern, painstaking, unemployed jackasses to analyze and
    classify.”

    “Quite right,” said Rankin without perceiving the satirical note.
    “Now there’s De Maupassant’s _Fort comme la Mort_—quite the most
    interesting variation—shows the turn a genius can give. There the
    triangle is the man of middle age, the mother he has loved in his
    youth and the daughter he comes to love. It forms, you might say,
    the head of a whole subdivision of modern continental literature.”

    “Quite wrong, Rankin, quite wrong,” said Quinny, who would have
    stated the other side quite as imperiously. “What you cite is a
    variation of quite another theme, the Faust theme—old age longing
    for youth, the man who has loved longing for the love of his youth,
    which is youth itself. The triangle is the theme of jealousy, the
    most destructive and, therefore, the most dramatic of human
    passions. The Faust theme is the most fundamental and inevitable of
    all human experiences, the tragedy of life itself. Quite a different
    thing.”

    Rankin, who never agreed with Quinny unless Quinny maliciously took
    advantage of his prior announcement to agree with him, continued to
    combat this idea.

    “You believe then,” said De Gollyer after a certain moment had been
    consumed in hair splitting, “that the origin of all dramatic themes
    is simply the expression of some human emotion. In other words,
    there can exist no more parent themes than there are human
    emotions.”

    “I thank you, sir, very well put,” said Quinny with a generous wave
    of his hand. “Why is the _Three Musketeers_ a basic theme? Simply
    the interpretation of comradeship, the emotion one man feels for
    another, vital because it is the one peculiarly masculine emotion.
    Look at Du Maurier and _Trilby_, Kipling in _Soldiers Three_—simply
    the _Three Musketeers_.”

    “The _Vie de Bohème_?” suggested Steingall.

    “In the real Vie de Bohème, yes,” said Quinny viciously. “Not in the
    concocted sentimentalities that we now have served up to us by
    athletic tenors and consumptive elephants!”

    Rankin, who had been silently deliberating on what had been left
    behind, now said cunningly and with evident purpose:

    “All the same, I don’t agree with you men at all. I believe there
    are situations, original situations, that are independent of your
    human emotions, that exist just because they are situations,
    accidental and nothing else.”

    “As for instance?” said Quinny, preparing to attack.

    “Well, I’ll just cite an ordinary one that happens to come to my
    mind,” said Rankin, who had carefully selected his test. “In a group
    of seven or eight, such as we are here, a theft takes place; one man
    is the thief—which one? I’d like to know what emotion that
    interprets, and yet it certainly is an original theme, at the bottom
    of a whole literature.”

    This challenge was like a bomb.

    “Not the same thing.”

    “Detective stories, bah!”

    “Oh, I say, Rankin, that’s literary melodrama.”

    Rankin, satisfied, smiled and winked victoriously over to Tommers,
    who was listening from an adjacent table.

    “Of course your suggestion is out of order, my dear man, to this
    extent,” said Quinny, who never surrendered, “in that I am talking
    of fundamentals and you are citing details. Nevertheless, I could
    answer that the situation you give, as well as the whole school it
    belongs to, can be traced back to the commonest of human emotions,
    curiosity; and that the story of _Bluebeard_ and _The Moonstone_ are
    to all purposes identically the same.”

    At this Steingall, who had waited hopefully, gasped and made as
    though to leave the table.

    “I shall take up your contention,” said Quinny without pause for
    breath, “first, because you have opened up one of my pet topics,
    and, second, because it gives me a chance to talk.” He gave a
    sidelong glance at Steingall and winked at De Gollyer. “What is the
    peculiar fascination that the detective problem exercises over the
    human mind? You will say curiosity. Yes and no. Admit at once that
    the whole art of a detective story consists in the statement of the
    problem. Any one can do it. I can do it. Steingall even can do it.
    The solution doesn’t count. It is usually banal; it should be
    prohibited. What interests us is, can we guess it? Just as an
    able-minded man will sit down for hours and fiddle over the puzzle
    column in a Sunday balderdash. Same idea. There you have it, the
    problem—the detective story. Now why the fascination? I’ll tell you.
    It appeals to our curiosity, yes—but deeper to a sort of
    intellectual vanity. Here are six matches, arrange them to make four
    squares; five men present, a theft takes place—who’s the thief? Who
    will guess it first? Whose brain will show its superior
    cleverness—see? That’s all—that’s all there is to it.”

    “Out of all of which,” said De Gollyer, “the interesting thing is
    that Rankin has supplied the reason why the supply of detective
    fiction is inexhaustible. It does all come down to the simplest
    terms. Seven possibilities, one answer. It is a formula, ludicrously
    simple, mechanical, and yet we will always pursue it to the end. The
    marvel is that writers should seek for any other formula when here
    is one so safe, that can never fail. Be George, I could start up a
    factory on it.”

    “The reason is,” said Rankin, “that the situation does constantly
    occur. It’s a situation that any of us might get into any time. As a
    matter of fact, now, I personally know two such occasions when I was
    of the party; and very uncomfortable it was too.”

    “What happened?” said Steingall.

    “Why, there is no story to it particularly. Once a mistake had been
    made, and the other time the real thief was detected by accident a
    year later. In both cases only one or two of us knew what had
    happened.”

    De Gollyer had a similar incident to recall. Steingall, after
    reflection, related another that had happened to a friend.

    “Of course, of course, my dear gentlemen,” said Quinny impatiently,
    for he had been silent too long, “you are glorifying commonplaces.
    Every crime, I tell you, expresses itself in the terms of the
    picture puzzle that you feed to your six-year-old. It’s only the
    variation that is interesting. Now quite the most remarkable turn of
    the complexities that can be developed is, of course, the well-known
    instance of the visitor at a club and the rare coin. Of course every
    one knows that? What?”

    Rankin smiled in a bored, superior way, but the others protested
    their ignorance.

    “Why, it’s very well known,” said Quinny lightly. “A distinguished
    visitor is brought into a club—dozen men, say, present, at dinner,
    long table. Conversation finally veers around to curiosities and
    relics. One of the members present then takes from his pocket what
    he announces as one of the rarest coins in existence—passes it
    around the table. Coin travels back and forth, every one examining
    it, and the conversation goes to another topic, say the influence of
    the automobile on domestic infelicity, or some other such asininely
    intellectual club topic—you know? All at once the owner calls for
    his coin.

    “The coin is nowhere to be found. Every one looks at every one else.
    First, they suspect a joke. Then it becomes serious—the coin is
    immensely valuable. Who has taken it?

    “The owner is a gentleman—does the gentlemanly idiotic thing, of
    course, laughs, says he knows some one is playing a practical joke
    on him and that the coin will be returned to-morrow. The others
    refuse to leave the situation so. One man proposes that they all
    submit to a search. Every one gives his assent until it comes to the
    stranger. He refuses, curtly, roughly, without giving any reason.
    Uncomfortable silence—the man is a guest. No one knows him
    particularly well—but still he is a guest. One member tries to make
    him understand that no offense is offered, that the suggestion was
    simply to clear the atmosphere, and all that sort of bally rot, you
    know.

    “‘I refuse to allow my person to be searched,’ says the stranger,
    very firm, very proud, very English, you know, ‘and I refuse to give
    my reason for my action.’

    “Another silence. The men eye him and then glance at one another.
    What’s to be done? Nothing. There is etiquette—that magnificent
    inflated balloon. The visitor evidently has the coin—but he is their
    guest and etiquette protects him. Nice situation, eh?

    “The table is cleared. A waiter removes a dish of fruit and there
    under the ledge of the plate where it had been pushed—is the coin.
    Banal explanation, eh? Of course. Solutions always should be. At
    once every one in profouse apologies! Whereupon the visitor rises
    and says:

    “‘Now I can give you the reason for my refusal to be searched. There
    are only two known specimens of the coin in existence, and the
    second happens to be here in my waistcoat pocket.’”

    “Of course,” said Quinny with a shrug of his shoulders, “the story
    is well invented, but the turn to it is very nice—very nice indeed.”

    “I did know the story,” said Steingall, to be disagreeable; “the
    ending, though, is too obvious to be invented. The visitor should
    have had on him not another coin, but something absolutely
    different, something destructive, say, of a woman’s reputation, and
    a great tragedy should have been threatened by the casual misplacing
    of the coin.”

    “I have heard the same story told in a dozen different ways,” said
    Rankin.

    “It has happened a hundred times. It must be continually happening,”
    said Steingall.

    “I know one extraordinary instance,” said Peters, who up to the
    present, secure in his climax, had waited with a professional smile
    until the big guns had been silenced. “In fact, the most
    extraordinary instance of this sort I have ever heard.”

    “Peters, you little rascal,” said Quinny with a sidelong glance, “I
    perceive you have quietly been letting us dress the stage for you.”

    “It is not a story that will please every one,” said Peters, to whet
    their appetite.

    “Why not?”

    “Because you will want to know what no one can ever know.”

    “It has no conclusion then?”

    “Yes and no. As far as it concerns a woman, quite the most
    remarkable woman I have ever met, the story is complete. As for the
    rest, it is what it is, because it is one example where literature
    can do nothing better than record.”

    “Do I know the woman?” asked De Gollyer, who flattered himself on
    passing through every class of society.

    “Possibly, but no more than any one else.”

    “An actress?”

    “What she has been in the past I don’t know—a promoter would better
    describe her. Undoubtedly she has been behind the scenes in many an
    untold intrigue of the business world. A very feminine woman, and
    yet, as you shall see, with an unusual instantaneous masculine power
    of decision.”

    “Peters,” said Quinny, waving a warning finger, “you are destroying
    your story. Your preface will bring an anti-climax.”

    “You shall judge,” said Peters, who waited until his audience was in
    strained attention before opening his story. “The names are, of
    course, disguises.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

    Mrs. Rita Kildair inhabited a charming bachelor-girl studio, very
    elegant, of the duplex pattern, in one of the buildings just off
    Central Park West. She knew pretty nearly every one in that
    indescribable society in New York that is drawn from all levels, and
    that imposes but one condition for membership—to be amusing. She
    knew every one and no one knew her. No one knew beyond the vaguest
    rumors her history or her means. No one had ever heard of a Mr.
    Kildair. There was always about her a certain defensive reserve the
    moment the limits of acquaintanceship had been reached. She had a
    certain amount of money, she knew a certain number of men in Wall
    Street affairs, and her studio was furnished with taste and even
    distinction. She was of any age. She might have suffered everything
    or nothing at all. In this mingled society her invitations were
    eagerly sought, her dinners were spontaneous, and the discussions,
    though gay and usually daring, were invariably under the control of
    wit and good taste.

    On the Sunday night of this adventure she had, according to her
    invariable custom, sent away her Japanese butler and invited to an
    informal chafing-dish supper seven of her more congenial friends,
    all of whom, as much as could be said of any one, were habitués of
    the studio.

    At seven o’clock, having finished dressing, she put in order her
    bedroom, which formed a sort of free passage between the studio and
    a small dining room to the kitchen beyond. Then, going into the
    studio, she lit a wax taper and was in the act of touching off the
    brass candlesticks that lighted the room when three knocks sounded
    on the door and a Mr. Flanders, a broker, compact, nervously alive,
    well groomed, entered with the informality of assured acquaintance.

    “You are early,” said Mrs. Kildair, in surprise.

    “On the contrary, you are late,” said the broker, glancing at his
    watch.

    “Then be a good boy and help me with the candles,” she said, giving
    him a smile and a quick pressure of her fingers.

    He obeyed, asking nonchalantly:

    “I say, dear lady, who’s to be here to-night?”

    “The Enos Jacksons.”

    “I thought they were separated.”

    “Not yet.”

    “Very interesting! Only you, dear lady, would have thought of
    serving us a couple on the verge.”

    “It’s interesting, isn’t it?”

    “Assuredly. Where did you know Jackson?”

    “Through the Warings. Jackson’s a rather doubtful person, isn’t he?”

    “Let’s call him a very sharp lawyer,” said Flanders defensively.
    “They tell me, though, he is on the wrong side of the market—in
    deep.”

    “And you?”

    “Oh, I? I’m a bachelor,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “and
    if I come a cropper it makes no difference.”

    “Is that possible?” she said, looking at him quickly.

    “Probable even. And who else is coming?”

    “Maude Lille—you know her?”

    “I think not.”

    “You met her here—a journalist.”

    “Quite so, a strange career.”

    “Mr. Harris, a clubman, is coming, and the Stanley Cheevers.”

    “The Stanley Cheevers!” said Flanders with some surprise. “Are we
    going to gamble?”

    “You believe in that scandal about bridge?”

    “Certainly not,” said Flanders, smiling. “You see I was present. The
    Cheevers play a good game, a well united game, and have an unusual
    system of makes. By-the-way it’s Jackson who is very attentive to
    Mrs. Cheever, isn’t it?”

    “Quite right.”

    “What a charming party,” said Flanders flippantly. “And where does
    Maude Lille come in?”

    “Don’t joke. She is in a desperate way,” said Mrs. Kildair, with a
    little sadness in her eyes.

    “And Harris?”

    “Oh, he is to make the salad and cream the chicken.”

    “Ah, I see the whole party. I, of course, am to add the element of
    respectability.”

    “Of what?”

    She looked at him steadily until he turned away, dropping his
    glance.

    “Don’t be an ass with me, my dear Flanders.”

    “By George, if this were Europe I’d wager you were in the secret
    service, Mrs. Kildair.”

    “Thank you.”

    She smiled appreciatively and moved about the studio, giving the
    finishing touches. The Stanley Cheevers entered, a short fat man
    with a vacant fat face and a slow-moving eye, and his wife, voluble,
    nervous, overdressed and pretty. Mr. Harris came with Maude Lille, a
    woman, straight, dark, Indian, with great masses of somber hair held
    in a little too loosely for neatness, with thick, quick lips and
    eyes that rolled away from the person who was talking to her. The
    Enos Jacksons were late and still agitated as they entered. His
    forehead had not quite banished the scowl, nor her eyes the scorn.
    He was of the type that never lost his temper, but caused others to
    lose theirs, immovable in his opinions, with a prowling walk, a
    studied antagonism in his manner, and an impudent look that fastened
    itself unerringly on the weakness in the person to whom he spoke.
    Mrs. Jackson, who seemed fastened to her husband by an invisible
    leash, had a hunted, resisting quality back of a certain desperate
    dash, which she assumed rather than felt in her attitude toward
    life. One looked at her curiously and wondered what such a nature
    would do in a crisis, with a lurking sense of a woman who carried
    with her her own impending tragedy.

    As soon as the company had been completed and the incongruity of the
    selection had been perceived, a smile of malicious anticipation ran
    the rounds, which the hostess cut short by saying:

    “Well, now that every one is here, this is the order of the night:
    You can quarrel all you want, you can whisper all the gossip you can
    think of about one another, but every one is to be amusing! Also
    every one is to help with the dinner—nothing formal and nothing
    serious. We may all be bankrupt to-morrow, divorced or dead, but
    to-night we will be gay—that is the invariable rule of the house!”

    Immediately a nervous laughter broke out and the company,
    chattering, began to scatter through the rooms.

    Mrs. Kildair, stopping in her bedroom, donned a Watteaulike cooking
    apron, and slipping her rings from her fingers fixed the three on
    her pincushion with a hatpin.

    “Your rings are beautiful, dear, beautiful,” said the low voice of
    Maude Lille, who, with Harris and Mrs. Cheever, was in the room.

    “There’s only one that is very valuable,” said Mrs. Kildair,
    touching with her thin fingers the ring that lay uppermost, two
    large diamonds, flanking a magnificent sapphire.

    “It is beautiful—very beautiful,” said the journalist, her eyes
    fastened to it with an uncontrollable fascination. She put out her
    fingers and let them rest caressingly on the sapphire, withdrawing
    them quickly as though the contact had burned them.

    “It must be very valuable,” she said, her breath catching a little.
    Mrs. Cheever, moving forward, suddenly looked at the ring.

    “It cost five thousand six years ago,” said Mrs. Kildair, glancing
    down at it. “It has been my talisman ever since. For the moment,
    however, I am cook; Maude Lille, you are scullery maid; Harris is
    the chef, and we are under his orders. Mrs. Cheever, did you ever
    peel onions?”

    “Good Heavens, no!” said Mrs. Cheever, recoiling.

    “Well, there are no onions to peel,” said Mrs. Kildair, laughing.
    “All you’ll have to do is to help set the table. On to the kitchen!”

    Under their hostess’s gay guidance the seven guests began to
    circulate busily through the rooms, laying the table, grouping the
    chairs, opening bottles, and preparing the material for the chafing
    dishes. Mrs. Kildair, in the kitchen, ransacked the ice box, and
    with her own hands chopped the _fines herbes_, shredded the chicken
    and measured the cream.

    “Flanders, carry this in carefully,” she said, her hands in a towel.
    “Cheever, stop watching your wife and put the salad bowl on the
    table. Everything ready, Harris? All right. Every one sit down. I’ll
    be right in.”

    She went into her bedroom, and divesting herself of her apron hung
    it in the closet. Then going to her dressing table she drew the
    hatpin from the pincushion and carelessly slipped the rings on her
    fingers. All at once she frowned and looked quickly at her hand.
    Only two rings were there, the third ring, the one with the sapphire
    and the two diamonds, was missing.

    “Stupid,” she said to herself, and returned to her dressing table.
    All at once she stopped. She remembered quite clearly putting the
    pin through the three rings.

    She made no attempt to search further, but remained without moving,
    her fingers drumming slowly on the table, her head to one side, her
    lip drawn in a little between her teeth, listening with a frown to
    the babble from the outer room. Who had taken the ring? Each of her
    guests had had a dozen opportunities in the course of the time she
    had been busy in the kitchen.

    “Too much time before the mirror, dear lady,” called out Flanders
    gaily, who from where he was seated could see her.

    “It is not he,” she said quickly. Then she reconsidered. “Why not?
    He is clever—who knows? Let me think.”

    To gain time she walked back slowly into the kitchen, her head
    bowed, her thumb between her teeth.

    “Who has taken it?”

    She ran over the characters of her guests and their situations as
    she knew them. Strangely enough, at each her mind stopped upon some
    reason that might explain a sudden temptation.

    “I shall find out nothing this way,” she said to herself after a
    moment’s deliberation; “that is not the important thing to me just
    now. The important thing is to get the ring back.”

    And slowly, deliberately, she began to walk back and forth, her
    clenched hand beating the deliberate rhythmic measure of her
    journey.

    Five minutes later, as Harris, installed _en maître_ over the
    chafing dish, was giving directions, spoon in the air, Mrs. Kildair
    came into the room like a lengthening shadow. Her entrance had been
    made with scarcely a perceptible sound, and yet each guest was aware
    of it at the same moment, with a little nervous start.

    “Heavens, dear lady,” exclaimed Flanders, “you come in on us like a
    Greek tragedy! What is it you have for us, a surprise?”

    As he spoke she turned her swift glance on him, drawing her forehead
    together until the eyebrows ran in a straight line.

    “I have something to say to you,” she said in a sharp, businesslike
    manner, watching the company with penetrating eagerness.

    There was no mistaking the seriousness of her voice. Mr. Harris
    extinguished the oil lamp, covering the chafing dish clumsily with a
    discordant, disagreeable sound. Mrs. Cheever and Mrs. Enos Jackson
    swung about abruptly, Maude Lille rose a little from her seat, while
    the men imitated these movements of expectancy with a clumsy
    shuffling of the feet.

    “Mr. Enos Jackson?”

    “Yes, Mrs. Kildair.”

    “Kindly do as I ask you.”

    “Certainly.”

    She had spoken his name with a peremptory positiveness that was
    almost an accusation. He rose calmly, raising his eyebrows a little
    in surprise.

    “Go to the door,” she continued, shifting her glance from him to the
    others. “Are you there? Lock it. Bring me the key.”

    He executed the order without bungling, and returning stood before
    her, tendering the key.

    “You’ve locked it?” she said, making the words an excuse to bury her
    glance in his.

    “As you wished me to.”

    “Thanks.”

    She took from him the key and, shifting slightly, likewise locked
    the door into her bedroom through which she had come.

    Then transferring the keys to her left hand, seemingly unaware of
    Jackson, who still awaited her further commands, her eyes studied a
    moment the possibilities of the apartment.

    “Mr. Cheever?” she said in a low voice.

    “Yes, Mrs. Kildair.”

    “Blow out all the candles except the candelabrum on the table.”

    “Put out the lights, Mrs. Kildair?”

    “At once.”

    Mr. Cheever, in rising, met the glance of his wife, and the look of
    questioning and wonder that passed did not escape the hostess.

    “But, my dear Mrs. Kildair,” said Mrs. Jackson with a little nervous
    catch of her breath, “what is it? I’m getting terribly worked up! My
    nerves—”

    “Miss Lille?” said the voice of command.

    “Yes.”

    The journalist, calmer than the rest, had watched the proceedings
    without surprise, as though fore-warned by professional instinct
    that something of importance was about to take place. Now she rose
    quietly with an almost stealthy motion.

    “Put the candelabrum on this table—here,” said Mrs. Kildair,
    indicating a large round table on which a few books were grouped.
    “No, wait. Mr. Jackson, first clear off the table. I want nothing on
    it.”

    “But, Mrs. Kildair—” began Mrs. Jackson’s shrill voice again.

    “That’s it. Now put down the candelabrum.”

    In a moment, as Mr. Cheever proceeded methodically on his errand,
    the brilliant crossfire of lights dropped in the studio, only a few
    smoldering wicks winking on the walls, while the high room seemed to
    grow more distant as it came under the sole dominion of the three
    candles bracketed in silver at the head of the bare mahogany table.

    “Now listen!” said Mrs. Kildair, and her voice had in it a cold
    note. “My sapphire ring has just been stolen.”

    She said it suddenly, hurling the news among them and waiting
    ferret-like for some indications in the chorus that broke out.

    “Stolen!”

    “Oh, my dear Mrs. Kildair!”

    “Stolen—by Jove!”

    “You don’t mean it!”

    “What! Stolen here—to-night?”

    “The ring has been taken within the last twenty minutes,” continued
    Mrs. Kildair in the same determined, chiseled tone. “I am not going
    to mince words. The ring has been taken and the thief is among you.”

    For a moment nothing was heard but an indescribable gasp and a
    sudden turning and searching, then suddenly Cheever’s deep bass
    broke out:

    “Stolen! But, Mrs. Kildair, is it possible?”

    “Exactly. There is not the slightest doubt,” said Mrs. Kildair.
    “Three of you were in my bedroom when I placed my rings on the
    pincushion. Each of you has passed through there a dozen times
    since. My sapphire ring is gone, and one of you has taken it.”

    Mrs. Jackson gave a little scream, and reached heavily for a glass
    of water. Mrs. Cheever said something inarticulate in the outburst
    of masculine exclamation. Only Maude Lille’s calm voice could be
    heard saying:

    “Quite true. I was in the room when you took them off. The sapphire
    ring was on top.”

    “Now listen!” said Mrs. Kildair, her eyes on Maude Lille’s eyes. “I
    am not going to mince words. I am not going to stand on ceremony.
    I’m going to have that ring back. Listen to me carefully. I’m going
    to have that ring back, and until I do, not a soul shall leave this
    room.” She tapped on the table with her nervous knuckles. “Who has
    taken it I do not care to know. All I want is my ring. Now I’m going
    to make it possible for whoever took it to restore it without
    possibility of detection. The doors are locked and will stay locked.
    I am going to put out the lights, and I am going to count one
    hundred slowly. You will be in absolute darkness; no one will know
    or see what is done. But if at the end of that time the ring is not
    here on this table I shall telephone the police and have every one
    in this room searched. Am I quite clear?”

    Suddenly she cut short the nervous outbreak of suggestions and in
    the same firm voice continued:

    “Every one take his place about the table. That’s it. That will do.”

    The women, with the exception of the inscrutable Maude Lille, gazed
    hysterically from face to face; while the men, compressing their
    fingers, locking them or grasping their chins, looked straight ahead
    fixedly at their hostess.

    Mrs. Kildair, having calmly assured herself that all were ranged as
    she wished, blew out two of the three candles.

    “I shall count one hundred, no more, no less,” she said. “Either I
    get back that ring or every one in this room is to be searched,
    remember.”

    Leaning over, she blew out the remaining candle and snuffed it.

    “One, two, three, four, five—”

    She began to count with the inexorable regularity of a clock’s
    ticking.

    In the room every sound was distinct, the rustle of a dress, the
    grinding of a shoe, the deep, slightly asthmatic breathing of a man.

    “Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—”

    She continued to count, while in the methodic unvarying note of her
    voice there was a rasping reiteration that began to affect the
    company. A slight gasping breath, uncontrollable, almost on the
    verge of hysterics, was heard, and a man nervously clearing his
    throat.

    “Forty-five, forty-six, forty-seven—”

    Still nothing had happened. Mrs. Kildair did not vary her measure
    the slightest, only the sound became more metallic.

    “Sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine and seventy—”

    Some one had sighed.

    “Seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six,
    seventy-seven—”

    All at once, clear, unmistakable, on the resounding plane of the
    table was heard a slight metallic note.

    “The ring!”

    It was Maude Lille’s quick voice that had spoken. Mrs. Kildair
    continued to count.

    “Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one—”

    The tension became unbearable. Two or three voices protested against
    the needless prolonging of the torture.

    “Ninety-six, ninety-seven, ninety-eight, ninety-nine and one
    hundred.”

    A match sputtered in Mrs. Kildair’s hand and on the instant the
    company craned forward. In the center of the table was the sparkling
    sapphire and diamond ring. Candles were lit, flaring up like
    searchlights on the white accusing faces.

    “Mr. Cheever, you may give it to me,” said Mrs. Kildair. She held
    out her hand without trembling, a smile of triumph on her face,
    which had in it for a moment an expression of positive cruelty.

    Immediately she changed, contemplating with amusement the horror of
    her guests, staring blindly from one to another, seeing the
    indefinable glance of interrogation that passed from Cheever to Mrs.
    Cheever, from Mrs. Jackson to her husband, and then without emotion
    she said:

    “Now that that is over we can have a very gay little supper.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

    When Peters had pushed back his chair, satisfied as only a trained
    raconteur can be by the silence of a difficult audience, and had
    busied himself with a cigar, there was an instant outcry.

    “I say, Peters, old boy, that is not all!”

    “Absolutely.”

    “The story ends there?”

    “That ends the story.”

    “But who took the ring?”

    Peters extended his hands in an empty gesture.

    “What! It was never found out?”

    “Never.”

    “No clue?”

    “None.”

    “I don’t like the story,” said De Gollyer.

    “It’s no story at all,” said Steingall.

    “Permit me,” said Quinny in a didactic way; “it is a story, and it
    is complete. In fact, I consider it unique because it has none of
    the banalities of a solution and leaves the problem even more
    confused than at the start.”

    “I don’t see—” began Rankin.

    “Of course you don’t, my dear man,” said Quinny crushingly. “You do
    not see that any solution would be commonplace, whereas no solution
    leaves an extraordinary intellectual problem.”

    “How so?”

    “In the first place,” said Quinny, preparing to annex the topic,
    “whether the situation actually happened or not, which is in itself
    a mere triviality, Peters has constructed it in a masterly way, the
    proof of which is that he has made _me_ listen. Observe, each person
    present might have taken the ring—Flanders, a broker, just come a
    cropper; Maude Lille, a woman on the ragged side of life in
    desperate means; either Mr. and Mrs. Cheever, suspected of being
    card sharps—very good touch that, Peters, when the husband and wife
    glanced involuntarily at each other at the end—Mr. Enos Jackson, a
    sharp lawyer, or his wife about to be divorced; even Harris,
    concerning whom, very cleverly, Peters has said nothing at all to
    make him quite the most suspicious of all. There are, therefore,
    seven solutions, all possible and all logical. But beyond this is
    left a great intellectual problem.”

    “How so?”

    “Was it a feminine or a masculine action to restore the ring when
    threatened with a search, knowing that Mrs. Kildair’s clever
    expedient of throwing the room into darkness made detection
    impossible? Was it a woman who lacked the necessary courage to
    continue, or was it a man who repented his first impulse? Is a man
    or is a woman the greater natural criminal?”

    “A woman took it, of course,” said Rankin.

    “On the contrary, it was a man,” said Steingall, “for the second
    action was more difficult than the first.”

    “A man, certainly,” said De Gollyer. “The restoration of the ring
    was a logical decision.”

    “You see,” said Quinny triumphantly, “personally I incline to a
    woman for the reason that a weaker feminine nature is peculiarly
    susceptible to the domination of her own sex. There you are. We
    could meet and debate the subject year in and year out and never
    agree.”

    “I recognize most of the characters,” said De Gollyer with a little
    confidential smile toward Peters. “Mrs. Kildair, of course, is all
    you say of her—an extraordinary woman. The story is quite
    characteristic of her. Flanders, I am not sure of, but I think I
    know him.”

    “Did it really happen?” asked Rankin, who always took the
    commonplace point of view.

    “Exactly as I have told it,” said Peters.

    “The only one I don’t recognize is Harris,” said De Gollyer
    pensively.

    “Your humble servant,” said Peters, smiling.

    The four looked up suddenly with a little start.

    “What!” said Quinny, abruptly confused. “You—you were there?”

    “I was there.”

    The four continued to look at him without speaking, each absorbed in
    his own thoughts, with a sudden ill ease.

    A club attendant, with a telephone slip on a tray, stopped by
    Peters’ side. He excused himself and went along the porch, nodding
    from table to table.

    “Curious chap,” said De Gollyer musingly.

    “Extraordinary.”

    The word was like a murmur in the group of four, who continued
    watching Peters’ trim, disappearing figure in silence, without
    looking at one another—with a certain ill ease.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                       A RETRIEVED REFORMATION[9]
                              By O. HENRY


Footnote 9:

      From _Roads of Destiny_. Published by permission of the
      publishers. Copyright, 1909, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

    A GUARD came to the prison shoe-shop, where Jimmy Valentine was
    assiduously stitching uppers, and escorted him to the front office.
    There the warden handed Jimmy his pardon, which had been signed that
    morning by the governor. Jimmy took it in a tired kind of way. He
    had served nearly ten months of a four-year sentence. He had
    expected to stay only about three months, at the longest. When a man
    with as many friends on the outside as Jimmy Valentine had is
    received in the “stir” it is hardly worth while to cut his hair.

    “Now, Valentine,” said the warden, “you’ll go out in the morning.
    Brace up, and make a man of yourself. You’re not a bad fellow at
    heart. Stop cracking safes, and live straight.”

    “Me?” said Jimmy, in surprise. “Why, I never cracked a safe in my
    life.”

    “Oh, no,” laughed the warden. “Of course not. Let’s see, now. How
    was it you happened to get sent up on that Springfield job? Was it
    because you wouldn’t prove an alibi for fear of compromising
    somebody in extremely high-toned society? Or was it simply a case of
    a mean old jury that had it in for you? It’s always one or the other
    with you innocent victims.”

    “Me?” said Jimmy, still blankly virtuous. “Why, warden, I never was
    in Springfield in my life!”

    “Take him back, Cronin,” smiled the warden, “and fix him up with
    outgoing clothes. Unlock him at seven in the morning, and let him
    come to the bull-pen. Better think over my advice, Valentine.”

    At a quarter past seven on the next morning Jimmy stood in the
    warden’s outer office. He had on a suit of the villainously fitting,
    ready-made clothes and a pair of the stiff, squeaky shoes that the
    state furnishes to its discharged compulsory guests.

    The clerk handed him a railroad ticket and the five-dollar bill with
    which the law expected him to rehabilitate himself into good
    citizenship and prosperity. The warden gave him a cigar, and shook
    hands. Valentine, 9762, was chronicled on the books “Pardoned by
    Governor,” and Mr. James Valentine walked out into the sunshine.

    Disregarding the song of the birds, the waving green trees, and the
    smell of the flowers, Jimmy headed straight for a restaurant. There
    he tasted the first sweet joys of liberty in the shape of a broiled
    chicken and a bottle of white wine—followed by a cigar a grade
    better than the one the warden had given him. From there he
    proceeded leisurely to the depot. He tossed a quarter into the hat
    of a blind man sitting by the door, and boarded his train. Three
    hours set him down in a little town near the state line. He went to
    the café of one Mike Dolan and shook hands with Mike, who was alone
    behind the bar.

    “Sorry we couldn’t make it sooner, Jimmy, me boy,” said Mike. “But
    we had that protest from Springfield to buck against, and the
    governor nearly balked. Feeling all right?”

    “Fine,” said Jimmy. “Got my key?”

    He got his key and went up-stairs, unlocking the door of a room at
    the rear. Everything was just as he had left it. There on the floor
    was still Ben Price’s collar-button that had been torn from that
    eminent detective’s shirt-band when they had overpowered Jimmy to
    arrest him.

    Pulling out from the wall a folding-bed, Jimmy slid back a panel in
    the wall and dragged out a dust-covered suit-case. He opened this
    and gazed fondly at the finest set of burglar’s tools in the East.
    It was a complete set, made of specially tempered steel, the latest
    design in drills, punches, braces and bits, jimmies, clamps, and
    augers, with two or three novelties, invented by Jimmy himself, in
    which he took pride. Over nine hundred dollars they had cost him to
    have made at ——, a place where they make such things for the
    profession.

    In half an hour Jimmy went down stairs and through the café. He was
    now dressed in tasteful and well-fitting clothes, and carried his
    dusted and cleaned suit-case in his hand.

    “Got anything on?” asked Mike Dolan, genially.

    “Me?” said Jimmy, in a puzzled tone. “I don’t understand. I’m
    representing the New York Amalgamated Short Snap Biscuit Cracker and
    Frazzled Wheat Company.”

    This statement delighted Mike to such an extent that Jimmy had to
    take a seltzer-and-milk on the spot. He never touched “hard” drinks.

    A week after the release of Valentine, 9762, there was a neat job of
    safe-burglary done in Richmond, Indiana, with no clue to the author.
    A scant eight hundred dollars was all that was secured. Two weeks
    after that a patented, improved, burglar-proof safe in Logansport
    was opened like a cheese to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars,
    currency; securities and silver untouched. That began to interest
    the rogue-catchers. Then an old-fashioned bank-safe in Jefferson
    City became active and threw out of its crater an eruption of
    bank-notes amounting to five thousand dollars. The losses were now
    high enough to bring the matter up into Ben Price’s class of work.
    By comparing notes, a remarkable similarity in the methods of the
    burglaries was noticed. Ben Price investigated the scenes of the
    robberies, and was heard to remark:

    “That’s Dandy Jim Valentine’s autograph. He’s resumed business. Look
    at that combination knob—jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish
    in wet weather. He’s got the only clamps that can do it. And look
    how clean those tumblers were punched out! Jimmy never has to drill
    but one hole. Yes, I guess I want Mr. Valentine. He’ll do his bit
    next time without any short-time or clemency foolishness.”

    Ben Price knew Jimmy’s habits. He had learned them while working up
    the Springfield case. Long jumps, quick get-aways, no confederates,
    and a taste for good society—these ways had helped Mr. Valentine to
    become noted as a successful dodger of retribution. It was given out
    that Ben Price had taken up the trail of the elusive cracksman, and
    other people with burglar-proof safes felt more at ease.

    One afternoon Jimmy Valentine and his suit-case climbed out of the
    mail-hack in Elmore, a little town five miles off the railroad down
    in the black-jack country of Arkansas. Jimmy, looking like an
    athletic young senior just home from college, went down the board
    side-walk toward the hotel.

    A young lady crossed the street, passed him at the corner and
    entered a door over which was the sign “The Elmore Bank.” Jimmy
    Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became
    another man. She lowered her eyes and colored slightly. Young men of
    Jimmy’s style and looks were scarce in Elmore.

    Jimmy collared a boy that was loafing on the steps of the bank as if
    he were one of the stockholders, and began to question him about the
    town, feeding him dimes at intervals. By and by the young lady came
    out, looking royally unconscious of the young man with the
    suit-case, and went her way.

    “Isn’t that young lady Miss Polly Simpson?” asked Jimmy, with
    specious guile.

    “Naw,” said the boy. “She’s Annabel Adams. Her pa owns this bank.
    What’d you come to Elmore for? Is that a gold watch-chain? I’m going
    to get a bulldog. Got any more dimes?”

    Jimmy went to the Planters’ Hotel, registered as Ralph D. Spencer,
    and engaged a room. He leaned on the desk and declared his platform
    to the clerk. He said he had come to Elmore to look for a location
    to go into business. How was the shoe business, now, in the town? He
    had thought of the shoe business. Was there an opening?

    The clerk was impressed by the clothes and manner of Jimmy. He,
    himself, was something of a pattern of fashion to the thinly gilded
    youth of Elmore, but he now perceived his shortcomings. While trying
    to figure out Jimmy’s manner of tying his four-in-hand he cordially
    gave information.

    Yes, there ought to be a good opening in the shoe line. There wasn’t
    an exclusive shoe-store in the place. The dry-goods and general
    stores handled them. Business in all lines was fairly good. Hoped
    Mr. Spencer would decide to locate in Elmore. He would find it a
    pleasant town to live in, and the people very sociable.

    Mr. Spencer thought he would stop over in the town a few days and
    look over the situation. No, the clerk needn’t call the boy. He
    would carry up his suit-case, himself; it was rather heavy.

    Mr. Ralph Spencer, the phœnix that arose from Jimmy Valentine’s
    ashes—ashes left by the flame of a sudden and alterative attack of
    love—remained in Elmore, and prospered. He opened a shoe-store and
    secured a good run of trade.

    Socially he was also a success, and made many friends. And he
    accomplished the wish of his heart. He met Miss Annabel Adams, and
    became more and more captivated by her charms.

    At the end of a year the situation of Mr. Ralph Spencer was this: he
    had won the respect of the community, his shoe-store was
    flourishing, and he and Annabel were engaged to be married in two
    weeks. Mr. Adams, the typical, plodding, country banker, approved of
    Spencer. Annabel’s pride in him almost equalled her affection. He
    was as much at home in the family of Mr. Adams and that of Annabel’s
    married sister as if he were already a member.

    One day Jimmy sat down in his room and wrote this letter, which he
    mailed to the safe address of one of his old friends in St. Louis:

        DEAR OLD PAL:

        I want you to be at Sullivan’s place, in Little Rock, next
        Wednesday night, at nine o’clock. I want you to wind up some
        little matters for me. And, also, I want to make you a
        present of my kit of tools. I know you’ll be glad to get
        them—you couldn’t duplicate the lot for a thousand dollars.
        Say, Billy, I’ve quit the old business—a year ago. I’ve got
        a nice store. I’m making an honest living, and I’m going to
        marry the finest girl on earth two weeks from now. It’s the
        only life, Billy—the straight one. I wouldn’t touch a dollar
        of another man’s money now for a million. After I get
        married I’m going to sell out and go West, where there won’t
        be so much danger of having old scores brought up against
        me. I tell you, Billy, she’s an angel. She believes in me;
        and I wouldn’t do another crooked thing for the whole world.
        Be sure to be at Sully’s, for I must see you. I’ll bring the
        tools with me.

                       Your old friend,

                            JIMMY.

    On the Monday night after Jimmy wrote this letter, Ben Price jogged
    unobtrusively into Elmore in a livery buggy. He lounged about town
    in his quiet way until he found out what he wanted to know. From the
    drug-store across the street from Spencer’s shoe-store he got a good
    look at Ralph D. Spencer.

    “Going to marry the banker’s daughter are you, Jimmy?” said Ben to
    himself, softly. “Well, I don’t know!”

    The next morning Jimmy took breakfast at the Adamses. He was going
    to Little Rock that day to order his wedding-suit and buy something
    nice for Annabel. That would be the first time he had left town
    since he came to Elmore. It had been more than a year now since
    those last professional “jobs,” and he thought he could safely
    venture out.

    After breakfast quite a family party went downtown together—Mr.
    Adams, Annabel, Jimmy, and Annabel’s married sister with her two
    little girls, aged five and nine. They came by the hotel where Jimmy
    still boarded, and he ran up to his room and brought along his
    suit-case. Then they went on to the bank. There stood Jimmy’s horse
    and buggy and Dolph Gibson, who was going to drive him over to the
    railroad station.

    All went inside the high, carved oak railings into the
    banking-room—Jimmy included, for Mr. Adams’s future son-in-law was
    welcome anywhere. The clerks were pleased to be greeted by the
    good-looking, agreeable young man who was going to marry Miss
    Annabel. Jimmy set his suit-case down. Annabel, whose heart was
    bubbling with lively youth, put on Jimmy’s hat, and picked up the
    suit-case. “Wouldn’t I make a nice drummer?” said Annabel. “My!
    Ralph, how heavy it is? Feels like it was full of gold bricks.”

    “Lot of nickel-plated shoe-horns in there,” said Jimmy, coolly,
    “that I’m going to return. Thought I’d save express charges by
    taking them up. I’m getting awfully economical.”

    The Elmore Bank had just put in a new safe and vault. Mr. Adams was
    very proud of it, and insisted on an inspection by every one. The
    vault was a small one, but it had a new, patented door. It fastened
    with three solid steel bolts thrown simultaneously with a single
    handle, and had a time-lock. Mr. Adams beamingly explained its
    workings to Mr. Spencer, who showed a courteous but not too
    intelligent interest. The two children, May and Agatha, were
    delighted by the shining metal and funny clock and knobs.

    While they were thus engaged Ben Price sauntered in and leaned on
    his elbow, looking casually inside between the railings. He told the
    teller that he didn’t want anything; he was just waiting for a man
    he knew.

    Suddenly there was a scream or two from the women, and a commotion.
    Unperceived by the elders, May, the nine-year-old girl, in a spirit
    of play, had shut Agatha in the vault. She had then shot the bolts
    and turned the knob of the combination as she had seen Mr. Adams do.

    The old banker sprang to the handle and tugged at it for a moment.
    “The door can’t be opened,” he groaned. “The clock hasn’t been wound
    nor the combination set.”

    Agatha’s mother screamed again, hysterically.

    “Hush!” said Mr. Adams, raising his trembling hand. “All be quiet
    for a moment. Agatha!” he called as loudly as he could. “Listen to
    me.” During the following silence they could just hear the faint
    sound of the child wildly shrieking in the dark vault in a panic of
    terror.

    “My precious darling!” wailed the mother. “She will die of fright!
    Open the door! Oh, break it open! Can’t you men do something?”

    “There isn’t a man nearer than Little Rock who can open that door,”
    said Mr. Adams, in a shaky voice. “My God! Spencer, what shall we
    do? That child—she can’t stand it long in there. There isn’t enough
    air, and, besides, she’ll go into convulsions from fright.”

    Agatha’s mother, frantic now, beat the door of the vault with her
    hands. Somebody wildly suggested dynamite. Annabel turned to Jimmy,
    her large eyes full of anguish, but not yet despairing. To a woman
    nothing seems quite impossible to the powers of the man she
    worships.

    “Can’t you do something, Ralph—_try_, won’t you?”

    He looked at her with a queer, soft smile on his lips and in his
    keen eyes.

    “Annabel,” he said, “give me that rose you are wearing, will you?”

    Hardly believing that she heard him aright, she unpinned the bud
    from the bosom of her dress, and placed it in his hand. Jimmy
    stuffed it into his vest-pocket, threw off his coat and pulled up
    his shirt-sleeves. With that act Ralph D. Spencer passed away and
    Jimmy Valentine took his place.

    “Get away from the door, all of you,” he commanded, shortly.

    He set his suit-case on the table, and opened it out flat. From that
    time on he seemed to be unconscious of the presence of any one else.
    He laid out the shining, queer implements swiftly and orderly,
    whistling softly to himself as he always did when at work. In a deep
    silence and immovable, the others watched him as if under a spell.

    In a minute Jimmy’s pet drill was biting smoothly into the steel
    door. In ten minutes—breaking his own burglarious record—he threw
    back the bolts and opened the door.

    Agatha, almost collapsed, but safe, was gathered into her mother’s
    arms.

    Jimmy Valentine put on his coat, and walked outside the railings
    toward the front door. As he went he thought he heard a far-away
    voice that he once knew call “Ralph!” But he never hesitated.

    At the door a big man stood somewhat in his way.

    “Hello, Ben!” said Jimmy, still with his strange smile “Got around
    at last, have you? Well, let’s go. I don’t know that it makes much
    difference, now.”

    And then Ben Price acted rather strangely.

    “Guess you’re mistaken, Mr. Spencer,” he said. “Don’t believe I
    recognize you. You’re buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?”

    And Ben Price turned and strolled down the street.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                              BROTHER LEO
                           By PHYLLIS BOTTOME


    IT was a sunny morning, and I was on my way to Torcello. Venice lay
    behind us a dazzling line, with towers of gold against the blue
    lagoon. All at once a breeze sprang up from the sea; the small,
    feathery islands seemed to shake and quiver, and, like leaves driven
    before a gale, those flocks of colored butterflies, the
    fishing-boats, ran in before the storm. Far away to our left stood
    the ancient tower of Altinum, with the island of Burano a bright
    pink beneath the towering clouds. To our right, and much nearer, was
    a small cypress-covered islet. One large umbrella-pine hung close to
    the sea, and behind it rose the tower of the convent church. The two
    gondoliers consulted together in hoarse cries and decided to make
    for it.

    “It is San Francesco del Deserto,” the elder explained to me. “It
    belongs to the little brown brothers, who take no money and are very
    kind. One would hardly believe these ones had any religion, they are
    such a simple people, and they live on fish and the vegetables they
    grow in their garden.”

    We fought the crooked little waves in silence after that; only the
    high prow rebelled openly against its sudden twistings and turnings.
    The arrowy-shaped gondola is not a structure made for the rough
    jostling of waves, and the gondoliers put forth all their strength
    and skill to reach the tiny haven under the convent wall. As we did
    so, the black bars of cloud rushed down upon us in a perfect deluge
    of rain, and we ran speechless and half drowned across the tossed
    field of grass and forget-me-nots to the convent door. A shivering
    beggar sprang up from nowhere and insisted on ringing the bell for
    us.

    The door opened, and I saw before me a young brown brother with the
    merriest eyes I have ever seen. They were unshadowed, like a
    child’s, dancing and eager, and yet there was a strange gentleness
    and patience about him, too, as if there was no hurry even about his
    eagerness.

    He was very poorly dressed and looked thin. I think he was charmed
    to see us, though a little shy, like a hospitable country hostess
    anxious to give pleasure, but afraid that she has not much to offer
    citizens of a larger world.

    “What a tempest!” he exclaimed. “You have come at a good hour.
    Enter, enter, Signore! And your men, will they not come in?”

    We found ourselves in a very small rose-red cloister; in the middle
    of it was an old well under the open sky, but above us was a
    sheltering roof spanned by slender arches. The young monk hesitated
    for a moment, smiling from me to the two gondoliers. I think it
    occurred to him that we should like different entertainment, for he
    said at last:

    “You men would perhaps like to sit in the porter’s lodge for a
    while? Our Brother Lorenzo is there; he is our chief fisherman, with
    a great knowledge of the lagoons; and he could light a fire for you
    to dry yourselves by—Signori. And you, if I mistake not, are
    English, are you not, Signore? It is probable that you would like to
    see our chapel. It is not much. We are very proud of it, but that,
    you know, is because it was founded by our blessed father, Saint
    Francis. He believed in poverty, and we also believe in it, but it
    does not give much for people to see. That is a misfortune, to come
    all this way and to see nothing.” Brother Leo looked at me a little
    wistfully. I think he feared that I should be disappointed. Then he
    passed before me with swift, eager feet toward the little chapel.

    It was a very little chapel and quite bare; behind the altar some
    monks were chanting an office. It was clean, and there were no
    pictures or images, only, as I knelt there, I felt as if the little
    island in its desert of waters had indeed secreted some vast
    treasure, and as if the chapel, empty as it had seemed at first, was
    full of invisible possessions. As for Brother Leo, he had stood
    beside me nervously for a moment; but on seeing that I was prepared
    to kneel, he started, like a bird set free, toward the altar steps,
    where his lithe young impetuosity sank into sudden peace. He knelt
    there so still, so rapt, so incased in his listening silence, that
    he might have been part of the stone pavement. Yet his earthly
    senses were alive, for the moment I rose he was at my side again, as
    patient and courteous as ever, though I felt as if his inner ear
    were listening still to some unheard melody.

    We stood again in the pink cloister. “There is little to see,” he
    repeated. “We are _poverelli_; it has been like this for seven
    hundred years.” He smiled as if that age-long, simple service of
    poverty were a light matter, an excuse, perhaps, in the eyes of the
    citizen of a larger world for their having nothing to show. Only the
    citizen, as he looked at Brother Leo, had a sudden doubt as to the
    size of the world outside. Was it as large, half as large, even, as
    the eager young heart beside him which had chosen poverty as a
    bride?

    The rain fell monotonously against the stones of the tiny cloister.

    “What a tempest!” said Brother Leo, smiling contentedly at the sky.
    “You must come in and see our father. I sent word by the porter of
    your arrival, and I am sure he will receive you; that will be a
    pleasure for him, for he is of the great world, too. A very learnèd
    man, our father; he knows the French and the English tongue. Once he
    went to Rome; also he has been several times to Venice. He has been
    a great traveler.”

    “And you,” I asked—“have you also traveled?”

    Brother Leo shook his head.

    “I have sometimes looked at Venice,” he said, “across the water, and
    once I went to Burano with the marketing brother; otherwise, no, I
    have not traveled. But being a guest-brother, you see, I meet often
    with those who have, like your Excellency, for instance, and that is
    a great education.”

    We reached the door of the monastery, and I felt sorry when another
    brother opened to us, and Brother Leo, with the most cordial of
    farewell smiles, turned back across the cloister to the chapel door.

    “Even if he does not hurry, he will still find prayer there,” said a
    quiet voice beside me.

    I turned to look at the speaker. He was a tall old man with white
    hair and eyes like small blue flowers, very bright and innocent,
    with the same look of almost superb contentment in them that I had
    seen in Brother Leo’s eyes.

    “But what will you have?” he added with a twinkle. “The young are
    always afraid of losing time; it is, perhaps, because they have so
    much. But enter, Signore! If you will be so kind as to excuse the
    refectory, it will give me much pleasure to bring you a little
    refreshment. You will pardon that we have not much to offer?”

    The father—for I found out afterward that he was the superior
    himself—brought me bread and wine, made in the convent, and waited
    on me with his own hands. Then he sat down on a narrow bench
    opposite to watch me smoke. I offered him one of my cigarettes, but
    he shook his head, smiling.

    “I used to smoke once,” he said. “I was very particular about my
    tobacco. I think it was similar to yours—at least the aroma, which I
    enjoy very much, reminds me of it. It is curious, is it not, the
    pleasure we derive from remembering what we once had? But perhaps it
    is not altogether a pleasure unless one is glad that one has not got
    it now. Here one is free from things. I sometimes fear one may be a
    little indulgent about one’s liberty. Space, solitude, and love—it
    is all very intoxicating.”

    There was nothing in the refectory except the two narrow benches on
    which we sat, and a long trestled board which formed the table; the
    walls were white-washed and bare, the floor was stone. I found out
    later that the brothers ate and drank nothing except bread and wine
    and their own vegetables in season, a little macaroni sometimes in
    winter, and in summer figs out of their own garden. They slept on
    bare boards, with one thin blanket winter and summer alike. The fish
    they caught they sold at Burano or gave to the poor. There was no
    doubt that they enjoyed very great freedom from “things.”

    It was a strange experience to meet a man who never had heard of a
    flying-machine and who could not understand why it was important to
    save time by using the telephone or the wireless-telegraphy system;
    but despite the fact that the father seemed very little impressed by
    our modern urgencies, I never have met a more intelligent listener
    or one who seized more quickly on all that was essential in an
    explanation.

    “You must not think we do nothing at all, we lazy ones who follow
    old paths,” he said in answer to one of my questions. “There are
    only eight of us brothers, and there is the garden, fishing,
    cleaning, and praying. We are sent for, too, from Burano to go and
    talk a little with the people there, or from some island on the
    lagoons which perhaps no priest can reach in the winter. It is easy
    for us, with our little boat and no cares.”

    “But Brother Leo told me he had been to Burano only once,” I said.
    “That seems strange when you are so near.”

    “Yes he went only once, said the father, and for a moment or two he
    was silent, and I found his blue eyes on mine, as if he were
    weighing me.

    “Brother Leo,” said the superior at last, “is our youngest. He is
    very young, younger perhaps than his years; but we have brought him
    up altogether, you see. His parents died of cholera within a few
    days of each other. As there were no relatives, we took him, and
    when he was seventeen he decided to join our order. He has always
    been happy with us, but one cannot say that he has seen much of the
    world.” He paused again, and once more I felt his blue eyes
    searching mine. “Who knows?” he said finally. “Perhaps you were sent
    here to help me. I have prayed for two years on the subject, and
    that seems very likely. The storm is increasing, and you will not be
    able to return until to-morrow. This evening, if you will allow me,
    we will speak more on this matter. Meanwhile I will show you our
    spare room. Brother Lorenzo will see that you are made as
    comfortable as we can manage. It is a great privilege for us to have
    this opportunity; believe me, we are not ungrateful.”

    It would have been of no use to try to explain to him that it was
    for us to feel gratitude. It was apparent that none of the brothers
    had ever learned that important lesson of the worldly
    respectable—that duty is what other people ought to do. They were so
    busy thinking of their own obligations as to overlook entirely the
    obligations of others. It was not that they did not think of others.
    I think they thought only of one another, but they thought without a
    shadow of judgment, with that bright, spontaneous love of little
    children, too interested to point a moral. Indeed, they seemed to me
    very like a family of happy children listening to a fairy-story and
    knowing that the tale is true.

    After supper the superior took me to his office. The rain had
    ceased, but the wind howled and shrieked across the lagoons, and I
    could hear the waves breaking heavily against the island. There was
    a candle on the desk, and the tiny, shadowy cell looked like a
    picture by Rembrandt.

    “The rain has ceased now,” the father said quietly, “and to-morrow
    the waves will have gone down, and you, Signore, will have left us.
    It is in your power to do us all a great favor. I have thought much
    whether I shall ask it of you, and even now I hesitate; but
    Scripture nowhere tells us that the kingdom of heaven was taken by
    precaution, nor do I imagine that in this world things come oftenest
    to those who refrain from asking.

    “All of us,” he continued, “have come here after seeing something of
    the outside world; some of us even had great possessions. Leo alone
    knows nothing of it, and has possessed nothing, nor did he ever wish
    to; he has been willing that nothing should be his own, not a flower
    in the garden, not anything but his prayers, and even these I think
    he has oftenest shared. But the visit to Burano put an idea in his
    head. It is, perhaps you know, a factory town where they make lace,
    and the people live there with good wages, many of them, but also
    much poverty. There is a poverty which is a grace, but there is also
    a poverty which is a great misery, and this Leo never had seen
    before. He did not know that poverty could be a pain. It filled him
    with a great horror, and in his heart there was a certain rebellion.
    It seemed to him that in a world with so much money no one should
    suffer for the lack of it.

    “It was useless for me to point out to him that in a world where
    there is so much health God has permitted sickness; where there is
    so much beauty, ugliness; where there is so much holiness, sin. It
    is not that there is any lack in the gifts of God; all are there,
    and in abundance, but He has left their distribution to the soul of
    man. It is easy for me to believe this. I have known what money can
    buy and what it cannot buy; but Brother Leo, who never has owned a
    penny, how should he know anything of the ways of pennies?

    “I saw that he could not be contented with my answer; and then this
    other idea came to him—the idea that is, I think, the blessèd hope
    of youth: that this thing being wrong, he, Leo, must protest against
    it, must resist it! Surely, if money can do wonders, we who set
    ourselves to work the will of God should have more control of this
    wonder-working power? He fretted against his rule. He did not permit
    himself to believe that our blessèd father, Saint Francis, was
    wrong, but it was a hardship for him to refuse alms from our kindly
    visitors. He thought the beggars’ rags would be made whole by gold;
    he wanted to give them more than bread, he wanted, _poverino!_ to
    buy happiness for the whole world.”

    The father paused, and his dark, thought-lined face lighted up with
    a sudden, beautiful smile till every feature seemed as young as his
    eyes.

    “I do not think the human being ever has lived who has not thought
    that he ought to have happiness,” he said. “We begin at once to get
    ready for heaven; but heaven is a long way off. We make haste
    slowly. It takes us all our lives, and perhaps purgatory, to get to
    the bottom of our own hearts. That is the last place in which we
    look for heaven, but I think it is the first in which we shall find
    it.”

    “But it seems to me extraordinary that, if Brother Leo has this
    thing so much on his mind, he should look so happy,” I exclaimed.
    “That is the first thing I noticed about him.”

    “Yes, it is not for himself that he is searching,” said the
    superior. “If it were, I should not wish him to go out into the
    world, because I should not expect him to find anything there. His
    heart is utterly at rest; but though he is personally happy, this
    thing troubles him. His prayers are eating into his soul like flame,
    and in time this fire of pity and sorrow will become a serious
    menace to his peace. Besides, I see in Leo a great power of sympathy
    and understanding. He has in him the gift of ruling other souls. He
    is very young to rule his own soul, and yet he rules it. When I die,
    it is probable that he will be called to take my place, and for that
    it is necessary he should have seen clearly that our rule is right.
    At present he accepts it in obedience, but he must have more than
    obedience in order to teach it to others; he must have a personal
    light.

    “This, then, is the favor I have to ask of you, Signore. I should
    like to have you take Brother Leo to Venice to-morrow, and, if you
    have the time at your disposal, I should like you to show him the
    towers, the churches, the palaces, and the poor who are still so
    poor. I wish him to see how people spend money, both the good and
    the bad. I wish him to see the world. Perhaps then it will come to
    him as it came to me—that money is neither a curse nor a blessing in
    itself, but only one of God’s mysteries, like the dust in a
    sunbeam.”

    “I will take him very gladly; but will one day be enough?” I
    answered.

    The superior arose and smiled again.

    “Ah, we slow worms of earth,” he said, “are quick about some things!
    You have learned to save time by flying-machines; we, too, have
    certain methods of flight. Brother Leo learns all his lessons that
    way. I hardly see him start before he arrives. You must not think I
    am so myself. No, no. I am an old man who has lived a long life
    learning nothing, but I have seen Leo grow like a flower in a tropic
    night. I thank you, my friend, for this great favor. I think God
    will reward you.”

    Brother Lorenzo took me to my bedroom; he was a talkative old man,
    very anxious for my comfort. He told me that there was an office in
    the chapel at two o’clock, and one at five to begin the day, but he
    hoped that I should sleep through them.

    “They are all very well for us,” he explained, “but for a stranger,
    what cold, what disturbance, and what a difficulty to arrange the
    right thoughts in the head during chapel! Even for me it is a great
    temptation. I find my mind running on coffee in the morning, a thing
    we have only on great feast-days. I may say that I have fought this
    thought for seven years, but though a small devil, perhaps, it is a
    very strong one. Now, if you should hear our bell in the night, as a
    favor pray that I may not think about coffee. Such an imperfection!
    I say to myself, the sin of Esau! But he, you know, had some excuse;
    he had been hunting. Now, I ask you—one has not much chance of that
    on this little island; one has only one’s sins to hunt, and, alas!
    they don’t run away as fast as one could wish! I am afraid they are
    tame, these ones. May your Excellency sleep like the blessèd saints,
    only a trifle longer!”

    I did sleep a trifle longer; indeed, I was quite unable to assist
    Brother Lorenzo to resist his coffee devil during chapel-time. I did
    not wake till my tiny cell was flooded with sunshine and full of the
    sound of St. Francis’s birds. Through my window I could see the
    fishing-boats pass by. First came one with a pair of lemon-yellow
    sails, like floating primroses; then a boat as scarlet as a dancing
    flame, and half a dozen others painted some with jokes and some with
    incidents in the lives of patron saints, all gliding out over the
    blue lagoon to meet the golden day.

    I rose, and from my window I saw Brother Leo in the garden. He was
    standing under St. Francis’s tree—the old gnarled umbrella-pine
    which hung over the convent-wall above the water by the island’s
    edge. His back was toward me, and he was looking out over the blue
    stretch of lagoon into the distance, where Venice lay like a moving
    cloud at the horizon’s edge; but a mist hid her from his eyes, and
    while I watched him he turned back to the garden-bed and began
    pulling out weeds. The gondoliers were already at the tiny pier when
    I came out.

    “_Per Bacco, Signore!_” the elder explained. “Let us hasten back to
    Venice and make up for the Lent we have had here. The brothers gave
    us all they had, the holy ones—a little wine, a little bread, cheese
    that couldn’t fatten one’s grandmother, and no macaroni—not so much
    as would go round a baby’s tongue! For my part, I shall wait till I
    get to heaven to fast, and pay some attention to my stomach while I
    have one.” And he spat on his hands and looked toward Venice.

    “And not an image in the chapel!” agreed the younger man. “Why,
    there is nothing to pray to but the Signore Dio Himself!
    _Veramente_, Signore, you are a witness that I speak nothing but the
    truth.”

    The father superior and Leo appeared at this moment down the path
    between the cypresses. The father gave me thanks and spoke in a
    friendly way to the gondoliers, who for their part expressed a very
    pretty gratitude in their broad Venetian patois, one of them saying
    that the hospitality of the monks had been like paradise itself, and
    the other hasting to agree with him.

    The two monks did not speak to each other, but as the gondolier
    turned the huge prow toward Venice, a long look passed between
    them—such a look as a father and son might exchange if the son were
    going out to war, while his father, remembering old campaigns, was
    yet bound to stay at home.

    It was a glorious day in early June; the last traces of the storm
    had vanished from the serene, still waters; a vague curtain of heat
    and mist hung and shimmered between ourselves and Venice; far away
    lay the little islands in the lagoon, growing out of the water like
    strange sea-flowers. Behind us stood San Francesco del Deserto, with
    long reflections of its one pink tower and arrowy, straight
    cypresses, soft under the blue water.

    The father superior walked slowly back to the convent, his
    brown-clad figure a shining shadow between the two black rows of
    cypresses. Brother Leo waited till he had disappeared, then turned
    his eager eyes toward Venice.

[Illustration:

  He was looking out over the blue stretch of lagoon into the distance
    where Venice lay
]

    As we approached the city the milky sea of mist retreated, and her
    towers sprang up to greet us. I saw a look in Brother Leo’s eyes
    that was not fear or wholly pleasure; yet there was in it a certain
    awe and a strange, tentative joy, as if something in him stretched
    out to greet the world. He muttered half to himself:

    “What a great world, and how many children _il Signore Dio_ has!”

    When we reached the piazzetta, and he looked up at the amazing
    splendor of the ducal palace, that building of soft yellow, with its
    pointed arches and double loggias of white marble, he spread out
    both hands in an ecstasy.

    “But what a miracle!” he cried. “What a joy to God and to His
    angels! How I wish my brothers could see this! Do you not imagine
    that some good man was taken to paradise to see this great building
    and brought back here to copy it?”

    “_Chi lo sa?_” I replied guardedly, and we landed by the column of
    the Lion of St. Mark’s. That noble beast, astride on his pedestal,
    with wings outstretched, delighted the young monk, who walked round
    and round him.

    “What a tribute to the saint!” he exclaimed. “Look, they have his
    wings, too. Is not that faith?”

    “Come,” I said, “let us go on to Saint Mark’s. I think you would
    like to go there first; it is the right way to begin our
    pilgrimage.”

    The piazza was not very full at that hour of the morning, and its
    emptiness increased the feeling of space and size. The pigeons
    wheeled and circled to and fro, a dazzle of soft plumage, and the
    cluster of golden domes and sparkling minarets glittered in the
    sunshine like flames. Every image and statue on St. Mark’s wavered
    in great lines of light like a living pageant in a sea of gold.

    Brother Leo said nothing as he stood in front of the three great
    doorways that lead into the church. He stood quite still for a
    while, and then his eyes fell on a beggar beside the pink and cream
    of the new campanile, and I saw the wistfulness in his eyes suddenly
    grow as deep as pain.

    “Have you money, Signore?” he asked me. That seemed to him the only
    question. I gave the man something, but I explained to Brother Leo
    that he was probably not so poor as he looked.

    “They live in rags,” I explained, “because they wish to arouse pity.
    Many of them need not beg at all.”

    “Is it possible?” asked Brother Leo, gravely; then he followed me
    under the brilliant doorways of mosaic which lead into the richer
    dimness of St. Mark’s.

    When he found himself within that great incrusted jewel, he fell on
    his knees. I think he hardly saw the golden roof, the jeweled walls,
    and the five lifted domes full of sunshine and old gold, or the dark
    altars, with their mysterious, rich shimmering. All these seemed to
    pass away beyond the sense of sight; even I felt somehow as if those
    great walls of St. Mark’s were not so great as I had fancied.
    Something greater was kneeling there in an old habit and with bare
    feet, half broken-hearted because a beggar had lied.

    I found myself regretting the responsibility laid on my shoulders.
    Why should I have been compelled to take this strangely innocent,
    sheltered boy, with his fantastic third-century ideals, out into the
    shoddy, decorative, unhappy world? I even felt a kind of anger at
    the simplicity of his soul. I wished he were more like other people;
    I suppose because he had made me wish for a moment that I was less
    like them.

    “What do you think of Saint Mark’s?” I asked him as we stood once
    more in the hot sunshine outside, with the strutting pigeons at our
    feet and wheeling over our heads.

    Brother Leo did not answer for a moment, then he said:

    “I think Saint Mark would feel it a little strange. You see, I do
    not think he was a great man in the world, and the great in
    paradise—” He stooped and lifted a pigeon with a broken foot nearer
    to some corn a passer-by was throwing for the birds. “I cannot
    think,” he finished gravely, “that they care very much for palaces
    in paradise; I should think every one had them there or
    else—nobody.”

    I was surprised to see the pigeons that wheeled away at my approach
    allow the monk to handle them, but they seemed unaware of his touch.

    “_Poverino!_” he said to the one with the broken foot. “Thank God
    that He has given you wings!”

    Brother Leo spoke to every child he met, and they all answered him
    as if there was a secret freemasonry between them; but the grown-up
    people he passed with troubled eyes.

    “It seems strange to me,” he said at last, “not to speak to these
    brothers and sisters of ours, and yet I see all about me that they
    do not salute one another.”

    “They are many, and they are all strangers,” I tried to explain.

    “Yes, they are very many,” he said a little sadly. “I had not known
    that there were so many people in the world, and I thought that in a
    Christian country they would not be strangers.”

    I took another gondola by the nearest bridge, and we rowed to the
    Frari. I hardly knew what effect that great church, with its famous
    Titian, would have upon him. A group of tourists surrounded the
    picture. I heard a young lady exclaiming:

    “My! but I’d like her veil! Ain’t she cute, looking round it that
    way?”

    Brother Leo did not pause; he passed as if by instinct toward the
    chapel on the right which holds the softest, tenderest of Bellinis.
    There, before the Madonna with her four saints and two small
    attendant cherubs, he knelt again, and his eyes filled with tears. I
    do not think he heard the return of the tourists, who were rather
    startled at seeing him there. The elder lady remarked that he might
    have some infectious disease, and the younger that she did not think
    much of Bellini, anyway.

    He knelt for some time, and I had not the heart to disturb him;
    indeed, I had no wish to, either, for Bellini’s “Madonna” is my
    favorite picture, and that morning I saw in it more than I had ever
    seen before. It seemed to me as if that triumphant, mellow glow of
    the great master was an eternal thing, and as if the saints and
    their gracious Lady, with the stalwart, standing Child upon her
    knee, were more real than flesh and blood, and would still be more
    real when flesh and blood had ceased to be. I never have recaptured
    the feeling; perhaps there was something infectious about Brother
    Leo, after all. He made no comment on the Madonna, nor did I expect
    one, for we do not need to assert that we find the object of our
    worship beautiful; but I was amused at his calm refusal to look upon
    the great Titian as a Madonna at all.

    “No, no,” he said firmly. “This one is no doubt some good and
    gracious lady, but the Madonna! Signore, you jest. Or, if the
    painter thought so, he was deceived by the devil. Yes, that is very
    possible. The father has often told us that artists are exposed to
    great temptations: their eyes see paradise before their souls have
    reached it, and that is a great danger.”

    I said no more, and we passed out into the street again. I felt
    ashamed to say that I wanted my luncheon, but I did say so, and it
    did not seem in the least surprising to Brother Leo; he merely drew
    out a small wallet and offered me some bread, which he said the
    father had given him for our needs.

    I told him that he must not dream of eating that; he was to come and
    dine with me at my hotel. He replied that he would go wherever I
    liked, but that really he would prefer to eat his bread unless
    indeed we were so fortunate as to find a beggar who would like it.
    However, we were not so fortunate, and I was compelled to eat my
    exceedingly substantial five-course luncheon while my companion sat
    opposite me and ate his half-loaf of black bread with what appeared
    to be appetite and satisfaction.

    He asked me a great many questions about what everything in the room
    was used for and what everything cost, and appeared very much
    surprised at my answers.

    “This, then,” he said, “is not like all the other houses in Venice?
    Is it a special house—perhaps for the English only?”

    I explained to him that most houses contained tables and chairs;
    that this, being a hotel, was in some ways even less furnished than
    a private house, though doubtless it was larger and was arranged
    with a special eye to foreign requirements.

    “But the poor—they do not live like this?” Leo asked. I had to own
    that the poor did not. “But the people here are rich?” Leo
    persisted.

    “Well, yes, I suppose so, tolerably well off,” I admitted.

    “How miserable they must be!” exclaimed Leo, compassionately. “Are
    they not allowed to give away their money?”

    This seemed hardly the way to approach the question of the rich and
    the poor, and I do not know that I made it any better by an
    after-dinner exposition upon capital and labor. I finished, of
    course, by saying that if the rich gave to the poor to-day, there
    would still be rich and poor to-morrow. It did not sound very
    convincing to me, and it did nothing whatever to convince Brother
    Leo.

    “That is perhaps true,” he said at last. “One would not wish,
    however, to give all into unready hands like that poor beggar this
    morning who knew no better than to pretend in order to get more
    money. No, that would be the gift of a madman. But could not the
    rich use their money in trust for the poor, and help and teach them
    little by little till they learned how to share their labor and
    their wealth? But you know how ignorant am I who speak to you. It is
    probable that this is what is already being done even here now in
    Venice and all over the world. It would not be left to a little one
    like me to think of it. What an idea for the brothers at home to
    laugh at!”

    “Some people do think these things,” I admitted.

    “But do not all?” asked Brother Leo, incredulously.

    “No, not all,” I confessed.

    “_Andiamo!_” said Leo, rising resolutely. “Let us pray to the
    Madonna. What a vexation it must be to her and to all the blessèd
    saints to watch the earth! It needs the patience of the Blessèd One
    Himself, to bear it.”

    In the Palazzo Giovanelli there is one of the loveliest of
    Giorgiones. It is called “His Family,” and it represents a beautiful
    nude woman with her child and her lover. It seemed to me an outrage
    that this young brother should know nothing of the world, of life. I
    was determined that he should see this picture. I think I expected
    Brother Leo to be shocked when he saw it. I know I was surprised
    that he looked at it—at the serene content of earth, its exquisite
    ultimate satisfaction—a long time. Then he said in an awed voice:

    “It is so beautiful that it is strange any one in all the world can
    doubt the love of God who gave it.”

    “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful; do you believe there is
    anything more beautiful?” I asked rather cruelly.

    “Yes,” said Brother Leo, very quietly; “the love of God is more
    beautiful, only that cannot be painted.”

    After that I showed him no more pictures, nor did I try to make him
    understand life. I had an idea that he understood it already rather
    better than I did.

    When I took him back to the piazza, it was getting on toward sunset,
    and we sat at one of the little tables at Florian’s, where I drank
    coffee. We heard the band and watched the slow-moving, good-natured
    Venetian crowd, and the pigeons winging their perpetual flight.

    All the light of the gathered day seemed to fall on the great golden
    church at the end of the piazza. Brother Leo did not look at it very
    much; his attention was taken up completely in watching the faces of
    the crowd, and as he watched them I thought to read in his face what
    he had learned in that one day in Venice—whether my mission had been
    a success or a failure; but, though I looked long at that simple and
    childlike face, I learned nothing.

    What is so mysterious as the eyes of a child?

    But I was not destined to part from Brother Leo wholly in ignorance.
    It was as if, in his open kindliness of nature, he would not leave
    me with any unspoken puzzle between us. I had been his friend and he
    told me, because it was the way things seemed to him, that I had
    been his teacher.

    We stood on the piazzetta. I had hired a gondola with two men to row
    him back; the water was like beaten gold, and the horizon the
    softest shade of pink.

    “This day I shall remember all my life,” he said, “and you in my
    prayers with all the world—always, always. Only I should like to
    tell you that that little idea of mine, which the father told me he
    had spoken to you about, I see now that it is too large for me. I am
    only a very poor monk. I should think I must be the poorest monk God
    has in all His family of monks. If He can be patient, surely I can.
    And it came over me while we were looking at all those wonderful
    things, that if money had been the way to save the world, Christ
    himself would have been rich. It was stupid of me. I did not
    remember that when he wanted to feed the multitude, he did not empty
    the great granaries that were all his, too; he took only five loaves
    and two small fishes; but they were enough.

    “We little ones can pray, and God can change His world. _Speriamo!_”
    He smiled as he gave me his hand—a smile which seemed to me as
    beautiful as anything we had seen that day in Venice. Then the
    high-prowed, black gondola glided swiftly out over the golden waters
    with the little brown figure seated in the smallest seat. He turned
    often to wave to me, but I noticed that he sat with his face away
    from Venice.

    He had turned back to San Francesco del Deserto, and I knew as I
    looked at his face that he carried no single small regret in his
    eager heart.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                         A FIGHT WITH DEATH[10]
                            By IAN MACLAREN


Footnote 10:

      From _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_. Copyright, 1894, by Dodd,
      Mead & Company.

    WHEN Drumsheugh’s grieve was brought to the gates of death by fever,
    caught, as was supposed, on an adventurous visit to Glasgow, the
    London doctor at Lord Kilspindie’s shooting lodge looked in on his
    way from the moor, and declared it impossible for Saunders to live
    through the night.

    “I give him six hours, more or less; it is only a question of time,”
    said the oracle, buttoning his gloves and getting into the brake.
    “Tell your parish doctor that I was sorry not to have met him.”

    Bell heard this verdict from behind the door, and gave way utterly,
    but Drumsheugh declined to accept it as final, and devoted himself
    to consolation.

    “Dinna greet like that, Bell, wumman, sae lang as Saunders is still
    livin’; a’ll never give up houp, for ma pairt, till oor ain man says
    the word.

    “A’ the doctors in the land dinna ken as muckle aboot us as Weelum
    MacLure, an’ he’s ill tae beat when he’s tryin’ tae save a man’s
    life.”

    MacLure, on his coming, would say nothing, either weal or woe, till
    he had examined Saunders. Suddenly his face turned into iron before
    their eyes, and he looked like one encountering a merciless foe. For
    there was a feud between MacLure and a certain mighty power which
    had lasted for forty years in Drumtochty.

    “The London doctor said that Saunders wud sough awa’ afore mornin’,
    did he? Weel, he’s an’ authority on fevers an’ sic like diseases,
    an’ ought tae ken.

    “It’s may be presumptuous o’ me tae differ frae him, and it wudna be
    verra respectfu’ o’ Saunders tae live aifter this opeenion. But
    Saunders wes aye thraun an’ ill tae drive, an’ he’s as like as no
    tae gang his ain gait.

    “A’m no meanin’ tae reflect on sae clever a man, but he didna ken
    the seetuation. He can read fevers like a buik, but he never cam’
    across sic a thing as the Drumtochty constitution a’ his days.

    “Ye see, when onybody gets as low as puir Saunders here, it’s a
    juist a hand-to-hand wrastle atween the fever and his constitution,
    an’ of coorse, if he hed been a shilpit, stuntit, feckless effeegy
    o’ a cratur, fed on tea an’ made dishes and pushioned wi’ bad air,
    Saunders wud hae nae chance; he wes boond tae gae oot like the snuff
    o’ a candle.

    “But Saunders has been fillin’ his lungs for five and thirty year
    wi’ strong Drumtochty air, an’ eatin’ naethin’ but kirny aitmeal,
    and drinkin’ naethin’ but fresh milk frae the coo, an’ followin’ the
    ploo through the new-turned, sweet-smellin’ earth, an’ swingin’ the
    scythe in haytime and harvest, till the legs an’ airms o’ him were
    iron, an’ his chest wes like the cuttin’ o’ an oak tree.

    “He’s a waesome sicht the nicht, but Saunders wes a buirdly man
    aince, and wull never lat his life be taken lichtly frae him. Na,
    na; he hesna sinned against Nature, and Nature ’ill stand by him noo
    in his oor o’ distress.

    “A’ daurna say yea, Bell, muckle as a’ wud like, for this is an evil
    disease, cunnin’ an’ treacherous as the deevil himsel’, but a’ winna
    say nay, sae keep yir hert frae despair.

    “It wull be a sair fecht, but it ’ill be settled one wy or anither
    by six o’clock the morn’s morn. Nae man can prophecee hoo it ’ill
    end, but ae thing is certain, a’ll no see Deith tak a Drumtochty man
    afore his time if a’ can help it.

    “Noo, Bell, ma wumman, yir near deid wi’ tire, an’ nae wonder. Ye’ve
    dune a’ ye cud for yir man an’ ye ’ill lippen (trust) him the nicht
    tae Drumsheugh an’ me; we ’ill no fail him or you.

    “Lie doon an’ rest, an’ if it be the wull o’ the Almichty a’ll
    wauken ye in the mornin’ tae see a livin’, conscious man, an’ if it
    be itherwise a’ll come for ye the suner, Bell,” and the big red hand
    went out to the anxious wife. “A’ gie ye ma word.”

    Bell leant over the bed, and at the sight of Saunders’ face a
    superstitious dread seized her.

    “See, doctor, the shadow of deith is on him that never lifts. A’ve
    seen it afore, on ma father an’ mither. A’ canna leave him; a’ canna
    leave him!”

    “It’s hoverin’, Bell, but it hesna fallen; please God it never wull.
    Gang but and get some sleep, for it’s time we were at oor wark.

    “The doctors in the toons hae nurses an’ a’ kinds o’ handy
    apparatus,” said MacLure to Drumsheugh when Bell had gone, “but you
    an’ me ’ill need tae be nurse the nicht, an’ use sic things as we
    hev.

    “It ’ill be a lang nicht and anxious wark, but a’ wud raither hae
    ye, auld freend, wi’ me than ony man in the Glen. Ye’re no feared
    tae gie a hand?”

    “Me feared? No likely. Man, Saunders cam’ tae me a haflin, an’ hes
    been on Drumsheugh for twenty years, an’ though he be a dour chiel,
    he’s a faithfu’ servant as ever lived. It’s waesome tae see him
    lyin’ there moanin’ like some dumb animal frae mornin’ to nicht, an’
    no able tae answer his ain wife when she speaks.

    “Div ye think, Weelum, he hes a chance?”

    “That he hes, at ony rate, and it ’ill no be your blame or mine if
    he hesna mair.”

    While he was speaking, MacLure took off his coat and waistcoat and
    hung them on the back of the door. Then he rolled up the sleeves of
    his shirt and laid bare two arms that were nothing but bone and
    muscle.

    “It gar’d ma very blood rin faster tae the end of ma fingers juist
    tae look at him,” Drumsheugh expatiated afterwards to Hillocks, “for
    a’ saw noo that there was tae be a stand-up fecht atween him an’
    Deith for Saunders, and when a’ thocht o’ Bell an’ her bairns, a’
    kent wha wud win.

    “‘Aff wi’ yir coat, Drumsheugh,’ said MacLure; ‘ye ’ill need tae
    bend yir back the nicht; gither a’ the pails in the hoose and fill
    them at the spring, an’ a’ll come doon tae help ye wi’ the
    carryin’.’”

    It was a wonderful ascent up the steep pathway from the spring to
    the cottage on its little knoll, the two men in single file,
    bareheaded, silent, solemn, each with a pail of water in either
    hand, MacLure limping painfully in front, Drumsheugh blowing behind;
    and when they laid down their burden in the sick room, where the
    bits of furniture had been put to a side and a large tub held the
    centre, Drumsheugh looked curiously at the doctor.

    “No, a’m no daft; ye needna be feared; but yir tae get yir first
    lesson in medicine the nicht, an’ if we win the battle ye can set up
    for yersel’ in the Glen.

    “There’s twa dangers—that Saunders’ strength fails, an’ that the
    force o’ the fever grows; and we have juist twa weapons.

    “Yon milk on the drawers’ head an’ the bottle of whisky is tae keep
    up the strength, and this cool caller water is tae keep doon the
    fever.

    “We ’ill cast oot the fever by the virtue o’ the earth an’ the
    water.”

    “Div ye mean tae pit Saunders in the tub?”

    “Ye hiv it noo, Drumsheugh, and that’s hoo a’ need yir help.”

    “Man, Hillocks,” Drumsheugh used to moralise, as often as he
    remembered that critical night, “it wes humblin’ tae see how low
    sickness can bring a pooerfu’ man, an’ ocht tae keep us frae pride.

    “A month syne there wesna a stronger man in the Glen than Saunders,
    an’ noo he wes juist a bundle o’ skin and bone, that naither saw nor
    heard, nor moved nor felt, that kent naethin’ that was dune tae him.

    “Hillocks, a’ wudna hae wished ony man tae hev seen Saunders—for it
    wull never pass frae before ma een as long as a’ live—but a’ wish a’
    the Glen hed stude by MacLure kneelin’ on the floor wi’ his sleeves
    up tae his oxters and waitin’ on Saunders.

    “Yon big man wes as pitifu’ an’ gentle as a wumman, and when he laid
    the puir fallow in his bed again, he happit him ower as a mither dis
    her bairn.”

    Thrice it was done, Drumsheugh ever bringing up colder water from
    the spring, and twice MacLure was silent; but after the third time
    there was a gleam in his eye.

    “We’re haudin’ oor ain; we’re no bein’ maistered, at ony rate; mair
    a’ canna say for three oors.

    “We ’ill no need the water again, Drumsheugh; gae oot and tak a
    breath o’ air; a’m on gaird masel’.”

    It was the hour before daybreak, and Drumsheugh wandered through the
    fields he had trodden since childhood. The cattle lay sleeping in
    the pastures; their shadowy forms, with a patch of whiteness here
    and there, having a weird suggestion of death. He heard the burn
    running over the stones; fifty years ago he had made a dam that
    lasted till winter. The hooting of an owl made him start; one had
    frightened him as a boy so that he ran home to his mother—she died
    thirty years ago. The smell of ripe corn filled the air; it would
    soon be cut and garnered. He could see the dim outlines of his
    house, all dark and cold; no one he loved was beneath the roof. The
    lighted window in Saunders’ cottage told where a man hung between
    life and death, but love was in that home. The futility of life
    arose before this lonely man, and overcame his heart with an
    indescribable sadness. What a vanity was all human labor; what a
    mystery all human life!

    But while he stood, a subtle change came over the night, and the air
    trembled round him as if one had whispered. Drumsheugh lifted his
    head and looked eastward. A faint gray stole over the distant
    horizon, and suddenly a cloud reddened before his eyes. The sun was
    not in sight, but was rising, and sending forerunners before his
    face. The cattle began to stir, a blackbird burst into song, and
    before Drumsheugh crossed the threshold of Saunders’ house, the
    first ray of the sun had broken on a peak of the Grampians.

    MacLure left the bedside, and as the light of the candle fell on the
    doctor’s face, Drumsheugh could see that it was going well with
    Saunders.

    “He’s nae waur; an’ it’s half six noo; it’s ower sune tae say mair,
    but a’m houpin’ for the best. Sit doon and take a sleep, for ye’re
    needin’ ’t, Drumsheugh, an’, man, ye hae worked for it.”

    As he dozed off, the last thing Drumsheugh saw was the doctor
    sitting erect in his chair, a clenched fist resting on the bed, and
    his eyes already bright with the vision of victory.

    He awoke with a start to find the room flooded with the morning
    sunshine, and every trace of last night’s work removed.

    The doctor was bending over the bed, and speaking to Saunders.

    “It’s me, Saunders; Doctor MacLure, ye ken; dinna try tae speak or
    move; juist let this drap milk slip ower—ye ’ill be needin’ yir
    breakfast, lad—and gang tae sleep again.”

    Five minutes, and Saunders had fallen into a deep, healthy sleep,
    all tossing and moaning come to an end. Then MacLure stepped softly
    across the floor, picked up his coat and waistcoat, and went out at
    the door.

    Drumsheugh arose and followed him without a word. They passed
    through the little garden, sparkling with dew, and beside the byre,
    where Hawkie rattled her chain, impatient for Bell’s coming, and by
    Saunders’ little strip of corn ready for the scythe, till they
    reached an open field. There they came to a halt, and Dr. MacLure
    for once allowed himself to go.

    His coat he flung east and his waistcoat west, as far as he could
    hurl them, and it was plain he would have shouted had he been a
    complete mile from Saunders’ room. Any less distance was useless for
    adequate expression. He struck Drumsheugh a mighty blow that
    well-nigh levelled that substantial man in the dust, and then the
    doctor of Drumtochty issued his bulletin.

    “Saunders wesna tae live through the nicht, but he’s livin’ this
    meenut, an’ like to live.

    “He’s got by the warst clean and fair, and wi’ him that’s as good as
    cure.

    “It ’ill be a graund waukenin’ for Bell; she ’ill no be a weedow
    yet, nor the bairnies fatherless.

    “There’s nae use glowerin’ at me, Drumsheugh, for a body’s daft at a
    time, an’ a’ canna contain masel’, and a’m no gaein’ tae try.”

    Then it dawned upon Drumsheugh that the doctor was attempting the
    Highland fling.

    “He’s ill made, tae begin wi’,” Drumsheugh explained in the kirkyard
    next Sabbath, “and ye ken he’s been terrible mishannelled by
    accidents, sae ye may think what like it wes, but, as sure as deith,
    o’ a’ the Hielan’ flings a’ ever saw yon wes the bonniest.

    “A’ hevna shaken ma ain legs for thirty years, but a’ confess tae a
    turn masel’. Ye may lauch an’ ye like, neeburs, but the thocht o’
    Bell an’ the news that wes waitin’ her got the better o’ me.”

    Drumtochty did not laugh. Drumtochty looked as if it could have done
    quite otherwise for joy.

    “A’ wud hae made a third gin a’ hed been there,” announced Hillocks
    aggressively.

    “Come on, Drumsheugh,” said Jamie Soutar, “gie’s the end o’t; it wes
    a michty mornin’.”

    “‘We’re twa auld fules,’ says MacLure tae me, as he gaithers up his
    claithes. ‘It wud set us better tae be tellin’ Bell.’

    “She was sleepin’ on the top o’ her bed wrapped in a plaid, fair
    worn oot wi’ three weeks’ nursin’ o’ Saunders, but at the first
    touch she was oot upon the floor.

    “‘Is Saunders deein’, doctor?’ she cries. ‘Ye promised tae wauken
    me; dinna tell me it’s a’ ower.’

    “There’s nae deein’ aboot him, Bell; ye’re no tae lose yir man this
    time, sae far as a’ can see. Come ben an’ jidge for yersel’."

    “Bell lookit at Saunders, and the tears of joy fell on the bed like
    rain.

    “‘The shadow’s lifted,’ she said; ‘he’s come back frae the mooth o’
    the tomb.

    “‘A’ prayed last nicht that the Lord wud leave Saunders till the
    laddies cud dae for themselves, an’ thae words came intae ma mind,
    “Weepin’ may endure for a nicht, but joy cometh in the mornin’.”

    “‘The Lord heard ma prayer, and joy hes come in the mornin’,’ an’
    she gripped the doctor’s hand.

    “‘Ye’ve been the instrument, Doctor MacLure. Ye wudna gie him up,
    and ye did what nae ither cud for him, an’ a’ve ma man the day, and
    the bairns hae their father.’

    “An’ afore MacLure kent what she was daein’, Bell lifted his hand to
    her lips an’ kissed it.”

    “Did she, though?” cried Jamie. “Wha wud hae thocht there wes as
    muckle spunk in Bell?”

    “MacLure, of coorse, was clean scandalised,” continued Drumsheugh,
    “an’ pooed awa’ his hand as if it hed been burned.

    “Nae man can thole that kind o’ fraikin’, and a’ never heard o’ sic
    a thing in the parish, but we maun excuse Bell, neeburs; it wes an
    occasion by ordinar,” and Drumsheugh made Bell’s apology to
    Drumtochty for such an excess of feeling.

    “A’ see naethin’ tae excuse,” insisted Jamie, who was in great
    fettle that Sabbath; “the doctor hes never been burdened wi’ fees,
    and a’m judgin’ he coonted a wumman’s gratitude that he saved frae
    weedowhood the best he ever got.”

    “A’ gaed up tae the Manse last nicht,” concluded Drumsheugh, “an’
    telt the minister hoo the doctor focht aucht oors for Saunders’
    life, an’ won, an’ ye never saw a man sae carried. He walkit up an’
    doon the room a’ the time, and every other meenut he blew his nose
    like a trumpet.

    “‘I’ve a cold in my head to-night, Drumsheugh,’ says he; ‘never mind
    me.’”

    “A’ve hed the same masel’ in sic circumstances; they come on
    sudden,” said Jamie.

    “A’ wager there ’ill be a new bit in the laist prayer the day, an’
    somethin’ worth hearin’.”

    And the fathers went into kirk in great expectation.

    “We beseech Thee for such as be sick, that Thy hand may be on them
    for good, and that Thou wouldst restore them again to health and
    strength,” was the familiar petition of every Sabbath.

    The congregation waited in a silence that might be heard, and were
    not disappointed that morning, for the minister continued:

    “Especially we tender Thee hearty thanks that Thou didst spare Thy
    servant who was brought down into the dust of death, and hast given
    him back to his wife and children, and unto that end didst
    wonderfully bless the skill of him who goes out and in amongst us,
    the beloved physician of this parish and adjacent districts.”

    “Didna a’ tell ye, neeburs?” said Jamie, as they stood at the
    kirkyard gate before dispersing, “there’s no a man in the coonty cud
    hae dune it better. ‘Beloved physician,’ an’ his ‘skill,’ tae, an’
    bringing in ‘adjacent districts’; that’s Glen Urtach; it wes
    handsome, and the doctor earned it, ay, every word.

    “It’s an awfu’ peety he didna hear yon; but dear knows whar he is
    the day, maist likely up——”

    Jamie stopped suddenly at the sound of a horse’s feet, and there,
    coming down the avenue of beech trees that made a long vista from
    the kirk gate, they saw the doctor and Jess.

    One thought flashed through the minds of the fathers of the
    commonwealth.

    It ought to be done as he passed, and it would be done if it were
    not Sabbath. Of course it was out of the question on Sabbath.

    The doctor is now distinctly visible, riding after his fashion.

    There was never such a chance, if it were only Saturday; and each
    man read his own regret in his neighbour’s face.

    The doctor is nearing them rapidly; they can imagine the shepherd’s
    tartan.

    Sabbath or no Sabbath, the Glen cannot let him pass without some
    tribute of their pride.

    Jess has recognised friends, and the doctor is drawing rein.

    “It hes tae be dune,” said Jamie desperately, “say what ye like.”
    Then they all looked towards him, and Jamie led.

    “Hurrah!” swinging his Sabbath hat in the air, “hurrah!” and once
    more, “hurrah!” Whinnie Knowe, Drumsheugh, and Hillocks joining
    lustily, but Tammas Mitchell carrying all before him, for he had
    found at last an expression for his feelings that rendered speech
    unnecessary.

    It was a solitary experience for horse and rider, and Jess bolted
    without delay. But the sound followed and surrounded them, and as
    they passed the corner of the kirkyard, a figure waved his college
    cap over the wall and gave a cheer on his own account.

    “God bless you, doctor, and well done!”

    “If it isna the minister,” cried Drumsheugh, “in his goon an’ bans;
    tae think o’ that; but a’ respeck him for it.”

    Then Drumtochty became self-conscious and went home in confusion of
    face and unbroken silence, except Jamie Soutar, who faced his
    neighbours at the parting of the ways without shame.

    “A’ wud dae it a’ ower again if a’ hed the chance; he got naethin’
    but his due.”

    It was two miles before Jess composed her mind, and the doctor and
    she could discuss it quietly together.

    “A’ can hardly believe me ears, Jess, an’ the Sabbath tae; their
    verra jidgment hes gane frae the fouk o’ Drumtochty.

    “They’ve heard about Saunders, a’m thinkin’, wumman, and they’re
    pleased we brocht him roond; he’s fairly on the mend, ye ken, noo.

    “A’ never expeckit the like o’ this, though, and it wes juist a wee
    thingie mair than a’ cud hae stude.

    “Ye hev yir share in’t tae, lass; we’ve hed mony a hard nicht and
    day thegither, an’ yon wes oor reward. No mony men in this warld
    ’ill ever get a better, for it cam’ from the hert o’ honest fouk.”


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                          THE DÀN-NAN-RÒN[11]
                            By FIONA MACLEOD


Footnote 11:

      From _The Dominion of Dreams, Under the Dark Star_. By permission
      of Mrs. William Sharp. Copyright, 1910, by Duffield & Company.

    WHEN Anne Gillespie, that was my friend in Eilanmore, left the
    island after the death of her uncle, the old man Robert Achanna, it
    was to go far west.

    Among the men of the Outer Isles who for three summers past had been
    at the fishing off Eilanmore there was one named Mànus MacCodrum. He
    was a fine lad to see, but though most of the fisher-folk of the
    Lews and North Uist are fair, either with reddish hair and grey
    eyes, or blue-eyed and yellow-haired, he was of a brown skin with
    dark hair and dusky brown eyes. He was, however, as unlike to the
    dark Celts of Arran and the Inner Hebrides as to the northmen. He
    came of his people, sure enough. All the MacCodrums of North Uist
    had been brown-skinned and brown-haired and brown-eyed: and herein
    may have lain the reason why, in by-gone days, this small clan of
    Uist was known throughout the Western Isles as the _Sliochd non
    Ròn_, the offspring of the Seals.

    Not so tall as most of the men of North Uist and the Lews, Mànus
    MacCodrum was of a fair height, and supple and strong. No man was a
    better fisherman than he, and he was well liked of his fellows, for
    all the morose gloom that was upon him at times. He had a voice as
    sweet as a woman’s when he sang, and he sang often, and knew all the
    old runes of the islands, from the Obb of Harris to the Head of
    Mingulay. Often, too, he chanted the beautiful _orain spioradail_ of
    the Catholic priests and Christian Brothers of South Uist and Barra,
    though where he lived in North Uist he was the sole man who adhered
    to the ancient faith.

    It may have been because Anne was a Catholic too, though, sure, the
    Achannas were so also, notwithstanding that their forebears and
    kindred in Galloway were Protestant (and this because of old Robert
    Achanna’s love for his wife, who was of the old Faith, so it is
    said)—it may have been for this reason, though I think her lover’s
    admiring eyes and soft speech and sweet singing had more to do with
    it, that she pledged her troth to Mànus. It was a south wind for him
    as the saying is; for with her rippling brown hair and soft, grey
    eyes and cream-white skin, there was no comelier lass in the isles.

    So when Achanna was laid to his long rest, and there was none left
    upon Eilanmore save only his three youngest sons, Mànus MacCodrum
    sailed northeastward across the Minch to take home his bride. Of the
    four eldest sons, Alasdair had left Eilanmore some months before his
    father died, and sailed westward, though no one knew whither or for
    what end or for how long, and no word had been brought from him, nor
    was he ever seen again in the island which had come to be called
    Eilan-nan-Allmharachain, the Isle of the Strangers; Allan and
    William had been drowned in a wild gale in the Minch; and Robert had
    died of the white fever, that deadly wasting disease which is the
    scourge of the isles. Marcus was now “Eilanmore,” and lived there
    with Gloom and Seumas, all three unmarried, though it was rumoured
    among the neighbouring islanders that each loved Marsail nic
    Ailpean,[12] in Eilean-Rona of the Summer Isles hard by the coast of
    Sutherland.

Footnote 12:

      Marsail nic Ailpean is the Gaelic of which an English translation
      would be Marjory MacAlpine. _Nic_ is a contraction for _nighean
      mhic_, “daughter of the line of.”

    When Mànus asked Anne to go with him she agreed. The three brothers
    were ill-pleased at this, for apart from their not wishing their
    cousin to go so far away, they did not want to lose her, as she not
    only cooked for them and did all that a woman does, including
    spinning and weaving, but was most sweet and fair to see, and in the
    long winter nights sang by the hour together, while Gloom played
    strange wild airs upon his _feadan_, a kind of oaten pipe or flute.

    She loved him, I know; but there was this reason also for her going,
    that she was afraid of Gloom. Often upon the moor or on the hill she
    turned and hastened home, because she heard the lilt and fall of
    that feadan. It was an eerie thing to her, to be going through the
    twilight when she thought the three men were in the house, smoking
    after their supper, and suddenly to hear beyond and coming toward
    her the shrill song of that oaten flute, playing “The Dance of the
    Dead,” or “The Flow and Ebb,” or “The Shadow-Reel.”

    That, sometimes at least, he knew she was there was clear to her,
    because, as she stole rapidly through the tangled fern and gale, she
    would hear a mocking laugh follow her like a leaping thing.

    Mànus was not there on the night when she told Marcus and his
    brothers that she was going. He was in the haven on board the
    _Luath_, with his two mates, he singing in the moonshine as all
    three sat mending their fishing gear.

    After the supper was done, the three brothers sat smoking and
    talking over an offer that had been made about some Shetland sheep.
    For a time, Anne watched them in silence. They were not like
    brothers, she thought. Marcus, tall, broad-shouldered, with yellow
    hair and strangely dark blue-black eyes and black eyebrows; stern,
    with a weary look on his sun-brown face. The light from the peats
    glinted upon the tawny curve of thick hair that trailed from his
    upper lip, for he had the _caisean-feusag_ of the Northmen. Gloom,
    slighter of build, dark of hue and hair, but with hairless face;
    with thin, white, long-fingered hands that had ever a nervous
    motion, as though they were tide-wrack. There was always a frown on
    the centre of his forehead, even when he smiled with his thin lips
    and dusky, unbetraying eyes. He looked what he was, the brain of the
    Achannas. Not only did he have the English as though native to that
    tongue, but could and did read strange unnecessary books. Moreover,
    he was the only son of Robert Achanna to whom the old man had
    imparted his store of learning, for Achanna had been a school-master
    in his youth, in Galloway, and he had intended Gloom for the
    priesthood. His voice, too, was low and clear, but cold as
    pale-green water running under ice. As for Seumas, he was more like
    Marcus than Gloom, though not so fair. He had the same brown hair
    and shadowy hazel eyes, the same pale and smooth face, with
    something of the same intent look which characterised the long-time
    missing, and probably dead, eldest brother, Alasdair. He, too, was
    tall and gaunt. On Seumas’s face there was that indescribable, as to
    some of course imperceptible, look which is indicated by the phrase
    “the dusk of the shadow,” though few there are who know what they
    mean by that, or, knowing, are fain to say.

    Suddenly, and without any word or reason for it, Gloom turned and
    spoke to her.

    “Well, Anne, and what is it?”

    “I did not speak, Gloom.”

    “True for you, _mo cailinn_. But it’s about to speak you were.”

    “Well, and that is true. Marcus, and you Gloom, and you Seumas, I
    have that to tell which you will not be altogether glad for the
    hearing. ’Tis about—about—me and—and Mànus.”

    There was no reply at first. The three brothers sat looking at her
    like the kye at a stranger on the moorland. There was a deepening of
    the frown on Gloom’s brow, but when Anne looked at him his eyes fell
    and dwelt in the shadow at his feet. Then Marcus spoke in a low
    voice:

    “Is it Mànus MacCodrum you will be meaning?”

    “Ay, sure.”

    Again silence. Gloom did not lift his eyes, and Seumas was now
    staring at the peats. Marcus shifted uneasily.

    “And what will Mànus MacCodrum be wanting?”

    “Sure, Marcus, you know well what I mean. Why do you make this thing
    hard for me? There is but one thing he would come here wanting. And
    he has asked me if I will go with him; and I have said yes; and if
    you are not willing that he come again with the minister, or that we
    go across to the kirk in Berneray of Uist in the Sound of Harris,
    then I will not stay under this roof another night, but will go away
    from Eilanmore at sunrise in the _Luath_, that is now in the haven.
    And that is for the hearing and knowing, Marcus and Gloom and
    Seumas!”

    Once more, silence followed her speaking. It was broken in a strange
    way. Gloom slipped his feadan into his hands, and so to his mouth.
    The clear, cold notes of the flute filled the flame-lit room. It was
    as though white polar birds were drifting before the coming of snow.

    The notes slid in to a wild, remote air: cold moonlight on the dark
    o’ the sea, it was. It was the _Dàn-nan-Ròn_.

    Anne flushed, trembled, and then abruptly rose. As she leaned on her
    clenched right hand upon the table, the light of the peats showed
    that her eyes were aflame.

    “Why do you play _that_, Gloom Achanna?”

    The man finished the bar, then blew into the oaten pipe, before,
    just glancing at the girl, he replied:

    “And what harm will there be in _that_, Anna-ban?”

    “Do you know why Gloom played the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’?”

    “Ay, and what then, Anna-ban?”

    “What then? Are you thinking I don’t know what you mean by playing
    the ‘Song o’ the Seals’?”

    With an abrupt gesture Gloom put the feadan aside. As he did so, he
    rose.

    “See here, Anne,” he began roughly, when Marcus intervened.

    “That will do just now, Gloom. Anne-à-ghraidh, do you mean that you
    are going to do this thing?”

    “Ay, sure.”

    “Do you know why Gloom played the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’?”

    “It was a cruel thing.”

    “You know what is said in the isles about—about—this or that man,
    who is under _gheasan_, who is spell-bound and—and—about the seals—”

    “Yes, Marcus, it is knowing it that I am: ‘_Tha iad a’ cantuinn gur
    h-e daoine fo gheasan a th’ anns no roin._’”

    “‘_They say that seals_,’” he repeated slowly. “‘_They say that
    seals are men under magic spells._’ And have you ever pondered that
    thing, Anne, my cousin?”

    “I am knowing well what you mean.”

    “Then you will know that the MacCodrums of North Uist are called the
    _Sliochd-nan-Ròn_?”

    “I have heard.”

    “And would you be for marrying a man that is of the race of the
    beasts, and himself knowing what that _geas_ means, and who may any
    day go back to his people?”

    “Ah, now, Marcus, sure it is making a mock of me you are. Neither
    you nor any here believe that foolish thing. How can a man born of a
    woman be a seal, even though his _sinnsear_ were the offspring of
    the sea-people, which is not a saying I am believing either, though
    it may be; and not that it matters much, whatever, about the
    far-back forebears.”

    Marcus frowned darkly, and at first made no response. At last he
    answered, speaking sullenly:

    “You may be believing this or you may be believing that,
    Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig, but two things are as well known as that the
    east wind brings the blight and the west wind the rain. And one is
    this: that long ago a Seal-man wedded a woman of North Uist, and
    that he or his son was called Neil MacCodrum; and that the sea-fever
    of the seal was in the blood of his line ever after. And this is the
    other: that twice within the memory of living folk, a MacCodrum has
    taken upon himself the form of a seal, and has so met his death,
    once Neil MacCodrum of Ru’ Tormaid, and once Anndra MacCodrum of
    Berneray in the Sound. There’s talk of others, but these are known
    of us all. And you will not be forgetting now that Neildonn was the
    grandfather, and that Anndra was the brother of the father of Mànus
    MacCodrum?”

    “I am not caring what you say, Marcus. It is all foam of the sea.”

    “There’s no foam without wind or tide, Anne, an’ it’s a dark tide
    that will be bearing you away to Uist, and a black wind that will be
    blowing far away behind the East, the wind that will be carrying his
    death-cry to your ears.”

    The girl shuddered. The brave spirit in her, however, did not quail.

    “Well, so be it. To each his fate. But, seal or no seal, I am going
    to wed Mànus MacCodrum, who is a man as good as any here, and a true
    man at that, and the man I love, and that will be my man, God
    willing, the praise be His!”

    Again Gloom took up the feadan, and sent a few cold, white notes
    floating through the hot room, breaking, suddenly, into the wild,
    fantastic, opening air of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn.”

    With a low cry and passionate gesture Anne sprang forward, snatched
    the oat-flute from his grasp, and would have thrown it in the fire.
    Marcus held her in an iron grip, however.

    “Don’t you be minding Gloom, Anne,” he said quietly, as he took the
    feadan from her hand and handed it to his brother: “sure he’s only
    telling you in _his_ way what I am telling you in mine.”

    She shook herself free, and moved to the other side of the table. On
    the opposite wall hung the dirk which had belonged to old Achanna.
    This she unfastened. Holding it in her right hand, she faced the
    three men.—

    “On the cross of the dirk I swear I will be the woman of Mànus
    MacCodrum.”

    The brothers made no response. They looked at her fixedly.

    “And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if any man come between
    me and Mànus, this dirk will be for his remembering in a certain
    hour of the day of the days.”

    As she spoke, she looked meaningly at Gloom, whom she feared more
    than Marcus or Seumas.

    “And by the cross of the dirk I swear that if evil come to Mànus,
    this dirk will have another sheath, and that will be my milkless
    breast; and by that token I now throw the old sheath in the fire.”

    As she finished, she threw the sheath on to the burning peats. Gloom
    quietly lifted it, brushed off the sparks of flame as though they
    were dust, and put it in his pocket.

    “And by the same token, Anne,” he said, “your oaths will come to
    nought.”

    Rising, he made a sign to his brothers to follow. When they were
    outside he told Seumas to return, and to keep Anne within, by peace
    if possible, by force if not. Briefly they discussed their plans,
    and then separated. While Seumas went back, Marcus and Gloom made
    their way to the haven.

    Their black figures were visible in the moonlight, but at first they
    were not noticed by the men on board the _Luath_, for Mànus was
    singing.

    When the islesman stopped abruptly, one of his companions asked him
    jokingly if his song had brought a seal alongside, and bid him
    beware lest it was a woman of the sea-people.

    His face darkened, but he made no reply. When the others listened
    they heard the wild strain of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn” stealing through the
    moonshine. Staring against the shore, they could discern the two
    brothers.

    “What will be the meaning of that?” asked one of the men, uneasily.

    “When a man comes instead of a woman,” answered Mànus, slowly, “the
    young corbies are astir in the nest.”

    So, it meant blood. Aulay MacNeil and Donull Macdonull put down
    their gear, rose, and stood waiting for what Mànus would do.

    “Ho, there!” he cried.

    “Ho-ro!”

    “What will you be wanting, Eilanmore?”

    “We are wanting a word of you, Mànus MacCodrum. Will you come
    ashore?”

    “If you want a word of me, you can come to me.”

    “There is no boat here.”

    “I’ll send the _bàta-beag_.”

    When he had spoken, Mànus asked Donull, the younger of his mates, a
    lad of seventeen, to row to the shore.

    “And bring back no more than one man,” he added, “whether it be
    Eilanmore himself or Gloom-mhic-Achanna.”

    The rope of the small boat was unfastened, and Donull rowed it
    swiftly through the moonshine. The passing of a cloud dusked the
    shore, but they saw him throw a rope for the guiding of the boat
    alongside the ledge of the landing place; then the sudden darkening
    obscured the vision. Donull must be talking, they thought, for two
    or three minutes elapsed without sign, but at last the boat put off
    again, and with two figures only. Doubtless the lad had had to argue
    against the coming of both Marcus and Gloom.

    This, in truth, was what Donull had done. But while he was speaking
    Marcus was staring fixedly beyond him.

    “Who is it that is there?” he asked, “there, in the stern?”

    “There is no one there.”

    “I thought I saw the shadow of a man.”

    “Then it was my shadow, Eilanmore.”

    Achanna turned to his brother.

    “I see a man’s death there in the boat.”

    Gloom quailed for a moment, then laughed low.

    “I see no death of a man sitting in the boat, Marcus, but if I did I
    am thinking it would dance to the air of the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn,’ which is
    more than the wraith of you or me would do.”

    “It is not a wraith I was seeing, but the death of a man.”

    Gloom whispered, and his brother nodded sullenly. The next moment a
    heavy muffler was round Donull’s mouth; and before he could resist,
    or even guess what had happened, he was on his face on the shore,
    bound and gagged. A minute later the oars were taken by Gloom, and
    the boat moved swiftly out of the inner haven.

    As it drew near Mànus stared at it intently.

    “That is not Donull that is rowing, Aulay!”

    “No: it will be Gloom Achanna, I’m thinking.”

    MacCodrum started. If so, that other figure at the stern was too big
    for Donull. The cloud passed just as the boat came alongside. The
    rope was made secure, and then Marcus and Gloom sprang on board.

    “Where is Donull MacDonull?” demanded Mànus sharply.

    Marcus made no reply, so Gloom answered for him.

    “He has gone up to the house with a message to
    Anne-nic-Gilleasbuig.”

    “And what will that message be?”

    “That Mànus MacCodrum has sailed away from Eilanmore, and will not
    see her again.”

    MacCodrum laughed. It was a low, ugly laugh.

    “Sure, Gloom Achanna, you should be taking that feadan of yours and
    playing the _Cod-hail-nan-Pairtean_, for I’m thinkin’ the crabs are
    gathering about the rocks down below us, an’ laughing wi’ their
    claws.”

    “Well, and that is a true thing,” Gloom replied slowly and quietly.
    “Yes, for sure I might, as you say, be playing the ’meeting of the
    Crabs.’ Perhaps,” he added, as by a sudden afterthought, “perhaps,
    though it is a calm night, you will be hearing the _comh-thonn_. The
    ‘Slapping of the Waves’ is a better thing to be hearing than the
    ’meeting of the Crabs.’”

    “If I hear the _comh-thonn_ it is not in the way you will be
    meaning, Gloom-mhic-Achanna. ’Tis not the ‘Up Sail and Good-bye’
    they will be saying, but ‘Home wi’ the Bride.’”

    Here Marcus intervened.

    “Let us be having no more words, Mànus MacCodrum. The girl Anne is
    not for you. Gloom is to be her man. So get you hence. If you will
    be going quiet, it is quiet we will be. If you have your feet on
    this thing, then you will be having that too which I saw in the
    boat.”

    “And what was it you saw in the boat, Achanna?”

    “The death of a man.”

    “So—. And now” (this after a prolonged silence, wherein the four men
    stood facing each other, “is it a blood-matter if not of peace?”

    “Ay. Go, if you are wise. If not, ’tis your own death you will be
    making.”

    There was a flash as of summer lightning. A bluish flame seemed to
    leap through the moonshine. Marcus reeled, with a gasping cry; then,
    leaning back, till his face blenched in the moonlight, his knees
    gave way. As he fell, he turned half round. The long knife which
    Mànus had hurled at him had not penetrated his breast more than an
    inch at most, but as he fell on the deck it was driven into him up
    to the hilt.

    In the blank silence that followed, the three men could hear a sound
    like the ebb-tide in sea-weed. It was the gurgling of the bloody
    froth in the lungs of the dead man.

    The first to speak was his brother, and then only when thin
    reddish-white foam-bubbles began to burst from the blue lips of
    Marcus.

    “It is murder.”

    He spoke low, but it was like the surf of breakers in the ears of
    those who heard.

    “You have said one part of a true word, Gloom Achanna. It is
    murder—that you and he came here for!”

    “The death of Marcus Achanna is on you, Mànus MacCodrum.”

    “So be it, as between yourself and me, or between all of your blood
    and me; though Aulay MacNeil, as well as you, can witness that
    though in self-defence I threw the knife at Achanna, it was his own
    doing that drove it into him.”

    “You can whisper that to the rope when it is round your neck.”

    “And what will _you_ be doing now, Gloom-mhic-Achanna?”

    For the first time Gloom shifted uneasily. A swift glance revealed
    to him the awkward fact that the boat trailed behind the _Luath_, so
    that he could not leap into it, while if he turned to haul it close
    by the rope he was at the mercy of the two men.

    “I will go in peace,” he said quietly.

    “Ay,” was the answer, in an equally quiet tone, “in the white
    peace.”

    Upon this menace of death the two men stood facing each other.

    Achanna broke the silence at last.

    “You’ll hear the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’ the night before you die, Mànus
    MacCodrum, and lest you doubt it you’ll hear it again in your
    death-hour.”

    “_Ma tha sin an Dàn_—if that be ordained.” Mànus spoke gravely. His
    very quietude, however, boded ill. There was no hope of clemency;
    Gloom knew that.

    Suddenly he laughed scornfully. Then, pointing with his right hand
    as if to some one behind his two adversaries, he cried out: “Put the
    death-hand on them, Marcus! Give them the Grave!” Both men sprang
    aside, the heart of each nigh upon bursting. The death-touch of the
    newly slain is an awful thing to incur, for it means that the wraith
    can transfer all its evil to the person touched.

    The next moment there was a heavy splash. Mànus realised that it was
    no more than a ruse, and that Gloom had escaped. With feverish haste
    he hauled in the small boat, leaped into it, and began at once to
    row so as to intercept his enemy.

    Achanna rose once, between him and the _Luath_. MacCodrum crossed
    the oars in the thole-pins and seized the boat-hook.

    The swimmer kept straight for him. Suddenly he dived. In a flash,
    Mànus knew that Gloom was going to rise under the boat, seize the
    keel, and upset him, and thus probably be able to grip him from
    above. There was time and no more to leap; and, indeed, scarce had
    he plunged into the sea ere the boat swung right over, Achanna
    clambering over it the next moment.

    At first Gloom could not see where his foe was. He crouched on the
    upturned craft, and peered eagerly into the moonlit water. All at
    once a black mass shot out of the shadow between him and the smack.
    This black mass laughed—the same low, ugly laugh that had preceded
    the death of Marcus.

    He who was in turn the swimmer was now close. When a fathom away he
    leaned back and began to tread water steadily. In his right hand he
    grasped the boat-hook. The man in the boat knew that to stay where
    he was meant certain death. He gathered himself together like a
    crouching cat. Mànus kept treading the water slowly, but with the
    hook ready so that the sharp iron spike at the end of it should
    transfix his foe if he came at him with a leap. Now and again he
    laughed. Then in his low sweet voice, but brokenly at times between
    his deep breathings, he began to sing:

      The tide was dark, an’ heavy with the burden that it bore;
      I heard it talkin’, whisperin’, upon the weedy shore;
      Each wave that stirred the sea-weed was like a closing door;
      ’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more, no more.
                                                  My Grief,
                                                  No more!

      The tide was in the salt sea-weed, and like a knife it tore;
      The wild sea-wind went moaning, sooing, moaning o’er and o’er;
      The deep sea-heart was brooding deep upon its ancient lore—
      I heard the sob, the sooing sob, the dying sob at its core,
                                                  My Grief,
                                                  Its core!

      The white sea-waves were wan and gray its ashy lips before,
      The yeast within its ravening mouth was red with streaming gore;
      O red sea-weed, O red sea-waves, O hollow baffled roar,
      Since one thou hast, O dark dim Sea, why callest thou for more,
                                                  My Grief,
                                                  For more!

    In the quiet moonlight the chant, with its long, slow cadences, sung
    as no other man in the isles could sing it, sounded sweet and remote
    beyond words to tell. The glittering shine was upon the water of the
    haven, and moved in waving lines of fire along the stone ledges.
    Sometimes a fish rose, and split a ripple of pale gold; or a
    sea-nettle swam to the surface, and turned its blue or greenish
    globe of living jelly to the moon dazzle.

    The man in the water made a sudden stop in his treading and listened
    intently. Then once more the phosphorescent light gleamed about his
    slow-moving shoulders. In a louder chanting voice came once again:

       Each wave that stirs the sea-weed is like a closing door;
       ’Tis closing doors they hear at last who hear no more—no more,
                                                   My Grief,
                                                   No more!

    Yes, his quick ears had caught the inland strain of a voice he knew.
    Soft and white as the moonshine came Anne’s singing as she passed
    along the corrie leading to the haven. In vain his travelling gaze
    sought her; she was still in the shadow, and, besides, a slow
    drifting cloud obscured the moonlight. When he looked back again a
    stifled exclamation came from his lips. There was not a sign of
    Gloom Achanna. He had slipped noiselessly from the boat, and was now
    either behind it, or had dived beneath it, or was swimming under
    water this way or that. If only the cloud would sail by, muttered
    Mànus, as he held himself in readiness for an attack from beneath or
    behind. As the dusk lightened, he swam slowly toward the boat, and
    then swiftly round it. There was no one there. He climbed on to the
    keel, and stood, leaning forward, as a salmon-leisterer by
    torchlight, with his spear-pointed boat-hook raised. Neither below
    nor beyond could he discern any shape. A whispered call to Aulay
    MacNeil showed that he, too, saw nothing. Gloom must have swooned,
    and sunk deep as he slipped through the water. Perhaps the dog-fish
    were already darting about him.

    Going behind the boat Mànus guided it back to the smack. It was not
    long before, with MacNeil’s help, he righted the punt. One oar had
    drifted out of sight, but as there was a sculling-hole in the stern
    that did not matter.

    “What shall we do with it?” he muttered, as he stood at last by the
    corpse of Marcus.

    “This is a bad night for us, Aulay!”

    “Bad it is; but let us be seeing it is not worse. I’m thinking we
    should have left the boat.”

    “And for why that?”

    “We could say that Marcus Achanna and Gloom Achanna left us again,
    and that we saw no more of them nor of our boat.”

    MacCodrum pondered a while. The sound of voices, borne faintly
    across the water, decided him. Probably Anne and the lad Donull were
    talking. He slipped into the boat, and with a sail-knife soon ripped
    it here and there. It filled, and then, heavy with the weight of a
    great ballast-stone which Aulay had first handed to his companion,
    and surging with a foot-thrust from the latter, it sank.

    “We’ll hide the—the man there—behind the windlass, below the spare
    sail, till we’re out at sea, Aulay. Quick, give me a hand!”

    It did not take the two men long to lift the corpse, and do as Mànus
    had suggested. They had scarce accomplished this, when Anne’s voice
    came hailing silver-sweet across the water.

    With death-white face and shaking limbs, MacCodrum stood holding the
    mast, while with a loud voice, so firm and strong that Aulay MacNeil
    smiled below his fear, he asked if the Achannas were back yet, and
    if so for Donull to row out at once, and she with him if she would
    come.

    It was nearly half an hour thereafter that Anne rowed out toward the
    _Luath_. She had gone at last along the shore to a creek where one
    of Marcus’s boats was moored and returned with it. Having taken
    Donull on board, she made way with all speed, fearful lest Gloom or
    Marcus should intercept her.

    It did not take long to explain how she had laughed at Seumas’s vain
    efforts to detain her, and had come down to the haven. As she
    approached, she heard Mànus singing, and so had herself broken into
    a song she knew he loved. Then, by the water-edge she had come upon
    Donull lying upon his back, bound and gagged. After she had released
    him they waited to see what would happen, but as in the moonlight
    they could not see any small boat come in, bound to or from the
    smack, she had hailed to know if Mànus were there.

    On his side he said briefly that the two Achannas had come to
    persuade him to leave without her. On his refusal they had departed
    again, uttering threats against her as well as himself. He heard
    their quarrelling voices as they rowed into the gloom, but could not
    see them at last because of the obscured moonlight.

    “And now, Ann-mochree,” he added, “is it coming with me you are, and
    just as you are? Sure, you’ll never repent it, and you’ll have all
    you want that I can give. Dear of my heart, say that you will be
    coming away this night of the nights! By the Black Stone on
    Icolmkill I swear it, and by the Sun, and by the Moon, and by
    Himself!”

    “I am trusting you, Mànus dear. Sure it is not for me to be going
    back to that house after what has been done and said. I go with you,
    now and always, God save us.”

    “Well, dear lass o’ my heart, it’s farewell to Eilanmore it is, for
    by the Blood of the Cross I’ll never land on it again!”

    “And that will be no sorrow to me, Mànus, my home!”

                  *       *       *       *       *

    And this was the way that my friend, Anne Gillespie, left Eilanmore
    to go to the isles of the west.

    It was a fair sailing, in the white moonshine, with a whispering
    breeze astern. Anne leaned against Mànus, dreaming her dream. The
    lad Donull sat drowsing at the helm. Forward, Aulay MacNeil, with
    his face set against the moonshine to the west, brooded dark.

    Though no longer was land in sight, and there was peace among the
    deeps of the quiet stars and upon the sea, the shadow of fear was
    upon the face of Mànus MacCodrum.

    This might well have been because of the as yet unburied dead that
    lay beneath the spare sail by the windlass. The dead man, however,
    did not affright him. What went moaning in his heart, and sighing
    and calling in his brain, was a faint falling echo he had heard, as
    the _Luath_ glided slow out of the haven. Whether from the water or
    from the shore he could not tell, but he heard the wild, fantastic
    air of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn,” as he had heard it that very night upon
    the feadan of Gloom Achanna.

    It was his hope that his ears had played him false. When he glanced
    about him, and saw the sombre flame in the eyes of Aulay MacNeil,
    staring at him out of the dusk, he knew that which Oisìn the son of
    Fionn cried in his pain: “his soul swam in mist.”


                                   II

    For all the evil omens, the marriage of Anne and Mànus MacCodrum
    went well. He was more silent than of yore, and men avoided rather
    than sought him; but he was happy with Anne, and content with his
    two mates, who were now Callum MacCodrum and Ranald MacRanald. The
    youth Donull had bettered himself by joining a Skye skipper who was
    a kinsman, and Aulay MacNeil had surprised every one, except Mànus,
    by going away as a seaman on board one of the _Loch_ line of ships
    which sail for Australia from the Clyde.

    Anne never knew what had happened, though it is possible she
    suspected somewhat. All that was known to her was that Marcus and
    Gloom Achanna had disappeared, and were supposed to have been
    drowned. There was now no Achanna upon Eilanmore, for Seumas had
    taken a horror of the place and his loneliness. As soon as it was
    commonly admitted that his two brothers must have drifted out to
    sea, and been drowned, or at best picked up by some ocean-going
    ship, he disposed of the island-farm, and left Eilanmore forever.
    All this confirmed the thing said among the islanders of the west,
    that old Robert Achanna had brought a curse with him. Blight and
    disaster had visited Eilanmore over and over in the many years he
    had held it, and death, sometimes tragic or mysterious, had
    overtaken six of his seven sons, while the youngest bore upon his
    brows the “dusk of the shadow.” True, none knew for certain that
    three out of the six were dead, but few for a moment believed in the
    possibility that Alasdair and Marcus and Gloom were alive. On the
    night when Anne had left the island with Mànus MacCodrum, he,
    Seumas, had heard nothing to alarm him. Even when, an hour after she
    had gone down to the haven, neither she nor his brothers had
    returned, and the _Luath_ had put out to sea, he was not in fear of
    any ill. Clearly, Marcus and Gloom had gone away in the smack,
    perhaps determined to see that the girl was duly married by priest
    or minister.

    He would have perturbed himself a little for days to come, but for a
    strange thing that happened that night. He had returned to the house
    because of a chill that was upon him, and convinced, too, that all
    had sailed in the _Luath_. He was sitting brooding by the peat-fire,
    when he was startled by a sound at the window at the back of the
    room. A few bars of a familiar air struck painfully upon his ear,
    though played so low that they were just audible. What could it be
    but the “Dàn-nan-Ròn,” and who would be playing that but Gloom? What
    did it mean? Perhaps after all, it was fantasy only, and there was
    no feadan out there in the dark. He was pondering this when, still
    low but louder and sharper than before, there rose and fell the
    strain which he hated, and Gloom never played before him, that of
    the _Dàvsa-na mairv_, the “Dance of the Dead.” Swiftly and silently
    he rose and crossed the room. In the dark shadows cast by the byre
    he could see nothing, but the music ceased. He went out, and
    searched everywhere, but found no one. So he returned, took down the
    Holy Book, with awed heart, and read slowly till peace came upon
    him, soft and sweet as the warmth of the peat-glow.

    But as for Anne, she had never even this hint that one of the
    supposed dead might be alive, or that, being dead, Gloom might yet
    touch a shadowy feadan into a wild remote air of the grave.

    When month after month went by, and no hint of ill came to break
    upon their peace, Mànus grew light-hearted again. Once more his
    songs were heard as he came back from the fishing, or loitered
    ashore mending his nets. A new happiness was nigh to them, for Anne
    was with child. True, there was fear also, for the girl was not well
    at the time when her labor was near, and grew weaker daily. There
    came a day when Mànus had to go to Loch Boisdale in South Uist: and
    it was with pain and something of foreboding that he sailed away
    from Berneray in the Sound of Harris, where he lived. It was on the
    third night that he returned. He was met by Katreen MacRanald, the
    wife of his mate, with the news that on the morrow after his going
    Anne had sent for the priest who was staying at Loch Maddy, for she
    had felt the coming of death. It was that very evening she died, and
    took the child with her.

    Mànus heard as one in a dream. It seemed to him that the tide was
    ebbing in his heart, and a cold, sleety rain falling, falling
    through a mist in his brain.

    Sorrow lay heavily upon him. After the earthing of her whom he
    loved, he went to and fro solitary: often crossing the Narrows and
    going to the old Pictish Towre under the shadow of Ban Breac. He
    would not go upon the sea, but let his kinsman Callum do as he liked
    with the _Luath_.

    Now and again Father Allan MacNeil sailed northward to see him. Each
    time he departed sadder. “The man is going mad, I fear,” he said to
    Callum, the last time he saw Mànus.

    The long summer nights brought peace and beauty to the isles. It was
    a great herring-year, and the moon-fishing was unusually good. All
    the Uist men who lived by the sea-harvest were in their boats
    whenever they could. The pollack, the dog-fish, the otters, and the
    seals, with flocks of sea-fowl beyond number, shared in the common
    joy. Mànus MacCodrum alone paid no heed to herring or mackerel. He
    was often seen striding along the shore, and more than once had been
    heard laughing; sometimes, too, he was come upon at low tide by the
    great Reef of Berneray, singing wild strange runes and songs, or
    crouching upon a rock and brooding dark.

    The midsummer moon found no man on Berneray except MacCodrum, the
    Rev. Mr. Black, the minister of the Free Kirk, and an old man named
    Anndra McIan. On the night before the last day of the middle month,
    Anndra was reproved by the minister for saying that he had seen a
    man rise out of one of the graves in the kirkyard, and steal down by
    the stone-dykes towards Balnahunnur-sa-mona,[13] where Mànus
    MacCodrum lived.

Footnote 13:

      _Baille-’na-aonar’sa mhonadh_, “the solitary farm on the
      hill-slope.”

    “The dead do not rise and walk, Anndra.”

    “That may be, maigstir, but it may have been the Watcher of the
    Dead. Sure it is not three weeks since Padruig McAlistair was laid
    beneath the green mound. He’ll be wearying for another to take his
    place.”

    “Hoots, man, that is an old superstition. The dead do not rise and
    walk, I tell you.”

    “It is right you may be, maigstir, but I heard of this from my
    father, that was old before you were young, and from his father
    before him. When the last-buried is weary with being the Watcher of
    the Dead he goes about from place to place till he sees man, woman,
    or child with the death-shadow in the eyes, and then he goes back to
    his grave and lies down in peace, for his vigil it will be over
    now.”

    The minister laughed at the folly, and went into his house to make
    ready for the Sacrament that was to be on the morrow. Old Anndra,
    however, was uneasy. After the porridge, he went down through the
    gloaming to Balnahunnur-sa-mona. He meant to go in and warn Mànus
    MacCodrum. But when he got to the west wall, and stood near the open
    window, he heard Mànus speaking in a loud voice, though he was alone
    in the room.

    “_B’ionganntach do ghràdh dhomhsa, a’ toirt barrachd air gràdh nam
    ban!_”...[14]

Footnote 14:

      “Thy love to me was wonderful, surpassing the love of women.”

    This, Mànus cried in a voice quivering with pain. Anndra stopped
    still, fearful to intrude, fearful also, perhaps, to see some one
    there beside MacCodrum, whom eyes should not see. Then the voice
    rose into a cry of agony.

    “_Aoram dhuit, ay andéigh dhomh fàs aosda!_”[15]

Footnote 15:

      “I shall worship thee, ay, even after I have become old.”

    With that, Anndra feared to stay. As he passed the byre he started,
    for he thought he saw the shadow of a man. When he looked closer he
    could see nought, so went his way, trembling and sore troubled.

    It was dusk when Mànus came out. He saw that it was to be a cloudy
    night; and perhaps it was this that, after a brief while, made him
    turn in his aimless walk and go back to the house. He was sitting
    before the flaming heart of the peats, brooding in his pain, when
    suddenly he sprang to his feet.

    Loud and clear, and close as though played under the very window of
    the room, came the cold, white notes of an oaten flute. Ah, too well
    he knew that wild, fantastic air. Who could it be but Gloom Achanna,
    playing upon his feadan; and what air of all airs could that be but
    the “Dàn-nan-Ròn”?

    Was it the dead man, standing there unseen in the shadow of the
    Grave? Was Marcus beside him, Marcus with the knife still thrust up
    to the hilt, and the lung-foam upon his lips? Can the sea give up
    its dead? Can there be strain of any feadan that ever was made of
    man, there in the Silence?

    In vain Mànus MacCodrum tortured himself thus. Too well he knew that
    he had heard the “Dàn-nan-Ròn,” and that no other than Gloom Achanna
    was the player.

    Suddenly an access of fury wrought him to madness. With an abrupt
    lilt the tune swung into the _Davsà-na mairv_, and thence, after a
    few seconds, and in a moment, into that mysterious and horrible
    _Codhail-nan-Pairtean_ which none but Gloom played.

    There could be no mistake now, nor as to what was meant by the
    muttering, jerking air of the “Gathering of the Crabs.”

    With a savage cry Mànus snatched up a long dirk from its place by
    the chimney, and rushed out.

    There was not the shadow of a sea-gull even in front; so he sped
    round by the byre. Neither was anything unusual discoverable there.

    “Sorrow upon me,” he cried; “man or wraith, I will be putting it to
    the dirk!”

    But there was no one; nothing; not a sound.

    Then, at last, with a listless droop of his arms, MacCodrum turned
    and went into the house again. He remembered what Gloom Achanna had
    said: “_You’ll hear the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’ the night before you die,
    Mànus MacCodrum, and lest you doubt it, you’ll hear it in your
    death-hour._”

    He did not stir from the fire for three hours; then he rose, and
    went over to his bed and lay down without undressing.

    He did not sleep, but lay listening and watching. The peats burned
    low, and at last there was scarce a flicker along the floor. Outside
    he could hear the wind moaning upon the sea. By a strange rustling
    sound he knew that the tide was ebbing across the great reef that
    runs out from Berneray. By midnight the clouds had gone. The moon
    shone clear and full. When he heard the clock strike in its
    worm-eaten, rickety case, he sat up, and listened intently. He could
    hear nothing. No shadow stirred. Surely if the wraith of Gloom
    Achanna were waiting for him it would make some sign, now, in the
    dead of night.

    An hour passed. Mànus rose, crossed the room on tiptoe, and
    soundlessly opened the door. The salt wind blew fresh against his
    face. The smell of the shore, of wet sea-wrack and pungent
    bog-myrtle, of foam and moving water, came sweet to his nostrils. He
    heard a skua calling from the rocky promontory. From the slopes
    behind, the wail of a moon-restless lapwing rose and fell
    mournfully.

    Crouching, and with slow, stealthy step, he stole round by the
    seaward wall. At the dyke he stopped, and scrutinised it on each
    side. He could see for several hundred yards, and there was not even
    a sheltering sheep. Then, soundlessly as ever, he crept close to the
    byre. He put his ear to chink after chink: but not a stir of a
    shadow even. As a shadow, himself, he drifted lightly to the front,
    past the hay-rick; then, with swift glances to right and left,
    opened the door and entered. As he did so, he stood as though
    frozen. Surely, he thought, that was a sound as of a step, out there
    by the hay-rick. A terror was at his heart. In front, the darkness
    of the byre, with God knows what dread thing awaiting him; behind, a
    mysterious walker in the night, swift to take him unawares. The
    trembling that came upon him was nigh overmastering. At last, with a
    great effort, he moved towards the ledge, where he kept a candle.
    With shaking hand he struck a light. The empty byre looked ghostly
    and fearsome in the flickering gloom. But there was no one, nothing.
    He was about to turn, when a rat ran along a loose-hanging beam, and
    stared at him, or at the yellow shine. He saw its black eyes shining
    like peat-water in moonlight.

    The creature was curious at first, then indifferent. At last, it
    began to squeak, and then made a swift scratching with its
    fore-paws. Once or twice came an answering squeak; a faint rustling
    was audible here and there among the straw.

    With a sudden spring Mànus seized the beast. Even in the second in
    which he raised it to his mouth and scrunched its back with his
    strong teeth, it bit him severely. He let his hands drop, and groped
    furtively in the darkness. With stooping head he shook the last
    breath out of the rat, holding it with his front teeth, with
    back-curled lips. The next moment he dropped the dead thing,
    trampled upon it, and burst out laughing. There was a scurrying of
    pattering feet, a rustling of straw. Then silence again. A draught
    from the door had caught the flame and extinguished it. In the
    silence and darkness MacCodrum stood, intent, but no longer afraid.
    He laughed again, because it was so easy to kill with the teeth. The
    noise of his laughter seemed to him to leap hither and thither like
    a shadowy ape. He could see it; a blackness within the darkness.
    Once more he laughed. It amused him to see the _thing_ leaping about
    like that.

    Suddenly he turned, and walked out into the moonlight. The lapwing
    was still circling and wailing. He mocked it, with loud shrill
    _pēē-wēēty, pēē-wēēty, pēē-wēēt_. The bird swung waywardly, alarmed:
    its abrupt cry, and dancing flight aroused its fellows. The air was
    full of the lamentable crying of plovers.

    A sough of the sea came inland. Mànus inhaled its breath with a sigh
    of delight. A passion for the running wave was upon him. He yearned
    to feel green water break against his breast. Thirst and hunger,
    too, he felt at last, though he had known neither all day. How cool
    and sweet, he thought, would be a silver haddock, or even a
    brown-backed liath, alive and gleaming, wet with the sea-water still
    bubbling in its gills. It would writhe, just like the rat; but then
    how he would throw his head back, and toss the glittering thing up
    into the moonlight, catch it on the downwhirl just as it neared the
    wave on whose crest he was, and then devour it with swift voracious
    gulps!

    With quick, jerky steps he made his way past the landward side of
    the small, thatch-roofed cottage. He was about to enter, when he
    noticed that the door, which he had left ajar, was closed. He stole
    to the window and glanced in.

    A single, thin, wavering moonbeam flickered in the room. But the
    flame at the heart of the peats had worked its way through the ash,
    and there was now a dull glow, though that was within the
    “smooring,” and threw scarce more than a glimmer into the room.

    There was enough light, however, for Mànus MacCodrum to see that a
    man sat on the three-legged stool before the fire. His head was
    bent, as though he were listening. The face was away from the
    window. It was his own wraith, of course; of that, Mànus felt
    convinced. What was it doing there? Perhaps it had eaten the Holy
    Book, so that it was beyond his putting a _rosad_ on it! At the
    thought he laughed loud. The shadow-man leaped to his feet.

    The next moment MacCodrum swung himself on to the thatched roof, and
    clambered from rope to rope, where these held down the big stones
    which acted as dead-weight for the thatch, against the fury of
    tempests. Stone after stone he tore from its fastenings and hurled
    to the ground over beyond the door. Then with tearing hands he began
    to burrow an opening in the thatch. All the time he whined like a
    beast.

    He was glad the moon shone full upon him. When he had made a big
    enough hole, he would see the evil thing out of the grave that sat
    in his room, and would stone it to death.

    Suddenly he became still. A cold sweat broke out upon him. The
    thing, whether his own wraith, or the spirit of his dead foe, or
    Gloom Achanna himself, had begun to play, low and slow, a wild air.
    No piercing, cold music like that of the feadan! Too well he knew
    it, and those cool, white notes that moved here and there in the
    darkness like snowflakes. As for the air, though he slept till
    Judgment Day and heard but a note of it amidst all the clamor of
    heaven and hell, sure he would scream because of the “Dàn-nan-Ròn.”

    The “Dàn-nan-Ròn!” The _Roin_! the Seals! Ah, what was he doing
    there, on the bitter-weary land! Out there was the sea. Safe would
    he be in the green waves.

    With a leap he was on the ground. Seizing a huge stone, he hurled it
    through the window. Then, laughing and screaming, he fled towards
    the Great Reef, along whose sides the ebb-tide gurgled and sobbed,
    with glistening white foam.

    He ceased screaming or laughing as he heard the “Dàn-nan-Ròn” behind
    him, faint, but following; sure, following. Bending low, he raced
    towards the rock-ledges from which ran the reef.

    When at last he reached the extreme ledge he stopped abruptly. Out
    on the reef he saw from ten to twenty seals, some swimming to and
    fro, others clinging to the reef, one or two making a curious
    barking sound, with round heads lifted against the moon. In one
    place there was a surge and lashing of water. Two bulls were
    fighting to the death.

    With swift, stealthy movements Mànus unclothed himself. The damp had
    clotted the leathern thongs of his boots, and he snarled with curled
    lip as he tore at them. He shone white in the moonshine, but was
    sheltered from the sea by the ledge behind which he crouched. “What
    did Gloom Achanna mean by that?” he muttered savagely, as he heard
    the nearing air change into the “Dance of the Dead.” For a moment
    Mànus was a man again. He was nigh upon turning to face his foe,
    corpse or wraith or living body; to spring at this thing which
    followed him, and tear it with hands and teeth. Then, once more, the
    hated “Song of the Seals” stole mockingly through the night.

    With a shiver he slipped into the dark water. Then with quick,
    powerful strokes he was in the moon-flood, and swimming hard against
    it out by the leeside of the reef.

    So intent were the seals upon the fight of the two great bulls that
    they did not see the swimmer, or if they did, took him for one of
    their own people. A savage snarling and barking and half-human
    crying came from them. Mànus was almost within reach of the nearest,
    when one of the combatants sank dead, with torn throat. The victor
    clambered on the reef, and leaned high, swaying its great head and
    shoulders to and fro. In the moonlight its white fangs were like red
    coral. Its blinded eyes ran with gore.

    There was a rush, a rapid leaping and swirling, as Mànus surged in
    among the seals, which were swimming round the place where the slain
    bull had sunk.

    The laughter of this long, white seal terrified them.

    When his knees struck against a rock, MacCodrum groped with his
    arms, and hauled himself out of the water.

    From rock to rock and ledge to ledge he went, with a fantastic,
    dancing motion, his body gleaming foam-white in the moonshine.

    As he pranced and trampled along the weedy ledges, he sang snatches
    of an old rune—the lost rune of the MacCodrums of Uist. The seals on
    the rocks crouched spell-bound; those slow-swimming in the water
    stared with brown unwinking eyes, with their small ears strained
    against the sound:

          It is I, Mànus MacCodrum,
          I am telling you that, you, Anndra of my blood,
          And you, Neil my grandfather, and you, and you, and you!
          Ay, ay, Mànus my name is, Mànus MacMànus!
          It is I myself, and no other.
          Your brother, O Seals of the Sea!
          Give me blood of the red fish,
          And a bite of the flying _sgadan_:
          The green wave on my belly,
          And the foam in my eyes!
          I am your bull-brother, O Bulls of the Sea,
          Bull—better than any of you, snarling bulls!
          Come to me, mate, seal of the soft, furry womb,
          White am I still, though red shall I be,
          Red with the streaming red blood if any dispute me!
          Aoh, aoh, aoh, arò, arò, ho-rò!
          A man was I, a seal am I,
          My fangs churn the yellow foam from my lips:
          Give way to me, give way to me, Seals of the Sea;
          Give way, for I am fëy of the sea
          And the sea-maiden I see there,
          And my name, true, is Mànus MacCodrum,
          The bull-seal that was a man, Arà! Arà!

    By this time he was close upon the great black seal, which was still
    monotonously swaying its gory head, with its sightless eyes rolling
    this way and that. The sea-folk seemed fascinated. None moved, even
    when the dancer in the moonshine trampled upon them.

    When he came within arm-reach he stopped.

    “Are you the Ceann-Cinnidh?” he cried.

    “Are you the head of this clan of the sea-folk?”

    The huge beast ceased its swaying. Its curled lips moved from its
    fangs.

    “Speak, Seal, if there’s no curse upon you! Maybe, now, you’ll be
    Anndra himself, the brother of my father! Speak! _H’st—are you
    hearing that music on the shore?_ ’Tis the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’! Death o’
    my soul, it’s the ‘Dàn-nan-Ròn’!

    “Aha, ’tis Gloom Achanna out of the Grave. Back, beast, and let me
    move on!”

    With that, seeing the great bull did not move, he struck it full in
    the face with clenched fist. There was a hoarse, strangling roar,
    and the seal champion was upon him with lacerating fangs.

    Mànus swayed this way and that. All he could hear now was the
    snarling and growling and choking cries of the maddened seals. As he
    fell, they closed in upon him. His screams wheeled through the night
    like mad birds. With desperate fury he struggled to free himself.
    The great bull pinned him to the rock; a dozen others tore at his
    white flesh, till his spouting blood made the rocks scarlet in the
    white shine of the moon.

    For a few seconds he still fought savagely, tearing with teeth and
    hands. Once, a red irrecognisable mass, he staggered to his knees. A
    wild cry burst from his lips, when from the shore-end of the reef
    came loud and clear the lilt of the rune of his fate.

    The next moment he was dragged down and swept from the reef into the
    sea. As the torn and mangled body disappeared from sight, it was
    amid a seething crowd of leaping and struggling seals, their eyes
    wild with affright and fury, their fangs red with human gore.

    And Gloom Achanna, turning upon the reef, moved swiftly inland,
    playing low on his feadan, as he went.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                            CRITICAL COMMENT


                  THE ADVENTURES OF SIMON AND SUSANNA
                        By JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS


    NO one knows when story telling began. It is as old as the human
    race. It goes beyond history into the unknown darkness of the past.
    Some of the stories we still read originated far back in primitive
    life. Such stories, that have been told for many years, and are
    common to the race, we call “Folk-Lore” stories.

    Every Folk-Lore story probably began in the simplest form. Something
    happened,—and someone tried to tell about the event. If the story
    was interesting enough to repeat, it gradually became exaggerated.
    Thus the germ of _The Adventures of Simon and Susanna_ is the
    common-enough story of a successful elopement in which the
    cleverness of the young people,—of the girl in particular,—eluded
    the pursuing father. Their means of making their escape must have
    been quite ordinary, but when the story was told again and again,—if
    this really is a Folk-Lore story, the cleverness was exaggerated and
    gradually turned into magic.

    In reading this story we come into close touch with the origin of
    all story telling. We see one man, a common, ignorant man, telling a
    story to an interested listener, and undoubtedly “putting in a few
    extra touches” to make the story more wonderful. The primitive
    stories must always have been presented orally, and at first to few
    listeners. Then came the days of story tellers for the crowd, and
    finally the written story.

    The author of _The Adventures of Simon and Susanna_, Joel Chandler
    Harris, retold many folk-lore stories. He was born in Georgia in
    1848, and died there in 1908. He devoted all his mature life to
    journalism and literature. His many books about Uncle Remus
    presented that person so clearly that the good-natured negro story
    teller has almost ceased to be merely a book-character, and has
    become a living reality.

    Every story that Mr. Harris wrote has plot interest, but it also has
    pith and wisdom.


                             THE CROW-CHILD
                          By MARY MAPES DODGE

    The ordinary “Fairy Story” is a developed form of the “Folk-Lore”
    story. Instead of having the roughness, and naïve simplicity
    characteristic of primitive ways of story telling it has polish, and
    definite literary or moral purpose. It is not a mere wonder story
    told in the first person by some definite individual, and made by
    the exaggeration of an actual event. It is a written rather than a
    spoken story, based, in the remote past, on some actual event, but
    now told in the third person, and directed strongly to an artistic,
    literary purpose,—frequently to a moral purpose. In every way the
    best type of “Fairy Story” is a distinct advance towards developed
    story telling.

    _The Crow Child_ is not an actual “Fairy Story,” but it illustrates
    remarkably well the way in which “Fairy Stories” developed. Every
    event in _The Crow Child_ is strictly true, but much of the story
    appears to be based on magic. A true story of this sort, told in
    primitive times, and retold again and again, with new emphasis
    placed on the elements of wonder, would have developed into a pure
    story of wonder,—a “Fairy Story.”

    The author of this original, and modern, “Fairy Story,” Mary Mapes
    Dodge, was born in New York in 1838. For many years she was the
    efficient editor of _St. Nicholas_, a young people’s magazine of the
    highest type. In addition to her editorial work she wrote many books
    for young people, the most famous being _Hans Brinker, or the Silver
    Skates_. She died in 1905.


                       THE SOUL OF THE GREAT BELL
                           By LAFCADIO HEARN

    Very often the earliest stories are not crude accounts of ordinary
    events, exaggerated enough to be worthy of note. They are poetic
    narratives founded on matters of deep significance in the life of a
    people. All primitive people are poetic, because they see the world
    through the eyes of emotion rather than of scientific understanding.
    They also have an instinctive recognition of fundamental nobility.
    Therefore we have such stories as the legends of Hiawatha, in which
    an ideal man is presented, bringing benefit to his kind. Any story
    that is handed down from generation to generation, and that presents
    as facts matters that have no other verification, is legendary. The
    highest type of legendary story is one that presents high ideals.

    The Chinese, whose literature is exceedingly ancient, have always
    been an idealistic people. It is not surprising that they should
    create such an appealing legendary tale as _The Soul of the Great
    Bell_. Although the elements are quite simple the story has been
    turned from being a simple account of tragic self-sacrifice, and has
    become an explanation of the music of the bell, as well as an
    example of filial devotion. The preservation of such stories shows
    natural appreciation of short story values.

    The present rendering of _The Soul of the Great Bell_ undoubtedly
    far surpasses the Chinese version. The story has been appropriately
    introduced, amplified and given added poetic and dramatic effect by
    careful choice of words, descriptive passages, suspense,
    onomatopœia, and climax.

    Lafcadio Hearn was born in 1850, of Irish and Greek parentage, in
    Leucadia, of the Greek Ionian Islands. At 19 he came to America and
    engaged in newspaper work, living at various times in New Orleans
    and in New York. From 1891 until his death in 1904 he made his home
    in Japan, where he became a Buddhist and a naturalized Japanese
    citizen under the name of Yakumo Koizumi. He learned to know the
    oriental peoples as few others have known them. His literary work is
    marked by poetic treatment, and an atmosphere of the Orient. He
    wrote _Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan_, _Out of the East_, _Some
    Chinese Ghosts_, and many other books on oriental subjects.


    =Ta-chung sz’.= Temple of the Bell. A building in Pekin, holding the
      bell that is the subject of the story. The bell was made in the
      reign of Yong-lo, about 1406 A. D. It weighs over 120,000 pounds,
      and is the largest bell known to be in actual use.

    =Kwang-chan-fu.= The Broad City. Canton.


                             THE TEN TRAILS
                        By ERNEST THOMPSON SETON

    The fable and the proverb are much alike in that both are highly
    condensed, and both are told to instruct. The short, direct, applied
    narratives known as “Fables” are among the oldest ancestors of the
    short story. Even in the most ancient times there were fables, those
    of Æsop having been told perhaps as early as the sixth century, B.C.
    Many familiar fables have animals for their characters, their known
    characteristics needing no comment. Thus the fox and the wolf appear
    frequently, their mere names suggesting traits of character. The
    fable, as a type of wisdom literature, is always short, simple, and
    emphatic. It always emphasizes marked human characteristics, and
    usually ends with a “moral” that adds to the emphasis. The influence
    of the fable helped to make the story short, condensed, vivid,
    pointed, and based on character.

    _The Ten Trails_ is a modern imitation of older fables. Its
    directness, simplicity, clear story, and appended moral are
    characteristic of the type.

    Ernest Thompson Seton, born in England in 1860, has written many
    stories in which he presents animal life with appealing sympathy. He
    has devoted himself particularly to cultivating a love for outdoors
    life, and for animate nature. _Wild Animals I Have Known_, _The
    Biography of a Grizzly_, and similar books, are full of original
    interest.


                    WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO
                          By COUNT LEO TOLSTOI

    An allegory is a story that has an underlying meaning or moral. It
    is in some ways an expanded fable, with the meaning understood
    rather than presented. The chief difference between the “Fable” and
    the “Allegory” lies in length and complexity of treatment, and in
    the way of presenting the underlying meaning. The “Fable” is short
    and usually appends the moral. The “Allegory” is usually long, and
    tells the story in such a way that the reader is sure to grasp the
    meaning without further comment. The purpose, as in the “Fable,” is
    double,—to tell a story, and to teach a truth. All literatures have
    numerous allegories, Spenser’s _Faerie Queene_, Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s
    Progress_, and Tennyson’s _Idylls of the King_ being notable
    examples in English literature.

    _Where Love Is, There God Is Also_ is an allegorical story of a
    pleasing type that is often found in our present-day literature. The
    story has such evident good humor, appreciation of the needs of
    humble life, and such an unselfish spirit of sympathy that it
    appeals to any reader. Its strong realism, effective plan, and
    clear, emphatic presentation make the story one of the best of its
    kind.

    Count Leo Tolstoi, born at Yasnaya Polyana, in Russia, in 1828, and
    dying at Astapovo in 1910, is one of the greatest and most
    interesting figures in all modern literature. The story of his
    career, with its surprising changes from the life of a nobleman to
    that of a peasant, from a life given over to pleasure to a life
    devoted to the moral uplift of a whole people, is even more
    astonishing than any of the stories he told in his many works of
    fiction. Student, soldier, traveler, lover of social life,
    philosopher, reformer, and self-sacrificing idealist, he developed a
    personality unique in the extreme, and became a world-wide influence
    for good. His best known novels are _War and Peace_, and _Anna
    Karenina_. In them, as in all that he wrote, the notable qualities
    are realism, dramatic force, original thought, and courageous
    expression of beliefs.


    =Grivenki.= A grivenka is 10 copecks, or about five cents.


                              WOOD-LADIES
                           By PERCEVAL GIBBON

    There is a strange fascination about the supernatural, for men of
    all races instinctively believe that they are surrounded by a world
    of good and evil that lies just beyond their touch. Some have
    thought the woods and mountains peopled with unseen divinities;
    others have believed in strange gnomes and dwarfs who are thought to
    live in the depths of the earth; some have believed in pale ghosts,
    specters that move by night, haunting the scenes of unattoned crime.
    One of the most pleasing beliefs is that in fairies, or “Little
    Folk,”—unseen, beautiful, and usually beneficent beings who live in
    woodland places and are endowed with all powers of magic.

    Stories of the unseen world that may lie about us have appeared in
    all ages. Sometimes such stories have been beautiful and fanciful,
    and sometimes filled with the spirit of fear. In the latter part of
    the eighteenth century and the first of the nineteenth it became
    quite the fashion to tell stories of ghosts and strange terrors.
    Ernst Hoffmann and Ludwig Tieck in Germany set an example that was
    followed by Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan
    Poe in this country, as well as by many other writers since their
    time.

    There is another and more healthful attitude of mind. Instead of the
    horror of Gothic romance it presents the fancy of Celtic thought. In
    stories of this gentler type one does not feel that the unseen world
    is wholly to be feared.

    Such a story is _Wood-Ladies_, in which the spirit of Celtic fancy
    has found full play. In this story everything is woodsy, delicate,
    half-seen, as though one were treading the very edges of fairyland
    without knowing it. Mother-love fills the whole story and gives it a
    noble beauty. And yet, in a certain sense, the child, conscious of
    another world, is wiser than the mother. A story of this sort,
    dealing with the supernatural, rests the mind like sweet music.

    Perceval Gibbon was born in Carmarthenshire in South Wales, in 1870.
    He has spent much time in the merchant service on British, French,
    and American vessels. He has done unusual work as war correspondent.
    Among his literary works are _Souls in Bondage_, _The Adventures of
    Miss Gregory_, _The Second Class Passenger_, and a collection of
    Poems. His work is marked by originality, and a clever mastery of
    technique.


                           ON THE FEVER SHIP
                        By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS

    Love is so essential a part of life that it must also be a part of
    literature; therefore romantic love has been a leading literary
    theme for centuries. Some of the world’s greatest stories of love
    flash into our minds when we repeat the names of Juliet, Rosalind,
    Portia, Elaine, and Evangeline. Such stories suggest depth of
    emotion, charm, womanly worth, pure and innocent love, or a love
    that lasts beyond the years. In the days of chivalry the knight bore
    his lady’s token, and fought in her honor. to-day men love just as
    deeply, and fight for land and hearth and sweetheart just as truly
    as men did in the long ago.

    _On the Fever Ship_ is the story of a modern knight,—a soldier who
    went into his country’s war, bearing in his heart the memory of one
    he loved. When he is wounded, and lies fever-stricken on the deck of
    a transport, he does not think at all of himself but only of the one
    who is far away. That is the story, an abiding love in absence, with
    dreams at last made true.

    The author makes the story notably strong and tender. Without formal
    introduction he presents the realistic picture of the fever
    ship,—the inexplicable monotony, the dream-world, the child-likeness
    of the wounded man’s life. Old scenes and faces come before the
    wounded soldier in tantalizing dreams. Little by little the author
    draws us closer into sympathy with the central figure. He makes us
    share in the man’s intensity of feeling. We feel the force of the
    strong episode of the somewhat unfeeling nurse, and become indignant
    in the man’s behalf. Finally, lifted by the power of the story, we
    rise with it into full comprehension of the depth of the hero’s
    love. Then, quickly and with artistic effect, the story comes to an
    end. Simply, surely, strongly, with real sentiment instead of
    sentimentality, it has made us realize the all-powerful force of
    love.

    The story is written with much sympathy and evident tenderness of
    spirit, and is so touched with real pathos, that it comes to us as a
    transcription of some real story the author had found in his work as
    war correspondent.

    Richard Harding Davis was one of the most romantic figures in recent
    literary life. As war correspondent he saw fighting in the
    Spanish-American War, the Boer War, the Japanese-Russian War, and
    the Great War. He traveled in all parts of Europe, in Central and in
    South America, and in the little-visited districts of the Congo in
    Africa. He saw the magnificent coronation ceremonies of the King of
    Spain, the King of England, and the Czar of Russia. He attended
    gorgeous state occasions in various lands. He also lived the hard
    field and camp life of a soldier and an explorer.

    He wrote a number of extraordinarily good short stories, several
    stirring novels,—among which are _The King’s Jackal_, _Ransom’s
    Folly_, _The White Mice_, and _The Princess Aline_,—several plays,
    and a number of works of travel and war correspondence.

    Richard Harding Davis was born in Philadelphia in 1864, and died in
    New York in 1916.


    =San Juan.= A fortified hill position in Cuba, near Santiago de
      Cuba, captured in the Spanish-American War by the United States
      soldiers July 1, 1898.

    =Maitre d’hotel.= Chief attendant—head-waiter.

    =Embankment.= The Thames Embankment, a noted part of London.

    =Chasseur.= Footman.

    =Numero cinq, sur la terrace, un couvert.= Number five, on the
      terrace, one place.

    =Baiquiri.= A landing place in Cuba near Santiago de Cuba. The
      United States soldiers landed here, June 21-23, 1898.

    =Tampa.= A seaport in Florida.


                         A SOURCE OF IRRITATION
                           By STACY AUMONIER

    An interesting type of story shows an ordinary person in an
    extraordinary situation. In _Robinson Crusoe_, for example, an
    ordinary Englishman is left alone on an uninhabited island; in
    Stockton’s _The Casting Away of Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine_ two
    good old New England women with little worldly experience are
    wrecked on a mysterious island in the Pacific; in Howard Pyle’s _The
    Ruby of Kishmore_ a peace-loving Philadelphia Quaker is suddenly
    involved in a series of bloody encounters in the West Indies. Such
    stories always arouse interest or develop humor by the astonishing
    contrast between setting and characters, and they always emphasize
    character by showing how it acts in unusual circumstances. Thus
    _Robinson Crusoe_ at once attracts our interest and awakens
    admiration for the hero.

    _A Source of Irritation_ is especially clever in every way. There
    could be no greater contrast than that between old Sam Gates’ usual
    hum-drum, eventless life, and the sudden transfer to an aeroplane, a
    foreign land, the trenches, battle, and the search for a spy. Very
    rarely, too, is a character presented so emphatically as this
    69-year-old gardener, with his irritable moods, his insistence on
    the habits of a life-time, his stolidity, and his real manliness.
    Equally rare is a story told so effectively, with just the proper
    combination of realism and romance, with quick touches of comedy and
    of tragedy, with a closeness to life that is indisputable, and a
    romance that is unusual. In its every part the story is a
    masterpiece of construction.

    Stacy Aumonier is an Englishman of Huguenot descent.

    =Swede.= A Swedish turnip.

    =Shag.= A fine-cut tobacco.

    “=Mare vudish.=” Merkwürdig, remarkable.

    =A fearful noise.= The English made an attack on the German
      aeroplane.

    =Uglaublich.= Incredible.

    =A foreign country.= Evidently Flanders.

    =Boche.= German.

    =G.H.Q.= General Head Quarters.

    =Norfolk.= One of the eastern counties of England, bordering on the
      North Sea.


                           MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER
                           By RUDYARD KIPLING

    One of the pleasures of life is to travel and see the world. If we
    are unable to travel far in reality we may at least see much of
    strange lands through short stories of distant places and ways of
    life different from the ordinary.

    _Moti Guj—Mutineer_ is a story of life in India, of elephants and
    mahouts and strange events. It has all the atmosphere of India,
    given by half-humorous realistic touches that transport us from the
    land of everyday. It is a story of animal life, told with an
    intimate knowledge that shows close familiarity with “elephanthood.”
    Beyond that, it has what every story must have,—close relation to
    human character as we see it in any land at any time. Even the
    elephant is made to act and to think as if he were a human being.
    The humorous style, and the quickness with which the story is told,
    as well as the vivid pictures it gives, are typical of its author’s
    work.

    Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India, in 1865. After education
    in England he became a sub-editor of a paper published in Lahore,
    India, where he lived for some years, becoming intimate with all the
    life of the land. He has lived at various times in India, the United
    States, South Africa, and England. He has written a great number of
    astonishingly clever stories, poems, and novels, all in quick,
    vigorous style, with freedom from restraint, with rough realism, and
    with genuine humor and pathos. Among his most notable books are:
    _Plain Tales from the Hills_, _The Jungle Book_, _Captains
    Courageous_, _The Day’s Work_, and _Puck of Pook’s Hill_.


    =Arrack.= A fermented drink.

    =Coir-swab.= A mop made from cocoanut fiber.


                           GULLIVER THE GREAT
                           By WALTER A. DYER

    There is a wonderfully close sympathy between man and the animal
    world,—a sympathy that is especially strong in the case of either
    the horse or the dog, animals that are the close associates of man.
    Ancient literature,—_The Bible_ and _The Odyssey_,—tell of the
    faithfulness of the dog, man’s friend and protector. In recent times
    writers have turned to the whole world of nature for subjects,—the
    stag, the grizzly bear, the wolf, and other animals, but stories of
    dogs still awaken interest and sympathy, and will continue to do so
    as long as the faithfulness of dogs endures,—which is forever.

    _Gulliver the Great_ is told in an interestingly suggestive manner,
    every part of the story being rich with hints on which our
    imaginations build. The pleasant calm of the setting adds much to
    the effect. The man’s character is emphasized from the start, making
    the story he tells have full meaning. The story is dramatic, but its
    power rests far more on sympathy than on events. The art of the
    story is in the clever way in which the almost human soul of the dog
    is revealed, acting upon the soul of the man.

    Walter A. Dyer was born in Massachusetts in 1878. Since his
    graduation from Amherst College in 1900 he has been engaged in
    editorial and other literary work. His natural fondness for dogs has
    led to such books as _Pierrot: Dog of Belgium_, and _Gulliver the
    Great_.


    =Early Victorian comforts.= The comforts characteristic of the first
      part of the reign of Queen Victoria of England, before city life
      and commercial life were highly developed.

    =Mr. Pickwick.= The humorous hero of Charles Dickens’ famous novel,
      _Pickwick Papers_.

    =James G. Blaine.= An American statesman, 1830-1893. He held many
      high offices, and was once candidate for the Presidency.

    =Simplicissimus.= A humorous and satirical German periodical.

    =Brunos.= From the Latin “brunus”—brown. A name frequently given to
      dogs.

    =Moros.= The Malay inhabitants of certain islands of the
      Philippines.

    =Great Dane.= A type of dog noted for great size and graceful build.

    =Vohl’s Vulcan.= A famous dog.

    =Wurtemburg breed.= A well-known breed of dogs.

    =Mauna Loa.= A noted Hawaiian volcano nearly 14,000 feet in height.

    =Bulls of Bashan.= _The Bible_ makes frequent mention of the bulls
      of Bashan, a section of Palestine east of the valley of the
      Jordan.


                           SONNY’S SCHOOLIN’
                         By RUTH McENERY STUART

    Laughter is a legitimate part of life, especially when it clarifies
    the mind. The short story has seized upon all the elements of humor
    and made them its own, especially the anecdote. Some writers have
    used whimsical humor to give relief from sombre tales, or have told
    stories lightly and fancifully humorous, like several in this book.
    Others have written with broader effects. Every one of the many
    types of humorous story is good.—the unusual situation, the
    surprising climax, the fantastic character, the utter absurdity,—but
    every type must follow the dictates of good taste. Humor need never
    be coarse, or vulgar, or in any way aimed at personal satire. It may
    criticize, but it must do so with friendly good will.

    _Sonny’s Schoolin’_ is a series of connected anecdotes, told in
    monologue. The humor of the anecdotes lies in their absurdity—in the
    presence of Sonny every one is so helpless! Any modern teacher would
    deal with Sonny in a way that he would understand. The humor of the
    narration lies partly in the events, partly in the speaker’s naïve,
    unconscious exposition of self, and partly in the amusing dialect.
    Two qualities illuminate the story: one, the gradual presentation of
    Sonny’s really lovable nature, seen to better advantage by the
    father-and-mother-love behind it; the other, the gradual criticism
    of the older system of education, and the suggestion of a type well
    adapted to quick, active, original minds like Sonny’s.

    Ruth McEnery Stuart, a native of Louisiana, contributed to our best
    periodicals, and wrote many amusing, and wholly sympathetic, stories
    of southern life, such as _Holly and Pizen_, _Napoleon Jackson_,
    _Sonny_, and _Sonny’s Father_. She died in 1917.


                          HER FIRST HORSE SHOW
                             By DAVID GRAY

    Every side of life contributes short story material,—the deeds of
    people in strange surroundings, unusual acts of heroism in war or in
    peace, the lives of the poor, and the lives of the rich. Since men’s
    characters are independent of either wealth or poverty, the story of
    society life, when written effectively, may awaken as deep feelings
    of sympathy or brotherhood as the story of humble life. Any story is
    worthy if it broadens the understanding of life and presents its
    material in artistic form.

    On the surface _Her First Horse Show_ is a story of society life, of
    rich people who delight in the fashionable horse show, and in dining
    at the Waldorf. Fundamentally, it is a story of human understanding,
    cleverness, and daring, in which the charm of a girl, and the
    thoroughbred qualities of a horse, play leading parts. Quick,
    suggestive conversation makes the story vividly interesting, and
    clear arrangement leads effectively to the climax.

    David Gray was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1870. He has done
    editorial work on various papers, and has written a large number of
    interesting “horse stories” collected in such books as _Gallops I_,
    _Gallops II_, and _Mr. Carteret and Others_. In 1899 Mr. Gray
    entered the legal profession.


    =Doubting Thomas.= A reference to the Bible story of St. Thomas, who
      at first doubted the resurrection of Jesus. See John: 20: 25.

    “=Hands.=” Much of the skill in riding high-spirited horses depends
      upon the use of the hands in holding the reins.


                           MY HUSBAND’S BOOK
                        By JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE

    Sometimes the short story is used as an effective means of satire of
    a type resembling that employed by Addison in _The Spectator
    Papers_. Satire can be given in so few words, and in the very speech
    and actions of the persons satirized, that it is well adapted as
    material for the short story. It should be the aim of all satirical
    short stones of the milder sort to follow Addison’s rule, and point
    out little follies rather than great wickednesses, and to aim at a
    thousand people rather than at one.

    _My Husband’s Book_ is an admirable example of ideal satire of the
    lighter type. The husband is typical—of whom?—of every one who puts
    off until tomorrow what he should do to-day. The wife is presented
    whimsically as altogether adoring, but as somewhat persistently and
    mischievously suspicious. At no time does the husband become aware
    of his real defect of character, nor the wife lose all her loving
    faith. Kindly satire like this is playful in nature, the sort to be
    expected from the author of _Peter Pan_. We laugh good-naturedly at
    the husband—and see ourselves in him!

    Sir James Matthew Barrie was born in Kirriemuir, Scotland, in 1860.
    His delightfully romantic _Auld Licht Idylls_, _A Window in Thrums_,
    and especially _The Little Minister_, made him known to all the
    English-speaking world. His remarkably original and fanciful plays,
    _Quality Street_, _Peter Pan_, _What Every Woman Knows_, and
    numerous other dramatic works have added to his already great
    reputation. He is one of the leading English writers of the present
    time.


                                  WAR
                             By JACK LONDON

    The short story often rises beyond the light and the commonplace to
    act as a stern critic of world conditions. With vivid, realistic
    touches it points at reality. By focussing every light upon a single
    human figure who compellingly commands sympathy it arouses in us a
    sense of kinship with all who suffer. Short stories of this type
    have teaching force that is all powerful.

    _War_ is such a story. Although little more than a vivid sketch it
    presents the brutality of war in all its horror,—not by picturing
    the slaughter of thousands, but by showing a boy,—shrinking, eager
    to perform his full duty, loving life, fearing death, stopping to
    gather apples in a boyish way,—a boy whose instinctive and noble
    hesitation to kill rebounds on himself, as if in irony, and causes
    his own death. In a certain sense, the boy with his kindly manhood
    and generous motives represents the American spirit. The opposite
    type of spirit, the love of war for war’s sake, brutality for the
    sake of brutality, is shown in the boy’s enemies,—harsh foreigners
    who hang men to trees, who shoot at the boy as at a target, and
    laugh at his death. The story individualizes war, and thereby gives
    emphasis to its horror. Such a story demands on the part of the
    author a heartfelt interest in his theme, an intense love of life,
    and the ability to write in realistic style.

    Jack London was deeply interested in the world of men. Far from
    being a recluse, he lived an active life with his fellows. He left
    his college class in order to go with other adventurers into the
    Klondike; he went to Japan, and seal hunting in the Behring Sea as a
    sailor before the mast; he tramped about the country; he traveled as
    a war correspondent, and went on an adventurous voyage into the
    South Seas in a 55-foot yacht. He wrote a great number of books, all
    of which show a quick understanding of the needs of humanity. Some
    of his works are thoughtful studies of social conditions. His best
    known books are: _The Call of the Wild_, _The Sea Wolf_, and _The
    Mutiny of the Elsinore_. He was born in San Francisco in 1876, and
    died in 1916.


                       THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS
                          By MORGAN ROBERTSON

    In this day when science plays so great a part in life it is only
    natural that many stories should be based on scientific knowledge.
    Since such stories must almost always more or less distort
    scientific truth in order to make the facts have story-interest they
    are usually called “pseudo-scientific,” that is, falsely scientific.

    Edgar Allan Poe, who did so much for the short story, was one of the
    first to write pseudo-scientific stories, his _Descent into the
    Maelström_, and _A Tale of the Ragged Mountains_ being good examples
    of his peculiar power.

    _The Battle of the Monsters_ is a wonderfully clever
    pseudo-scientific story. In it we enter the minute world of the
    microscope, every character being infinitesimally small.

    The story tells how a microbe of Asiatic cholera enters the veins of
    John Anderson at the same moment when he is bitten by a rabid dog.
    The “white, corrugated wall” is the dog’s tooth; the army of
    dog-faced creatures is composed of the microbes of rabies, or
    hydrophobia. The vibrant roar heard from time to time, is the beat
    of the man’s heart. In the veins the cholera microbe finds the red
    corpuscles and other cells and microbes that exist in the blood, and
    also the white corpuscles that, according to Metschnikoff, act as
    destroyers of the microbes of disease. We go with the cholera
    microbe through the series of blood vessels into the heart and
    thence back into the arteries and veins, all the time seeing the
    struggle between the beneficent white corpuscles and the deadly
    microbes of rabies. We see the desperate efforts to keep the
    microbes of rabies from entering the cells and finding their way to
    the brain. As the microbes of rabies reproduce they begin to win the
    battle. The cholera microbe, himself fighting the hosts of rabies,
    is about to be overcome, when the physician’s injection of antitoxin
    brings a new army to fight the dog-faced creatures. Now that the
    danger of rabies has been overcome attention is paid to the hero of
    the story, who declares himself to be the microbe of Asiatic
    cholera. At once the police guardians of the blood, the white
    corpuscles, close on him and destroy him. Thus John Anderson escapes
    all danger from rabies and from cholera, to both of which he had
    been exposed. The battle, if microscopic, had been real, had been on
    a grand scale, and had been of tremendous importance.

    The pseudo-scientific story could have no better illustration. Every
    detail is clear, vivid with action, and tense with interest. There
    is no turning aside to give scientific information—nothing that is
    dry-as-dust. The microbes and corpuscles, without losing their
    essential characteristics, speak and act in ways that we can
    understand. That is why the story is so successful. It is a human
    story, based upon human interest. Familiar language, familiar ways
    of thought, events that we can understand, convey to us information
    on a learned scientific subject—the work of the white blood
    corpuscles.

    Morgan Robertson, 1861-1915, was born in Oswego, N. Y. From 1877 to
    1886 he lived the life of a sailor at sea. Gifted with natural
    literary ability he turned to writing, and wrote a number of
    distinctly original stories, most of them about the sea, such as
    _Spun Yarn_, _Masters of Men_, _Shipmates_, and _Down to the Sea_.


    =Metschnikoff’s theory.= The great Russian physiologist, Iliya
      Metschnikoff, 1845-1916, taught that the white blood corpuscles
      act as destroyers of disease microbes.

    =The wounds of Milton’s warring angels.= In Milton’s _Paradise Lost_
      the angels, wounded in the war in heaven, at once recovered.

    =Darwin.= Charles Darwin, 1809-1882. The great English naturalist,
      founder of the “Darwinian Theory” of evolution from lower forms.

    =Pasteur.= Louis Pasteur, 1822-1895. The great French microscopist,
      and student of hydrophobia. He was the first to inoculate for
      hydrophobia.

    =Koch.= Robert Koch, 1843-1910. A great German physician who
      discovered the bacilli of tuberculosis and of cholera.


                               A DILEMMA
                          By S. WEIR MITCHELL

    A popular type of story leaves the reader, at the conclusion, to
    choose one of two endings, either of which is open to objections.
    Such a story sets the reader’s mind at work, leads him to review
    every part of the story, and leaves a peculiarly lasting impression
    of construction and emphasis. In stories of this sort there is
    careful exclusion of everything that does not tend to lead to, or to
    increase, the difficulty.

    _A Dilemma_ makes complete preparation for the final puzzle by
    giving all the necessary facts, and all the motives for possible
    action, or non-action. When the reader reviews all that has been
    said, and sees how cleverly the story is constructed, he finds that
    the difficulty of solution appears even greater than at first.

    Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, 1829-1914, was born in Philadelphia, and there
    spent most of his life. As a physician he wrote many medical books,
    and became one of the most distinguished neurologists in the world.
    His unusual ability led to his becoming member of many learned
    scientific societies in this country and in Europe. In spite of his
    active medical work he found time for much writing of a purely
    literary nature. Such books as _Hugh Wynne_, _The Adventures of
    François_, and _Dr. North and His Friends_, are distinctly original
    American contributions, and made their author unusually popular.


    =Empress-Queen Maria Theresa=. Maria Theresa, 1717-1780. Archduchess
      of Austria, Queen of Hungary, and wife of Emperor Francis I of
      Austria. One of the most interesting and notable women in history.


                         THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE
                           By A. CONAN DOYLE

    Edgar Allan Poe was the first author to succeed in the “detective
    story.” His _Murders in the Rue Morgue_, _The Mystery of Marie
    Roget_, and _The Purloined Letter_ are among the first stories of
    their type. Since Poe’s time there have been all sorts of detective
    stories,—good, bad, and indifferent,—from cheap penny-dreadfuls to
    elaborate novels. Poe’s method has been followed in nearly every
    one, whether written in this country, or abroad, as by Sir Arthur
    Conan Doyle in England, Émile Gaboriau in France, or Anton Chekhov
    in Russia.

    Of all the thousands who have tried their hands in writing detective
    stories Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has won the most pleasing success.
    His Sherlock Holmes is a world-known character.

    The _Red-Headed League_ is an admirable example of the author’s
    method. The story is told by the hero’s friend, Dr. Watson, allowing
    opportunity for close appearance of reality, and for unstinted
    praise. The problem is introduced at first hand, apparently with
    every detail. To a certain degree we are allowed to enter the series
    of deductive reasonings pursued by Sherlock Holmes. We are given a
    brilliant series of events, and then the final solution. Occasional
    hints at other work performed by Sherlock Holmes tend to awaken
    further interest. There is such closeness to life, realistic
    character drawing, good humor, and natural conversation, that the
    story,—like all the four books of the Sherlock Holmes series,—is
    most attractive.

    Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh in 1859. Both his
    father and grandfather achieved fame as artists. Sir Arthur began
    life as a physician and surgeon, but soon found his real work in
    letters. He has written a number of our best historical novels, _The
    White Company_, _Micah Clarke_, _The Refugees_, _Sir Nigel_, etc.,
    and four books of stories about Sherlock Holmes, as well as much
    other work both in prose and in verse.


    =Omne ignotum pro magnifico.= Whatever is unknown is thought to be
      magnificent.

    =Sarasate.= A famous Spanish violinist, 1844—.

    =Partie carrée.= A party of four.

    “=L’homme c’est rien—l’œuvre c’est tout.=“ The man is nothing—the
      work is everything.

    =Gustave Flaubert.= 1821-1880. One of the greatest French novelists.

    =George Sand.= The pseudonym of the Baroness Dudevant, 1804-1876, a
      great French novelist and playwright.


                        ONE HUNDRED IN THE DARK
                            By OWEN JOHNSON

    In _One Hundred in the Dark_ Owen Johnson makes one of the
    characters say that the peculiar fascination of the detective story
    lies more in the statement of the problem than in the solution. “The
    solution doesn’t count. It is usually banal; it should be
    prohibited. What interests us is, can we guess it?”

    _One Hundred in the Dark_ illustrates that type of detective story
    that presents a problem but gives no solution. Giving all the
    information that one could be expected to have, it presents a
    problem with several different solutions possible. At the end of the
    story the problem is left unsolved—the reader is “in the dark,” but,
    because his mind has been awakened, he is fascinated. The author has
    gone further than usual, for he gives the story as if told in a club
    at the conclusion of a conversation in which several persons have
    taken part. The story is followed by further conversation that
    suggests a second problem—what did the members of the club think of
    the person who told the story? The result is that the author has
    cleverly established a definite setting, has aroused interest in the
    type of story to be told, and has emphasized the problem by giving
    it a new interest in the light of the question: What part did the
    members of the club think Peters played in the story that he himself
    told?

    Owen Johnson was born in New York in 1878. He turned his college
    life at Yale into literary account in his interesting novel, _Stover
    at Yale_. He is the author of numerous short stories and plays.


    =Bon mots.= Bright sayings.

    =De Maupassant.= Guy de Maupassant, 1850-1893. A celebrated French
      novelist and poet. In _Fort comme la Mort_ (Strong as Death) he
      tells of the life of fashionable society.

    =The Faust theme.= A reference to the great tragedy of _Faust_ by
      the German poet, Goethe, 1749-1832. Faust personifies humanity
      with all its longings.

    =The Three Musketeers, etc.= _The Three Musketeers_, by Alexander
      Dumas, père, 1803-1870; _Trilby_, by George du Maurier, 1834-1896,
      and _Soldiers Three_, by Rudyard Kipling, 1865-, all tell stories
      of the close comradeship of three men.

    =Vie de Bohème.= _Scènes de la vie de Bohème_ by Henri Murger. The
      opera _La Bohème_ is based upon this book.

    =Bluebeard and The Moonstone.= In the stories of _Bluebeard_, and
      _The Moonstone_, a famous mystery story by Wilkie Collins,
      1824-1889, curiosity plays a leading part.

    =Watteaulike.= A reference to the conventional pictures of
      shepherdesses by Jean Antoine Watteau, a celebrated French
      painter, 1684-1721.

    =Fines herbes.= Vegetable greens.

    =En maître.= As master.


                        A RETRIEVED REFORMATION
                              By O. HENRY

    The story of self-sacrifice has appealed to people in all times,
    whether it appears in history,—as in the partly legendary story of
    Arnold von Winkelried, who gathered the Austrian spears against his
    breast in order that his comrades might make a way through the ranks
    of the enemy,—or in fiction, as in Dickens’ _A Tale of Two Cities_.
    Such a story is particularly fascinating, when, as in the story of
    Sidney Carton, it combines the idea of self-sacrifice with that of
    fundamental change in character.

    In _A Retrieved Reformation_ O. Henry has told, in a convincingly
    brilliant way, how a man—always really good at heart,—even when set
    in evil ways—was led through love to develop his better self. The
    greatness of Jimmy Valentine’s soul is made clear by his instant
    willingness to sacrifice every hope he had,—to lay everything on the
    altar of love and manliness.

    The quick, realistic, kindly-humorous characterizations, the clear,
    logical arrangement of opposing forces, the dramatic situation at
    the climax, and the instant solution,—for which every step has
    inevitably prepared,—point alike to a master hand in story telling.

    William Sidney Porter, 1867-1910,—better known by the name, “O.
    Henry,” which he chose humorously because it is so easy to write
    “O,” and because he happened to see “Henry” as a last name in a
    newspaper account,—achieved as much popularity as any short story
    writer could desire. He was born in North Carolina, and brought up
    in Texas, where he gained the little schooling that fell to his lot.
    He became a sort of rolling stone, working on various periodicals,
    living in South America, working in Texas as a drug clerk, engaging
    fully in literary work in New Orleans, and finally coming to New
    York City where he sold stories as fast as he could write them—and
    his powers of production were most astonishing. He was only 42 when
    he died, but, in spite of his wandering life, he had made himself,
    with almost careless ease, the master of the short story. He wrote
    quite untrammeled by convention or custom, using slang, coining
    words, writing in any way he pleased, but always, in reality,
    following the best principles of story telling, making his plots
    clear, convincing, and full of the unexpected humors of life. With
    it all he wrote with a spirit of gentleness and often touched real
    pathos. His favorite method was to surprise the reader by bringing
    him to a most unexpected climax.


                              BROTHER LEO
                           By PHYLLIS BOTTOME

    The world is so full of selfishness, and resulting misery, that
    every one more or less often thinks how different life would be if
    every individual were to be ideal. Somewhere, somehow, we think,
    must be a Utopia where everything is as it should be.

    _Brother Leo_ is not a fantastic dream of some unreal place. It is a
    simply beautiful story of a monk who had known no other life than
    that in his monastic retreat on an island near Venice. There, in a
    sort of heaven on earth, in a life of extreme simplicity, the young
    man, untouched by the world, developed all that should characterize
    us in our daily lives. For one day he goes out into the city, comes
    into touch with its veneer and dishonesty, and goes back joyfully,
    without the slightest regret, into his calm retreat.

    The story, or character sketch, has no startling event. The young
    monk moves in the soft light of kindliness, a beautiful, dream-like
    figure presented to us with sufficient realism to give
    verisimilitude. How much better to show this modern, idealistic
    figure in modern surroundings than to picture some one in the
    distant past, or in the still more distant future!

    Phyllis Bottome was born in England. Her father was an American
    clergyman and her mother an English woman. She has spent most of her
    life in England, although she has lived in America, France and
    Italy. She has written many short stories, some of which have been
    collected in a volume called _The Derelict_.


    =Torcello.= An island six miles northeast of Venice.

    =Saint Francis.= Francis of Assisi, 1182-1226. The founder of the
      monastic order of Franciscans.

    =Poverelli.= Poor people.

    =Rembrandt.= 1607-1669. A great Dutch painter. Some of his
      pictures,—especially _The Night Watch_,—show wonderful light
      effects.

    =Poverino.= Poor little fellow.

    =The sin of Esau.= See the Bible story in _Genesis_ 25: 27-34. Esau
      sold his birthright in order to satisfy his hunger.

    =St. Francis’ birds.= St. Francis loved all animate and inanimate
      nature, and once preached to the birds as if they could understand
      him.

    =Per Bacco, Signore.= By Bacchus, Sir!

    =Signore Dio.= Lord God.

    =Veramente.= Truly.

    =Il Signore Dio.= The Lord God.

    =Piazzetta.= An open square near the landing place in Venice.

    =The ducal palace.= The palace of the Doges of Venice, built in the
      fifteenth century.

    =Chi lo sa?= Who knows?

    =The column of the Lion of St. Mark’s.= A column in the Piazzetta
      bearing a winged lion, the emblem of St. Mark.

    =Saint Mark’s.= One of the most famous and beautiful church
      buildings in the world, originally founded in 830. Its attractive
      Byzantine architecture and its wonderful mosaics have always given
      delight.

    =The Piazza.= The chief business and pleasure center of Venice.

    =The new Campanile.= A new tower that takes the place of the fallen
      Campanile begun in the ninth century.

    =Frari.= A great Venetian church built for the Franciscan Friars,
      1250-1350.

    =Titian.= 1477-1576. The most famous of all Venetian painters. One
      of the greatest artists the world has known.

    =Bellinis.= Pictures by Giovanni Bellini, 1427(?)-1516, a great
      Venetian painter, and the instructor of Titian.

    =Andiamo.= Let us go.

    =Palazzo Giovanelli.= A Venetian palace containing a small but
      beautiful collection of paintings.

    =Giorgiones.= Pictures by Giorgione, 1477-1511, a pupil of Bellini,
      much noted for color effects.

    =Florian’s.= A famous Venetian café, some 200 years old.

    =Speriamo.= We hope.


                           A FIGHT WITH DEATH
                            By IAN MACLAREN

    Heroism is as great in daily life as in battle. We live beside
    heroic figures perhaps not recognizing their greatness. Plain,
    simple surroundings, daily scenes, everyday people, the accustomed
    language of daily life, may all take on noble proportions.

    _A Fight with Death_ is a local color story, for it gives the
    dialect, the way of life, the character, of certain people in a
    remote part of Scotland. It is a story of noble type, presenting a
    character ideal—a country doctor fighting for the life of a humble
    patient.

    The world will always appreciate any story that finds the ideal in
    the actual; it will appreciate it all the sooner if it is written,
    as in this case, with plenty of action, vivid character drawing,
    natural, everyday language, and touches of pathos and of humor, all
    so combined that the story rises to climax, and wakens sympathy.

    _A Fight with Death_ is the third of a series of five simple,
    exquisitely pathetic stories of Scotch life, entitled _A Doctor of
    the Old School_, printed in the collection of stories called _Beside
    the Bonnie Brier Bush_, by Ian Maclaren,—the pseudonym of Rev. John
    Watson. The author was born in Manningtree, Essex, in 1850. He
    gained a large part of his education in Edinburgh University, and
    has spent many years in intimate touch with Scotch life. In addition
    to _Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush_ Dr. Watson has written a number of
    books, the most notable being _Days of Auld Lang Syne_, _The Upper
    Room_, and _The Mind of the Master_.


    =Drumsheugh’s grieve.= Drumsheugh is tenant of a large farm. The
      “grieve” is his farm manager.

    =Greet.= Cry.

    =A certain mighty power.= Death.

    =Sough.= Breathe.

    =Thraun.= Perverse.

    =Shilpit.= Weak.

    =Feckless.= Spiritless.

    =Pushioned.= Poisoned.

    =Kirny aitmeal.= Oatmeal with full kernels.

    =Buirdly.= Strong.

    =Fecht.= Fight.

    =Haflin.= A stripling,—half-grown.

    =Dour chiel.= Stubborn fellow.

    =Caller.= Fresh.

    =Oxters.= Armpits.

    =Grampians.= Mountains in central Scotland.

    =Byre.= Cow-barn.

    =Thole.= Endure,—permit.

    =Fraikin’.= Disgraceful action.

    =Glen Urtach.= A valley in the highlands.

    =Jess.= The doctor’s old horse.

    =Goon and bans.= Gown and bands,—clerical robes.


                            THE DÀN-NAN-RÒN
                            By FIONA MACLEOD

    Are there strange, mystical forces in the world that affect us in
    spite of ourselves? Or do our own actions rebound upon us and make
    life “heaven or hell” as the case may be? These questions that we
    ask when we read _Macbeth_ come to us when we read Fiona Macleod’s
    _Dàn-Nan-Ròn_.

    _The Dàn-Nan-Ròn_ is not wholly a story of mysticism built on the
    idea that the weird flute-“song o’ the seals” could so thrill one
    who, perhaps, drew his ancestry from the seals, that he would go out
    into the wild waters to live or die with his ancestral folk. The
    story suggests all that. It hints at strange descent, magic
    melodies, wraiths of the dead, and weird powers beyond man. This, no
    doubt, combined with unusual setting, frequent use of the
    little-understood Gaelic, weirdly musical verse, and romantic
    action, gives the story an unusual atmosphere of gloom and shadow.
    At heart, in plain fact, the story is psychological. A man on whose
    soul hangs the memory of a crime, maddened by grief at the death of
    a fervently loved wife, tormented in his evil hour by a deadly human
    foe who subtly, with compelling music, plays upon his superstitions,
    plunges, in the violence of his madness, into the sea. From that
    point of view the man’s own soul scourged him to his death.

    The whole combination of weird atmosphere, tragedy, grief,
    conscience, and superstition, is brought together in an artistic
    form that leads to a grimly startling catastrophe—the final mad
    fight with the seals. This is no common story of sensational event.
    It is a great human tragedy of grief and conscience, played to the
    weird music of the north as if by a Gaelic minstrel endowed with
    mystic powers.

    There is something mystic indeed in Fiona Macleod. William Sharp,
    1856-1905, the Scottish poet, editor, novelist, biographer, and
    critic, lived a successful life as man of letters. He did more, for,
    beginning in 1894, he used the name, “Fiona Macleod,” not as a
    pseudonym but as that of the actual author of the most unusual,
    brilliant, and altogether original series of poems and stories ever
    written. Not until Mr. Sharp’s death was it found that Fiona Macleod
    and William Sharp were one and the same person. The whole story is
    apparently one of dual personality. All this adds to the strange
    fascination of Fiona Macleod’s stories and poems.


    =Eilanmore.= An island west of Scotland.

    =The Outer Isles.= The Hebrides, or Western Isles, west of Scotland.

    =The Lews and North Uist.= Islands of the Hebrides.

    =Arran.= An island west of Ireland.

    =Inner Hebrides.= Islands of the Hebrides group, not far from the
      coast of Scotland.

    =Runes.= Mystical songs.

    =From the Obb of Harris to the Head of Mingulay.= From one end of
      the Hebrides to the other.

    =Orain spioradail.= Spiritual song.

    =Barra.= A southern island of the Hebrides.

    =Galloway.= The extreme southwestern coast of Scotland.

    =The Minch.= The strait between the Hebrides and Scotland.

    =Caisean-feusag.= Moustache.

    =Mo cailinn.= My girl.

    =Kye.= Cattle.

    =Berneray of Uist.= A small island north of North Uist in the
      Hebrides.

    =The Sound of Harris.= The sound between North Uist and Harris in
      the Hebrides.

    =Anna-ban.= Fair Anna.

    =Anne-à-ghraidh.= Anna, my dear.

    =Gheasan.= A charm, magic spell.

    =Geas.= Charm.

    =Sinnsear.= Ancestors.

    =Anna-nic-Gilleasbuig.= Anna, daughter of the line of Gilleasbuig.

    =Ru’ Tormaid.= A place in the Hebrides.

    =Corbies.= Ravens.

    =Bàta-beag.= Small boat.

    =Corrie.= A hollow in the side of a hill.

    =Ann-mochree.= Ann, my tantalizer.

    =The black stone of Icolmkill.= A famous stone at Icolmkill in the
      Hebrides.

    =Oisin the son of Fionn.= A character named in Gaelic legends.

    =Skye.= A large island close to the western shore of Scotland.

    =The Clyde.= The great estuary of the river Clyde, in the
      southwestern part of Scotland, one of the most important shipping
      centers of Great Britain.

    =Byre.= A cow house.

    =Loch Boisdale.= An inlet of South Uist in the Hebrides.

    =Loch Maddy.= A small inlet in the Hebrides.

    =Pictish Towre.= An ancient stone construction.

    =Ban Breac.= The Spotted Hill.

    =Maigstir.= Master.

    =Skua.= A large sea bird something like a gull.

    =Liath.= A small fish.

    =Smooring.= The fireplace.

    =Rosad.= A charm.

    =Sgadan.= Herrings.

    =Fey.= Doomed.

    =Ceann-Cinnidh.= Head of the Clan.


------------------------------------------------------------------------




                   SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS FOR CLASS USE


                  THE ADVENTURES OF SIMON AND SUSANNA


    1. What is the advantage of having the two characters,—Uncle Remus
        and the little boy?

    2. What makes the introduction effective?

    3. What advantages are gained by the little boy’s criticisms?

    4. Show how the story maintains its interest.

    5. What character distinctions are made in the story?

    6. Show how the story is made harmonious in every detail.

    7. Write a story in which you present an ignorant man of some
        familiar type telling to a neighbor an exaggerated story founded
        on a somewhat ordinary event.


                             THE CROW CHILD


    1. Show that the language of _The Crow Child_ is superior to the
        language of _The Adventures of Simon and Susanna_.

    2. What distinctly literary effects does the author produce?

    3. Make a list of the words by which the author prepares the reader
        for Ruky’s transformation.

    4. What is the purpose of the story?

    5. Make an outline that will show the principal divisions of the
        story.

    6. Show that every division of the story is necessary.

    7. Write an original story in which you transmute a real experience
        into a wonder story with a moral effect.


                       THE SOUL OF THE GREAT BELL


    1. How does the story show itself to be a legendary tale?

    2. How is the simple story given movement and force?

    3. Show how the interest is focussed on the bell rather than on the
        girl.

    4. How does the author make the various sounds of the bell effective
        in the story?

    5. Point out the poetic elements in the story.

    6. Write, in poetic form, some legend of America, “The Indian Bride
        of Niagara,” for example.


                             THE TEN TRAILS


    1. Show in what way the story is highly condensed.

    2. Expand any part of the story into the full form it might have if
        not told in the form of a fable.

    3. How might the story have been told differently if it had not
        aimed at a moral?

    4. When is it of advantage to write fables?

    5. Write an original fable, no longer than _The Ten Trails_, about
        high school students.


                    WHERE LOVE IS, THERE GOD IS ALSO


    1. Make an outline that will show the structure of the story.

    2. Why did the author have Avdeitch help more than one person?

    3. Show how the use of realistic detail helps the story.

    4. What characteristics make the story interesting?

    5. Make a list of the epigrammatic expressions that occur in the
        story. How do they add to the effect?

    6. What is the principal lesson taught by the story?

    7. Compare this story with Eliot’s _Silas Marner_, Leigh Hunt’s
        _Abou Ben Adhem_, Lowell’s _The Vision of Sir Launfal_,
        Longfellow’s _The Legend Beautiful_, and Henry Van Dyke’s _The
        Other Wise Man_.

    8. Write an allegorical story of some length, using realistic
        characters from daily life, leading to an effective climax, and
        presenting a high ideal of conduct.


                              WOOD LADIES


    1. Point out the different steps in the action.

    2. What different persons take up the search? What is the effect of
        the constant additions to the number of searchers?

    3. Why did the author have little children, five and seven years
        old, play principal parts?

    4. Trace the emotions of the mother from the beginning of the story.

    5. How did the mother, at different times, explain the child’s
        absence?

    6. Why does the author narrate nothing that is impossible?

    7. Point out passages that suggest the supernatural.

    8. Tell the story of the little girl in the “greeny sort of dress.”

    9. What is the effect of the setting? What gives occasional relief
        from the setting and thereby emphasizes it all the more?

    10. How does the style of the story add to the effect?

    11. Show in what ways the story expresses delicate fancy.

    12. What is the truth of the story?

    13. Write an original story of supernatural beings, using suggestion
        rather than statement, and avoiding harsh and horrifying events.


                           ON THE FEVER SHIP


    1. Show the steps by which the author makes us realize the soldier’s
        mental condition. His physical condition.

    2. By what means does the author present the setting? The principal
        plot elements?

    3. What previous events are indicated but not told? Why are they
        merely indicated?

    4. Trace the steps by which we are led into full sympathy with the
        love story.

    5. What means does the author take to increase the interest of the
        story as it nears the end?

    6. Characterize the different subordinate characters introduced in
        the story. Tell why every one is introduced.

    7. Show that the ending of the story is entirely appropriate. How is
        it made emphatic?

    8. Write a story in which you show the moving effect of any deep
        love, such as love for parents, brothers, sisters, or children;
        or else write a somewhat restrained story of romantic love.


                         A SOURCE OF IRRITATION


    1. What effect is given by the question: “Well, uncle, is there any
        noos?” at the beginning and at the ending of the story?

    2. Show how the character of old Sam Gates is essential in the
        story.

    3. Show how every part of the story is possible and probable.

    4. Why did the aviator take Sam Gates with him?

    5. Point out the characteristics of Sam’s captors.

    6. Show that Sam’s character and actions are consistent.

    7. Show that realism and local color give important contributions to
        the story.

    8. How is Sam unknowingly made an important person? What is the
        value of this importance as a part of the story?

    9. Why should Sam so quietly resume work on his return home?

    10. Write a story in which some person of quiet, secluded life is
        suddenly placed in an unusual setting and in unusual
        circumstances.


                           MOTI GUJ—MUTINEER


    1. Point out all that contributes to local color.

    2. Point out all that shows ultimate knowledge of elephants.

    3. Show how the author has made the work humorous.

    4. Show that the story has a definite course of action that leads to
        a climax.

    5. Show in what ways the story is highly original.

    6. Write an original story in which you use local color as a
        background for a story of animal life. You may write about a
        horse, or cat, or dog, but in any case you must make your story
        have action and lead to climax.


                           GULLIVER THE GREAT


    1. What advantage is gained by having the story told in the club?

    2. How is the dog made the central figure?

    3. What is the climax of the story?

    4. Give the steps in the presentation of the dog’s character.

    5. Tell how we are made to sympathize with the dog.

    6. What suggestive effect is gained at the end of the story?

    7. Write a story in which you awaken sympathy for some dumb animal
        by suggesting that it has almost human emotions.


                           SONNY’S SCHOOLIN’


    1. What is the advantage of the monologue form?

    2. How is conversation indicated?

    3. Point out the separate incidents that make up the story.

    4. What advantage is gained by the use of dialect?

    5. Point out elements of goodness in Sonny.

    6. What is the character of the father? How is it presented?

    7. Tell why Miss Phoebe Kellog’s school was superior to all the
        others.

    8. Show in what way the author has produced humorous effects.

    9. Write an original story in which you tell what happened to Sonny
        when he came to your school.


                          HER FIRST HORSE SHOW


    1. Why does the author introduce us to his characters in the midst
        of the horse show?

    2. How does the author, in the beginning of the story, make the
        situation entirely clear?

    3. What speeches and actions in the early part of the story serve to
        make the action in the latter part of the story seem natural?

    4. How is the girl’s daring act emphasized?

    5. In what ways does the author make it seem probable that the girl
        could gain opportunity to ride the high-spirited horse at the
        horse show?

    6. Show in what ways the conclusion is particularly effective.

    7. Write an original story concerning a school athletic meet or
        contest in which one of the students, by unexpected skill and
        courage, wins the day.


                           MY HUSBAND’S BOOK


    1. What is the character of the husband (a) as seen by himself? (b)
        as seen by the wife? (c) as seen by the reader?

    2. What is the character of the wife?

    3. What produces the humor of the story?

    4. What is the advantage of having the wife so slow to see her
        husband’s real weakness?

    5. What is the effect of the last sentence?

    6. At what is the satire directed?

    7. Write an original story in which you satirize, in a kindly
        manner, some common failing in high school boys or girls.


                                  WAR


    1. How are we made to sympathize with the young man?

    2. What is the effect of the detailed description?

    3. How is the emotion of the story presented?

    4. How does the author make the story increase in emphasis?

    5. Why is the incident of the apples introduced?

    6. Why is “the man with the ginger beard” brought into the story?

    7. What impression does the story leave upon the reader?

    8. Write a story in which you arouse indignation at some great world
        evil by making the reader realize its effect on one individual.


                       THE BATTLE OF THE MONSTERS


    1. What is the purpose of the physician’s notes at the beginning and
        at the ending of the story?

    2. Show how the author has given story-interest to scientific
        material.

    3. Point out the characteristics of the different characters.

    4. Trace the development of the story to its climax.

    5. By what means does the author make his scientific material clear?

    6. How does the author arouse our sympathy?

    7. Point out the ways in which this story differs from most others.

    8. Write an original story in which you turn some scientific
        information into story form by making definite characters
        perform a series of actions that lead to a climax. You may
        choose something as simple as the pumping of water from a well,
        the action of electricity in lighting a lamp, or the burning of
        a piece of coal.


                               A DILEMMA


    1. Point out all the ways in which the author prepares for the
        puzzle at the end of the story.

    2. Show in what way the author makes the story seem reasonable.

    3. Show in what way character description adds to the interest of
        the story.

    4. How does the author emphasize the puzzle?

    5. Write a sequel to the story, giving a solution for opening the
        box, but leading to a new problem as difficult as the first.


                         THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE


    1. How does the opening lead one to think the story has unusual
        interest?

    2. Show how the author manages to keep the mystery to the end.

    3. Outline the parts of the story.

    4. Point out touches of unusual originality.

    5. What are the characteristics of Sherlock Holmes?

    6. What is the author’s method in telling the story?

    7. Show how the author uses conversation.

    8. Write an original story involving mystery, leading, with
        sufficient action, to a climax, and depending upon the use of
        deductive reasoning.


                        ONE HUNDRED IN THE DARK


    1. Point out the advantages derived from the setting.

    2. How much of the story depends upon character?

    3. What is your opinion of the literary theories presented?

    4. How does this story differ from _A Dilemma_?

    5. How many separate stories are contained in _One Hundred in the
        Dark_?

    6. Give the several possible solutions of the principal story.

    7. What part did Peters play in the principal story?

    8. Of what value are the hearers’ comments on the story?

    9. How does the story differ from most other stories?

    10. Write a story of school life, presenting a problem capable of
        several solutions, but leaving the reader to make the final
        solution.


                        A RETRIEVED REFORMATION


    1. Show in what way the first few paragraphs give an unusual amount
        of information in small space.

    2. What is our first impression of Jimmy Valentine?

    3. What are Jimmy Valentine’s good characteristics as seen in the
        early part of the story?

    4. What are the characteristics of Ben Price?

    5. By what method does the author give the characteristics of the
        minor characters?

    6. How do you account for Jimmy Valentine’s reformation?

    7. How did Ben Price find where Jimmy Valentine lived?

    8. How does the author give the impression of a contest?

    9. Why did Jimmy Valentine ask for Annabel’s rose?

    10. What forces are brought into full play at the end of the story?

    11. Why do we admire both Ben Price and Jimmy Valentine?

    12. Write an original story in which you show the full establishment
        of naturally good characteristics, and the development of a
        spirit of sacrifice. Make your story rise to a surprising
        conclusion.


                              BROTHER LEO


    1. In what way is the style appropriate to the theme?

    2. Show how the author has gained unity.

    3. What makes the story seem true to life?

    4. How does Brother Leo differ from other men?

    5. What ideals does the story present?

    6. Why did the author make the events of the story so simple?

    7. Write a character study of some person who has unworldly
        ideals,—an old lady, a sister of charity, a member of the
        Salvation Army, a missionary, or a devoted scientist.


                           A FIGHT WITH DEATH


    1. What advantage is gained by the use of dialect?

    2. How is the story made to appeal to our sympathies?

    3. How is the country doctor made heroic?

    4. Point out all the ways in which the doctor’s character is
        emphasized.

    5. How much of the worth of the story is due to local color?

    6. Point out examples of pathos; of humor. Why have both been used?

    7. Write a story of heroism in ordinary life. Use the slang, or the
        dialect of daily life as you have actually heard it, as a means
        of increasing the effect. Be sure to make your story tell of
        action as well as of character. Make it rise to a climax.


                            THE DÀN-NAN-RÒN


    1. Why is personal appearance emphasized in the beginning of the
        story?

    2. Point out examples of poetic fancy.

    3. Show how the author’s style of writing contributes to the effect
        the story produces.

    4. Show how great a part belief in the supernatural is made to play.

    5. How much of the story depends upon character?

    6. What is the effect of the verse?

    7. What keeps the story from being merely sensational?

    8. What part does madness play in the story?

    9. What is the author’s purpose in using so much Gaelic?

    10. Show in what ways the story is true to ordinary mental action.

    11. How do you account for all the events that take place?

    12. How does the author give the strong atmospheric effects?

    13. In what ways is the story unusual?

    14. What gives the story its great power?

    15. How does the story affect you?

    16. Write an original story in which you make conscience play a
        great part, especially when spurred on by superstitious fears.


                                  THE END


------------------------------------------------------------------------




    ● Transcriber’s Notes:
       ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
       ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
       ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
         when a predominant form was found in this book.
       ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores
         (_italics_); text that was bold by “equal” signs (=bold=).